According to the Whispering Reid, The Reid that blows in the wind…or the Reid that just simply blows, Sen. Reid will block the efforts by Dem Senators to reform the filibuster.
You see, this human tribute to invertebrates everywhere wants to make sure that the tyranny of democracy will never reek its destructive power in the Senate.
Yes, this walking Senatorial reminder to neuter your dogs wants to protect America from a Senate that could actually pass the agenda they’ve been mandated by the majority of Americans to pass.
This Prince of Procrastination, this Disciple of Dithering, this Fakir of Futility has decided that he likes the way everything’s gone over the last year and wants the next three years to be just like it. He supports the public’s growing distrust of government to get anything done. He is giving notice to the nation that The Senate is no place for such unAmerican concepts as majority rule, progress and obeying the will of the people.
It’s so unfair that he will likely be voted out in November…I’ve lost the receipt for this barrel of tar and sack of feathers and I just know I’ll never get around to selling them on eBay.
April 13, 2005
Statement of Senator Barack Obama
“What they don’t expect is for one party – be it Republican or Democrat – to change the rules in the middle of the game so that they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet. The American people want less partisanship in this town, but everyone in this chamber knows that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster – if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate – then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse.”
“One day Democrats will be in the majority again, and this rule change will be no fairer to a Republican minority than it is to a Democratic minority.”
“it certainly isn’t what the patriots who founded this democracy had in mind.”
If the Dem’s are smart they will make maximum use of GOP filibusters in elections and campaigns this year…
Maybe instead of the “Nuke Option” they could place a numerical limit on use of Filibuster each session… Say like 20 or even one per Senator…
Indeed, the rules need to change. If they insist on preserving a filibuster, it should be limited by new rules so it is only used as it used to be, on occasion.
What Reid, Dodd and others protecting the filibuster don’t admit is that it is being abused and was never intended or anticipated to be used for one party to stop the other from governing.
It’s just common sense to preserve it with limits…
It would be nice to see elected officials use it for something they feel passionatly about… They should limit it to one person per filibuster too and only allow that the filibuster remain topical to the whatever the Senator is objecting too…
It would be interesting to watch “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” on CSPAN…
It is not the use, it’s the abuse. Dems used it and blocked some really extremely bad judges.
True but its being used to block extremely good judges and appointees from Obama. It’s a double edged sword, stopping good and bad…it is the definition of gridlock and though there is good about bad actions not happening, we can’t have progress without good things happening.
Wish it was like that but filibusters don’t really require anyone to stand and speak as in Mr. Smith…one of my favorite old time films.
I would favor a set number of filibusters allowed for legislative purposes and a separate amount for appointments.
If they’re rationed then it would have to be something really worth while.
On the other hand, even with that in place the GOP would have used one to stop HCR. SO there has to be something more to the procedure that allows the majority to overcome the minority on important issues that does not require 60 votes.
Not sure about how to do that right now…
I loves me some “Al”, but can you picture him on C-Span filirbustin away?
Hey honey! I want to nap, mind putting that video of Al’s filibuster in!
😀
very. very. disappointing.
and he is a Fakir isn’t he?
I had to look at up:
fa?kir
Well…getting 60 votes by bribing and paying off those Dems who wouldn’t vote isn’t what I’d call a miracle.
Cringe-inducing.
I thought it was a clever alliterative pun, and I wasn’t gonna make a fuss over the fact that we really could use a fakir!
Ok, I just looked at the picture of “Hairy” again and is he flipping someone there and who is it, the right or the left or even clever Photoshop?
It actually looks like an unintentional flip off…which was Reid’s political platform for years, I’m told.
😆 True colours no less, the man is a wimp and I have mentioned before exactly what I thought of his dirty bribes, not exactly leadership or awe inspiring politics either.
Harry it could have gone so different . . . . .
You don’t understand
I coulda had class
I could have been a contender, I could have been somebody,
Instead of a bum, which is what I am.
What a great scene.
😆
“You shoulda looked out for us, Harry! Just a little bit!”
Who’s side are you on “Hairy” and do wear your small pair to the right or the left. It’s time for “racist innuendo guy” Reid to pack his saddlebags and ride his darned skinny horse out of town.
The meek inherited The Senate. Then lost re-election…hopefully.
Don’t worry the way things are going Republicans will win the Senate this year and break the filibuster rule.
KQ, hold on, not so fast, not so fast
Now a days things change in a week!
Though I don’t think they will win the Senate, you bet if they had been voted in with a huge mandate and the Dems were filibustering everything, they’d have nuked the filibuster long ago.
You don’t follow 538 much I see. Up arrows mean seats that are primed to changed. Down arrows mean the seats are safe. As much a Dems are attacking Reid we will sure see a Republican in his seat as well as in ND, AR, NV, PA, CO, IN, DE, IL and even CA are all primed to be plucked by Republicans with all the Democratic apathy out there. While all Republican seats are safe.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
Face it, it’s 1994 all over again. Dems have one year to get things done when they have power because everyone including their base turns on them. Obama has the vast majority of Republicans calling him a socialist and most purist progressives think he’s some kind of moderate Republican. Arianna wins, Republicans win, purist progressives, teabaggers won yeah. Progressives did as much as anyone to kill HCR because it was not progressive enough. Americans that needed help lost. The right will ALWAYS win in this country because they follow their leaders and the left will always lose because they attack their leaders as much as the right.
KQ, which progressive Sens. did anything to kill the bill? They voted for it. And so did the House so far, despite the bellyaching.
Progressives in the House are blocking the Senate bill even though they can change some of the things in the Senate bill with reconciliation.
The point is there was a window of opportunity where Democrats had enough power to pass HCR which is just gone.
As soon as Dean said and the Hamster types said “kill the bill” HCR was dead for all intensive purposes.
That’s just not correct, KQ.
The House Dems are not puppets of Dean or Hamsher. The House Dems made very clear back when they passed their bill that a Public Option was mandatory to pass the House.
On top of that, The Senate voted to tax Americans on their health insurance and included the strongest anti-abortion legislation in a generation.
Many House Dems are not willing to vote for all of that.
Additionally, your point about reconciliation isn’t correct. There is no guarantee or assurance that any bill would be allowed to go into the reconciliation process in The Senate so voting on the assumption that it would necessarily happen would be mistaken.
The whole point of things being as they are today, with the House Dems suggesting a reconciliation bill that fixes the Senate bill be passed first is for this very reason. House Dems don’t want to vote to help some Americans while harming others without the fix already in place.
The only guarantee now is nothing is going to pass with all the purist ideologues on the right and left. Just kill fucking HCR I really don’t care any more. All this is blah blah blah to me when nothing is going to pass anyway.
BTW you are not even correct. It was the HOUSE bill that had the Stupak amendment not the Senate bill that had a much better compromise.
CA is not primed to turn Republican, Boxer is not going to be beat by Meg Whitman.
Nor is IL.
It is not 1994. Back then, the GOP was much more popular, today the GOP is still viewed more negatively than Dems.
I appreciate your concern but this doomsday scenario is just that, a scenario, not reality. Nor is 2010 identical to 1994.
In 1994, the GOP had a Contract With America, they had a plan. The GOP in 2010 only has the word “no”. It was not 2 years after the most disastrous 8 years in American presidency by a GOP Pres. It did not come on the heels of the biggest economic crash since the Depression.
There are scores of reasons why there is no parallel.
Here is the only applicable parallel. Historically, the party in power loses Congressional seats in an off year election.
Please CA elected the Governator for Christ’s sake. The GOP just needs to get a slick politician like the MA GOP did and Dems will sit on their hands.
No body cares what the GOP is saying. They just have to be the opposition party when everyone is attacking Dems. Look at the Research 2000 trends which are skewed for Democrats.
Dems leadership favorability peaked for a week when it looked like HCR would pass but now it’s in the tank again.
http://www.dailykos.com/weeklytrends
It’s all about getting something big accomplished and they blew it with HCR. Get ready for the GOP revival in the midterms.
You already have progressives again downplaying the jobs bill. There is no way for Dems to keep enough seats to get anything done in this current center right country.
