Analysis: Republicans Setting Filibuster Record

Once again, Republicans are accomplishing two goals at the same time — both of which are bad for the country. By blocking or slowing down every single piece of legislation and every nomination of President Obama, Republicans are simultaneously hurting the President politically while accomplishing their goal of making government seem ineffective. The problem is we just had an election where the American public overwhelmingly supported the President's agenda, while government failure is something that only seems to occur on Republican watch. But this is probably news to most people, since the media does such a poor job reporting:

The frequency of filibusters -- plus threats to use them -- are measured by the number of times the upper chamber votes on cloture. Such votes test the majority's ability to hold together 60 members to break a filibuster.

Last year, the first of the 111th Congress, there were a record 112 cloture votes. In the first two months of 2010, the number already exceeds 40.

That means, with 10 months left to run in the 111th Congress, Republicans have turned to the filibuster or threatened its use at a pace that will more than triple the old record. Link