Woodruff Robert Macneil and jim lehrer were both there 50 years ago, covering that fateful day in dallas. What the kennedy assassination did for me was forever to keep me aware of the fragility of everything. Three rounds fired in 15 seconds changed the course of history. Woodruff those are just some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. And by the alfred p. Sloan foundation. Supporting science, technology, and improved Economic Performance and Financial Literacy in the 21st century. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And friends of the newshour. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Ifill the senates long festering fight over filibusters came to a head today. Majority democrats pushed through a rules change making it easier to force action on president ial nominees. Before, it took 60 votes; now, it will take 51. Democrats said it will end gridlock, republicans say its an abuse of power. We will hear some of the debate and talk to two senators right after the news summary. Wall street rallied past a new milestone today on signs of improvement in the job market. The Dow Jones Industrial average added 109 points to close above 16,000 for the first time. The nasdaq rose nearly 48 points to close at 3. 969. Afghan President Hamid karzai urged tribal elders today to support a security deal with the u. S. It would keep thousands of american troops in afghanistan for another decade. But karzai said he will leave the signing of the agreement to his successor next year. The u. S. Special representative on afghanistan will join us later in the program. An apparent u. S. Drone strike in pakistan has killed another senior figure of the haqqani network. Police said he was one of three top militants who died when missiles blasted an islamic seminary. Theres been a series of recent attacks on haqqani leaders. The afghan group is allied with the taliban. The geneva talks on curbing Irans Nuclear program made little headway today. The u. S. And five other powers are trying to reach a Draft Agreement with iran to ease some economic sanctions if tehran freezes its nuclear efforts. But irans Deputy Foreign minister said this morning thered been a loss of confidence since the last round, earlier this month. Im not in a position to go into the detailings of that but they have some differences and those differences are on issues still there. Reporter including sanctions . On s ifill later, the iranian official met with the European Unions top diplomat and emerged saying, we regained some of our lost trust. Well talk to Margaret Warner, in geneva, later in the program. This was another bloody day in iraq, where a series of bombings killed nearly 50 people. More than half the victims died in a truck bombing at an outdoor market 90 miles northeast of baghdad. More than 5,500 iraqis have been killed since the wave of violence began eight months ago. A new flood of Syrian Refugees is surging across the border into lebanon. It started friday, when syrian troops launched an offensive in a mountainous region north of damascus. A u. N. Official says more than 13,000 people have fled to lebanon since then, including 500 families last night alone. Aid agencies are scrambling to find shelter for them. Theres word that an 85yearold american is being held in north korea. According to his son, Merrill Newman visited pyongyang as a tourist last month. The korean war veteran was taken from his plane by a uniformed officer just before his flight home. The u. S. Special envoy for north korea was asked about the incident, in china today. Well, weve seen those reports. I have to say at the outset what i cant do is comment in any specificity about them because we do not have a privacy act waiver and we, of course, are calling on north korea as in the case of mr. Kenneth barry who has now been there for over a year, to resolve the issue and to allow our citizens to go free. Ifill bae is a christian missionary. He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for what north korea called hostile acts. The state of alabama granted posthumous pardons today to three of the socalled scottsboro boys. Charles weems, andy wright and Haywood Patterson were among nine black teenagers falsely convicted of gangraping two white women in 1931. All served time. One man was pardoned earlier, and convictions against five others were overturned. A federal jury in california has ordered Samsung Electronics to pay apple 290 million for copying iphone and ipad features. A previous jury had awarded apple 1 billion, but the judge ruled the panel miscalculated, and she ordered a new trial. Samsung is expected to appeal this latest verdict. Federal regulators are ready to allow cellular calls during u. S. Flights. The federal Communications Commission proposed today to let Airline Passengers make calls and send Text Messages above 10,000 feet. The f. C. C. Votes on the proposal next month. Hundreds of activists walked out of u. N. Climate talks today over lack of progress. Nearly 200 nations are meeting in warsaw, poland, to lay the groundwork for a climate pact in 2015. Theyve been stymied by disputes over making rich countries pay for losses when poor nations suffer. The meeting ends tomorrow. Still ahead on the newshour sweeping changes in the senate; the u. S. Point person with afghanistan; Margaret Warner in geneva on the iran nuclear talks; and Robert Macneil and jim lehrer reflect on the kennedy assassination. Ifill todays long threatened senate shakeup will force drastic change on how the chamber does its business and break a growing logjam over the confirmation of the president s judicial nominees. Todays 5248 vote overturned decades of senate precedent. It was opposed by all republican senators and three democrats. The presiding senator, Vermont Democrat patrick leahy, made it official. So, under the precedent set by the senate today november 21, 2013, the threshold for cloture on nominations not including those to the Supreme Court of the United States is now a majority. Ifill since 1975, its taken 60 votes to overcome filibusters against president ial nominees, but today majority leader harry reid invoked the socalled nuclear option, allowing confirmation with a simple majority. Republicans, he said, have abused the process. The American People are fed up with this kind of obstruction and gridlock. In the history of our country, some 230plus years, there have been 168 filibusters of executive and judicial nominations. Half of them have occurred during the obama administration. Ifill republicans disputed the numbers. Minority leader Mitch Mcconnell insisted the senate has confirmed 215 of president obamas nominees and rejected only two. This was nothing more than a power grab in order to try to advance the obama administrations regulatory agenda, and they just broke the senate rules in order to exercise the power grab. So, i would sum it up by saying its a sad day in the history of the senate. After today, advise and consent probably means to them 100 consent. Ifill democrats have threatened to change the rules before, but matters finally came to a head this week when republicans blocked three nominees to the powerful u. S. Circuit court of appeals in the district of columbia. They include patricia ann millett, an appellate lawyer in washington; Georgetown University law professor cornelia pillard; and Federal District court judge robert wilkins. At the white house, president obama applauded the vote. He said both parties have misused filibusters over the years but that republicans have been especially reckless and relentless. But todays pattern of obstruction, it just isnt normal. Its not what our founders envisioned. A deliberate and determined effort to obstruct everything no matter what the merits just to refight the results of the election is not normal, and, for the sake of future generations, we cant let it become normal. Ifill the new, simple majority rule applies to nominees for federal judgeships and federal offices. It will still take 60 votes to defeat filibusters of Supreme Court nominees and legislation. The rules change inflamed debate today on capitol hill. I spoke a short time ago to two lawmakers in the middle of it, republican senator ron johnson of wisconsin and democratic senator jeff merkely of oregon. Senators, welcome. Explain how this came to a head today. This is a discussion weve had for a long time, this discussion about filibuster reform. Starting with you, senator merkley. You bet. This is all about to restore the constitutional framework of the balance between the benches of government. The senate is supposed to Service Advice an consent on nominations but its not supposed to be able to systematically undermine the executive branch and the Judicial Branch and what brought this to a head today was a decision by the minority that they were going to block any nominee no matter qualifications, no matter their high character if the president if they were nominated by president obama. And that type of approach was just completely unacceptable. Ifill senator johnson, on the losing side of this today, is this that the way you saw, is that the way you saw, about president obamas nominees . No, again gwen, that is very sad day for the senate. Basically senator harry reid and his colleagues on the democrat side have basically broken the rules of the senate to change the rules and this wasnt about president obama no, maam getting his nominations. The vast majority well in excess of 95 to 98 of his nominations have been approved in a pretty expeditious basis. This is just a blatant power grab i guess to probably change the subject off the disaster is them pleplt station of the Health Care Law but also to pack the d. C. Circuit court which is going to be the regulating court of basically the deciding court of all these regulations for obamacare and all the regulations that president obama is going to be implementing through his regulatory agencies because he cant pass them as laws. Ifill let me ask you and then senator merkley as well the basic questions from many people watching this who dont know about nuclear options. They want to know what was the virtue in having a 60vote threshold in the first place and what is the disdisadvantage of getting rid of it. First of all the advantage is advise and consent. 6what consent is there if you have to agree to every nominee is since 2009 weve approved more than 200 of president obamas judicial appointments and only blocked two so thats an incredibly high rate of approval so at some point in time the minority does have to have some rights if the advise and consent clause has any meaning what is over. Ifill senator merkley, you want to weigh on that . You bet. The tradition has been upanddown votes with rare exceptions. But what weve had instead . S in the history of the United States of america there have been 23 filibusters of District Court nominees. 20 of those have been by the republican minority during president obamas presidency. 