Ahnold was not elected because of a flashy campaign and his election can’t be duplicated.
He won because CA had come through the energy ripoff from Enron poorly thanks to Bush’s allowing them to extort the state and Ahnold ran on cutting DMV tax instead of raising it a little as Gray Davis had.
Since then, deficits have dwarfed Davis’ and the DMV fees were raised far more under Ahnold.
Those situations could not be duplicated.
Boxer is not behind in CA, according to the SF Chron:
Boxer: 45 percent
Campbell: 41 percent
Independents favor Boxer 42 v. 37 percent
Boxer:48 percent
Fiorina: 40 percent
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=56130
I do appreciate your concern but as of right now, they conflict with the facts on the ground.
Arnold was elected because of Democratic apathy in CA, No? Hell they would not even have the recall without Democrats eating their own.
This far out being that close is a breeze to overcome. Brown was down 20 points with like a month to go. My concern is real and if the economy does not get better the Dems loses will be even worse.
And guess what when the economy does get better we will still hear from the so called progressive pundits how it’s not getting better even if it does anyway.
Arnold was elected because he was Ahnold and because there was one source of financial pain that CA citizens were reeling from, their electric bills.
The finger was pointed at Gray Davis for bungling that and locking in high priced deals with energy companies to solve it. Ahnold and others used the DMV raise of maybe $50 or $100 per registration to re-stoke the energy bill anger at him.
Ahnold’s celebrity was huge in helping him win against a scapegoated Davis.
In 2010, we all know why the economy collapsed and that the banks were the cause.
Boxer can’t be scapegoated for that and if her opponent turns out to be Fiorina, she will instead be roasted for her failure as CEO at HP (the other one!)
All incumbents are indeed suffering in the polls right now but I would say that being ahead right now, when things are probably at their worst, Boxer can only do better.
With Boxer only 4 points ahead of Cambell I don’t think anything is certain. CA would be a reach but so was MA. The other states I listed could definitely go GOP. That’s seven seats right there. It does not matter because even if Dems just lose 5 more seats which is highly probable it’s Clinton all over again. When they had 60 we had come closer to HCR then every before even though people did not appreciate it.
Even I’m fed up with Harry now. Send the man home.
Me too, there was a time, maybe I imagined it, when I thought he had more of a spine. It’s one thing to pull delay tactics (GOP has become unprecedented in its application), another to lead. I still think Lawrence O’Donnell’s take on how hard it was to get the 60 in the first round should be taken into account in his defense, but when his time comes this November, I’ll simply say that he can mosey back to Searchlight and listen to the Cowboy Junkies to his heart’s delight.
Great song. I love her voice. Something addicting about it.
Whatever my problems with Reid, he has great taste in music. Voice with song reminds me of a more sultry Portishead, an Alt-Country shoegaze, one might put it. I know what you mean, and I’m not coming up with the words or categories or other singers right now to identify it properly. They’re on the tip of my tongue, or somewhere in my noggin’ fuzzy, indistinct.
Edit: this is a little uncanny.
Reid got the 60 votes by trashing the Public Option and allowing the most severe anti-abortion legislation in a generation. He bribed Dems to get 60 to sign onto it and ended up with a bill that the House couldn’t vote for.
All in all, quite an accomplishment.
Well, aside from changing the filibuster rule in the first place, what could a more forceful leader have done? I don’t mean to be a dick, but to pin this all on Harry – while he deserves blame – doesn’t give me much of an idea on how he could have forced their votes otherwise.
How could he have done with what was never a real 60 what George Mitchell couldn’t come close to with 57? In fact, when I look back at Senate Majority Leaders, the last one I see to have stood a chance against the forces rallied against us would have been LBJ. I don’t claim to know what goes on in the cloak room, and if Lawrence O’Donnell says this was a feat – as much as he’s another talking head – he knows about vote counting.
I’m honestly curious what, if we could pick our Dream Senate Leader, what they could have done differently. Already I myself can think of a whole lot of things, from the start. But I pin some of this on Obama and Rahm, as well. The message should have been clear – this is among what I want – and if you cross party lines, you’re not just voting against Reid, you’re voting against me.