(See the updated graphics below - h/t Scarce.)

Graphics are a wonderment when a discussion is poisoned with confounding dissemblance, extrapolation of facts beyond reasonableness, and plain shell-gaming.

Here's an alternative view that's a little more data intensive. Thanks to Scarce. Sorry it took me so long to update the diary, I had to go grocery shopping. lol

Senate Republicans are using the filibuster to limit and often derail Democrats' initiatives, paralyzing the Senate and making it nearly impossible to accomplish even the most routine matters. The filibuster strategy "makes the Senate dysfunctional," said Mark Strand, the president of the Congressional Institute, a nonpartisan research group. That, in turn, blocks the Obama administration's agenda, but it also sours public opinion on Washington, with polls showing clear public disdain for Congress in particular. Republicans think voters will reward them for that in November.

Republicans believe standing on the brakes is what the country wants, and they will get the credit for being the feet on the pedal. But what if they're misreading the teabagger leaves in a way that's as monumental as the spike in the graphic above? It escapes this Kossack how they can possibly spin that keeping government from doing anything is honorable and good governance. It frankly isn't even clear that a Massachusetts Senate seat being given to a Super Majority breaking republican candidate was a response to "too much, too fast, too far" as they would have voters believe. It is more likely to me that the Scott Brown anomaly is a take-that swipe by voters of all ilk in response to Democrats not respecting the Sword in the Stone that was pulled from the rock and handed over to their party to slay their foot-dragging dragon once and for all. "If you can't put your fingers around the throat of this obstructionist lizard and kill it, and get the work done you can' be trusted with the armor."

Look at the graphic! Look at the damage the republicans did in the last session. And look how much damage they've caused in this one before it's even fully begun! Is it possible that enough of voters even understand what they've been up to?

"Being unable to stop filibusters can make the party in power look ineffective," said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, who's written extensively on the filibuster. "The Republican goal now is to make Obama look like an ineffective leader." To that end, Republicans appear to be taking the filibuster to a new level. They've filibustered 15 nominees to mid-level jobs that formerly got routine approval; all ultimately were confirmed except for Craig Becker, whom Obama nominated for the National Labor Relations Board. Tuesday's bid to cut off debate on Becker fell eight votes short and infuriated many Democrats, who saw the GOP blockage as "unprecedented," as Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., put it.

I think it's time to put an end to the misuse of this emergency tool, and I'm not claiming to know how. I concede that to elliminate it all together is a mistake. But to allow this kind of predictable impasse, especially at a time in our economic history when we need rapid movement more than perhaps any other time, without some kind of tightening regulation of it is dangerous - not for one or the other parties - but for our country.

So there it is in graphic detail. This McClatchy report makes is pretty simple to see the record of republican abuse of the filibuster, as well as lay the ground work to illustrate the intent - to kill anything and everything that makes Democrats look like they can govern - just to earn votes. In the old days, you got votes because you were good at governing. Now, the republicans think, you get votes by preventing it.

If the Civil Rights bill had been exposed to the risk that it would have been ultimately destroyed by an immutable filibuster, would that have been a persuasive enough argument for regulating the tool, if not killing it all together? I think it would have been, no matter the spot it put politicians in for their future, or how difficult living in a vote-up-or-down world might have been. I think the battles we face now are that important, and have as much of an impact on our future, that they warrant a good long look at the self-mutilating effect The Filibuster has on a country governed by a party who thinks holding it hostage is a legitimate bargaining tool.

UPDATE: CDH makes a good call-to-action suggestion. Well, here. I'll let CDH tell you!: