Tag: filibuster

Squashed: Don’t worry about the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell vote

squashed:

Today the Republican’s defeated a Democratic effort to bring a defense authorization bill to the floor that included a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Now both sides can use it as an election issue.

This did not remove the repeal from the defense authorization bill. […]
[It] is a critical bit of legislation. It will make it to the floor before the end of the year. Somebody will introduce an amendment to get the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell out of the bill. The amendment will fail. The bill will pass. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will be repealed.

It’s not so much about whether the package will squeak through (with DADT and DREAM intact), it’s about deflating the effect of said (inevitable) passage. Now it will pass post-midterms, and nobody but nobody will even know it happened.
This was never about the policy, it was about denying The Democrat a win, no matter how incremental, that might give the base even the least bit of wind in its sails. And, once again, rather than fight or force the GOP to eat a massive shit sandwich while winning the day (see: Troops, why does John McCain want them to die?), the GOP is handed this victory entirely without cost, while the democratic base sees yet more fecklessness and one more reason not to bother come November.

It is better to be strong and wrong than weak and right. This is why they fail.

Squashed: Don’t worry about the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell vote

S is for Senate

Steve Benen hears Boehner say this:

If the only option I have is to vote for some of those tax reductions, I’ll vote for them.

and, like seemingly everyone with a mountaintop large or small, inexplicably takes this away:

Boehner, in other words, appears to be on board with the Obama proposal

Can we just not think in this country anymore?

  1. Is Boehner in the Senate?

There is no second thing. If the answer to Question 1 is “No,” then his opinion matters fuck-all. He said this to put a patina of reasonableness on the GOP’s entirely unreasonable and indefensible position that billionaires desperately need an extra $100k come tax-time. They know this meaningless statement will get wide play, much wider (read: vastly wider) than their ultimate actions to bottle this thing up in the Senate (and even that’s assuming the feckless Democrat bothers to bring it to the floor, itself a gigantic and likely foolhardy assumption).
If and when that all happens, the GOP will simply point to (meaningless) statements like this one as examples of their genteel nature and broad willingness to “work across the aisle.” The MSM will report the whole thing as “a Democrat failure to achieve 60 votes needed in the Senate” and Broder will pronounce himself suitably delighted that the GOP tried so very hard. Truly, they are the serious adults up to DC.

Is this so very hard to understand? Apparently it is.

I think there’s only one way to fight this trend: you force the issue by recess appointing everyone on the docket at the first available opportunity. Only when the system is shown as unalterably broken will anything be done to fix it, and that moment only comes when President(s) throw up their hands and don’t even bother submitting nominees anymore.

The solution, I think, is either:

A) No confirmation process below the Secretary level (and, of course lifetime appointments to the various benches); the President gets whoever he/she wants

–or–

B) Confirmation hearings at Secretary level, everybody else into one big bolus that’s up-or-down voted and can’t be filibustered

Let’s be real, the whole nominations process is simply political theater, and that’s when it’s working. Now it’s not even theater: it’s a weapon with which the gears of the Senate are daily sanded. It guarantees bad governance and bad policy outcomes and it’s got to stop.

Filibusted

jasencomstock:

“I think we should retain the same [filibuster] policies that we have instead of lowering it…. I think it has been working.”

—

Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii)
Better Democrats™ please. (via lemkin)

Well don’t get rid of the fucking thing now.  the Democrats are going to be a c-hair away from losing the senate this fall, and will most certainly lose it in 2012 (I think republicans only have to defend something like 9 seats that election).

They’d just be beating the rush. The first thing the Republicans will do upon retaking the Senate is eliminate the filibuster. To add insult to injury, they’ll point to their own obstructionism as evidence of the system’s failure. And won’t be challenged by the media in any way shape or form; quite the contrary, any Democrats making a complaint will be painted as “sore losers” who, as usual, want to ignore clear mandates from the American people.

I think we should retain the same [filibuster] policies that we have instead of lowering it…. I think it has been working.

Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii)
Better Democrats™ please.

Two Choices

Mitch McConnell reports that he’s “heartened to hear that bipartisan talks have resumed in earnest” and, in response, Harry Reid says “I’m happy to hear my counterpart, my friend, Senator McConnell talk about the need for more negotiations. We don’t stand in the way of that.”

Now they’ll just repair to the negotiating table and make some laws! Finally, everyone will stop with the brazen lies about the financial reforms package! Truly it is a new day!

Or not.

Honestly, how many fucking times does this have to happen? The GOP as currently constituted is against it. “It” being anything the Democrat wants to do. Period. They love the idea of “negotiations.” It extends the sausage-making indefinitely. The American people hate the sausage-making. Anything that avoids bringing the bill to the floor in a decisive manner is a win for the GOP. This is why they keep on with the “back to the drawing board” jibber jabber. They want everything back at the drawing board. Forever.

Make them vote against the bill. No compromises, no negotiations, no changes, no fixes. Make them vote against the bill. To do that, you’ll also need to make them filibuster the bill. To do that, you’ll need to make them talk 24/7 about filibustering the bill. That is how you hurt the GOP. Make them stand up there and talk about the need to save Wall Street from scary scary regulations when all they ever did to us was drive the global fucking economy into the ditch and are aiming to do so again, posthaste. Make them talk, if necessary from now until the 2010 midterms. That, or they file a vote against cloture and we try again. More talking about how great Wall Street art. Two choices, no waiting.

STARTs and stops

Obama notes the recent progress in strategic arms reduction treaty talks with Russia:

“It cuts – by about a third – the nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia will deploy,” Obama said describing the agreement. “It significantly reduces missiles and launchers. It puts in place a strong and effective verification regime. And it maintains the flexibility that we need to protect and advance our national security, and to guarantee our unwavering commitment to the security of our Allies.”

He should have added:

and, despite “frequent communication with lawmakers from both parties” there is no way in hell that this gets 67 votes.

So, in light of this, my friends in the GOP caucus want me to remind everyone to, please, go die in the streets when Our Nuclear Armageddon comes; it will make cleaning out the remaining buildings that much easier and will eliminate any need for an unpleasant government takeover of nuclear-cremains and/or partially incinerated body-parts removal. This is why I’m proud to announce bipartisan agreement today that Halliburton has been selected out of a lengthy, no-bid process to provide for all post ONA nuclear-cremains removal and storage. God bless America. Goodnight.

Seriously, does anyone believe that any move by the President, no matter how important, no matter how useful, no matter how “unrelated” to domestic politics will garner even a single GOP vote, much less eight? Anyone? (Looking at you, Code Brown) And yet lots of pundits and bloggers seem to be rather sure that this time the GOP will set aside its whiny-ass titty baby shtick in favor of actual good governance. As if. They could care less. This will be yet another whirlwind for Obama to inherit. Period. And yet here we go again, walking blithely into the buzzsaw, no pre-messaging, no talk of any kind to inoculate the general public to the shitstorm that will inevitably erupt from this.

Carve it in stone: START is a dead letter if it needs to be ratified under a Democrat. Better plan right now for some sort of executive agreement sidecar, or however it is that one goes about reducing the nuclear weapons census by A THIRD in the face of uniform, unyielding, and certainly unthinking GOP obstructionism:

Maybe these egg-heads in New England “think tanks” and “colleges” who like to do things like “read” think it’s wise to reduce nuke-you-lar weapons by a third in the face of our 47 ongoing wars, but we here at the GOP want to increase them by 89%, which will pay for itself by cutting taxes on the rich. Hell yes we do! Hell yes we can!

And so forth.

On Jan 3rd, 2011, please do eliminate the filibuster using 51 Democratic votes and a ruling by Joe Biden. Don’t “look at it” don’t consider it, don’t reform it, eliminate it. Period. It’s precisely what the GOP plans to do the second they hold the Senate and the Vice Presidency. May as well get some things done in the meantime.