20 out of 23 in our entire history. We can take those same statistics and go to area after area. This perpetual war on president obama has to come to an end. Its not serving the American People. The American People want us solving problems on the floor of the senate, addressing the issue of living wage jobs. Addressing the issue of low employment. Addressing the issue of the high expense of college. What they dont want is our time wasted throughout the entire year on perpetual filibusters of nominees. Ifill senator merkley, the president , whose name you keep invoking, when he was a senator in 2005 said there should be that the rules are the rules and you shouldnt be changing them in midstream. Whats different now well, lets take 2005. In 2005 a deal was reached by a group of seven republicans and seven democrats. The deal was that there would be no change in the rules if the democrats agreed to only filibuster for rare exceptional circumstances. Those being terrible problems with character or experience. This deal was completely honored by the democrats. In fact, they didnt filibuster a single judge thereafter under the bush administration. But immediately upon the republicans becoming the Minority Party they broke the deal and the statistics ive given you just reflected that. They didnt break it just on judicial nominees. They did it on executive nominees as well. Now, harry reid and the leadership have repeatedly tried to restore the social contract, restore the understanding of filibuster only on rare exception. But that hasnt been possible. Ifill let me ask senator johnson on the flip side of this which is that senator mcconnell, now the minority leader, also in 2005, argued that there should be up or down votes on nominees. Thats when there was a republican president. Whats different now . Well, again, i just got here in 2010. Under the rule of senator harry reid and the fact of the matter the reason the senate is so dysfunctional is because of his leadership or lack of leadership. We havent passed an appropriation bill in the senate in over two thats a dysfunction. All this talk about filibuster, its not real filibuster because senator harry reid fills up the amendment tree, doesnt allow republicans to offer any amendments, he files cloture and then then accuses us of doing filibustering. I realize this is Arcane Senate rules, the dysfunction is all about senator harry reids utter lack of leadership and just totally not able to actually is the senate function and respect minority rights whatsoever. This is a raw power grab and you saw what happens last time the democrats had total power in the senate. We passed obamacare. America is experiencing the disaster of that law right now. Ifill let me ask you both this question which i guess is what i was getting to. Does whether you think this is a good idea these rules changes are a good idea depend on whose ox is being gored . That if youre in the minority you want up or down votes and if youre in the majority or if youre in the majority you want up or down votes and if youre mi or inty you want to have the 60 vote threshold. Is that what this comes down to senator merkel . Well, lets recognize what is happened in america which is much more polarization. So in the past when there was an understanding of the rare use of the filibuster it worked because senators worked together across the party boundary. But now what we have is a situation for many senators that their base demands that they exploit every rule in order to obstruct any bill from the democrat side or any nominee from the democratic president. That change has resulted in many senators who said in 2005 that they would always support up and down votes wherer in the minoritytor majority. But when they were in the minority they changed their position because their base demanded it. Its unfortunate, it reflects a bigger problem in society but within that structure it is our responsibility to make this senate serve the American People and enable it to take on those big challenging issues facing america, improving the base for the American Family to the success of the middleclass. Ifill senator johnson, what about the whose ox is being gored question . Well, we already have one chamber of the congress thats ruled by the majority. Thats the house. The senate was supposed to be more deliberative. Its supposed to protect the minority rights. Senator robert byrd has to be rolling over on his grave based on what his democratic colleagues have done today. This is a very sad day and, you know, the fact of the matter is the way the rules in the senate should be changed is an incredibly bipartisan way before the start of every congress by the a twothirds vote. Thats how you get bipartisanship. Thats how you start healing this divide that really, really began with the totally partisan vote around obamacare. That split our parties. That split this nation and it hasnt been healed yet and todays action certainly isnt helping heal that division. Its widening it. Its a very sad day for the United States senate and america. Ifill thats what i was going ask you both as a final question. Do you feel like the senate is more divided today than before . Senator americaly. Division of the senate was that there would be a cooling saucer. Whats why we have staggered terms and six years. But no one intended for the senate to be a deep freeze. But thats what its come with the abuse of the filibuster. What i slope that both sides will see the success of improving the function of the senate that will flow from todays action and will join together in bipartisan ways to take on the dysfunction on the legislative side which theres so much hope for by the American People. Ifill final word, senator johnson . Well, the senate is in deep freeze because senator harry reid doesnt move bills, doesnt bring appropriation bills. Thats the primary function of congress to authorize appropriate funds for the federal government activity. Senator harry reid is not doing those things. Basically digging his heels, making sure that obamacare becomes the permanent law of the land. Again, were understanding the exact the harmful consequences of majority rule until the senate and obamacare is exhibit a from that standpoint. Ifill sounds like a cooling saucer might be in order at this point. Sen