It was just a little over 24 hours ago when the United States Attorney General, Eric Holder, announced that he will resign from office by the end of this year. But already, with no other potential nominees mentioned by the President, Republicans are already gearing up to filibuster the new appointee.
With Nov. 4 midterm elections potentially tipping the balance in the Senate, some Republicans immediately called for a delay in the hearings and votes on the new attorney general until January, when the possibility of a GOP majority in the Senate might give Republicans almost total control of the outcome.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) issued a political call to arms for conservatives, saying that outgoing senators should not vote on the nominee during the post-election lame-duck session. “Allowing Democratic senators, many of whom will likely have just been defeated at the polls, to confirm Holder’s successor would be an abuse of power that should not be countenanced,” Cruz said in a statement.
Democrats argued that Republicans should step back and allow Obama to select his own cabinet without GOP obstruction.
“This is going to be the first real test, whether it’s in the lame-duck or early in the new year, whether our Republican colleagues are going to continue to obstruct,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday in an interview. “Every president deserves to have his attorney general.”
Senate Republicans used a filibuster to prevent a vote on expanded veterans benefits after Democrats blocked efforts to add an amendment on Iran sanctions.
The vote Thursday was 56-41 in favor of a bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., to — among other things — expand healthcare programs and provide breaks on college tuition for veterans. Sixty votes were required to overcome the filibuster, the Hill reported. Two Republican senators, Dean Heller of Nevada and Jerry Moran of Kansas, voted with the Democrats, the Capitol Hill publication said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., refused to allow an up-or-down vote on a Republican amendment that included provision for further sanctions on Iran over that country’s nuclear program.
“I hope all the veterans groups have witnessed all the contortions the Republicans have done to defeat this bill,” he said. “Shame on Republicans for bringing base politics into a bill to help veterans.”
If I lived in Texas, that statement alone would be all I need to vote for Davis in the upcoming elections.
Presently in the Texas Senate, Davis gained national recognition when on June 25, 2013, she began an 11 hour filibuster to block Senate Bill 5, a bill written by Republicans to create new abortion regulations in Texas.
Mitch McConnell – remember him? When president Obama was first elected, Mitch McConnell proclaimed that his number one goal was to make sure Mr. Obama was a one term president.
With that goal in mind, McConnell and the rest of his Republican friends went out of their way to make sure the President and his policies failed. Along the way, Republicans blocked every bill supported by the president, and sat on their hands when their help was obviously needed to end the recession and put laid off Americans back to work.
And talk about filibusters!
Thanks to McConnell and his Republican cohorts, President Obama and Senate Democrats received more Republican filibusters than previous administrations. Senate Republicans are presently filibustering court nominees, simply because they have nothing else to do apparently.
And it is because of these unprecedented filibusters that Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid decided to consider using the nuclear option. Simply put, the nuclear option would allow votes to go forward, based on a simple majority vote instead of a super majority, as the Senate rules now stipulates.
This nuclear option consideration by Reid has Senate Republicans up in arms. They just cannot understand why Reid would want to get things done in the Senate, as opposed to their plan of blocking and filibustering everything!
Today, Mitch McConnell had the nerve to step on the Senate floor to explain that there is no need for Reid to use the nuclear option because, well, Republicans have been so darn helpful to this president.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, is poised to move forward on Thursday with a vote on what is known on Capitol Hill as the “nuclear option,” several Democrats said. Mr. Reid and the senators who have been the most vocal on stopping the Republican blockade of White House nominees are now confident they have the votes to make the change.
“We’re not bluffing,” said one senior aide who has spoken with Mr. Reid directly and expects a vote on Thursday, barring any unforeseen breakthrough on blocked judges.
The threat that Democrats could significantly limit how the filibuster can be used against nominees has rattled Republicans. Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has brokered last-minute deals that have averted a change to filibuster rules in the past, visited Mr. Reid in his office on Thursday but failed to strike a compromise.
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa took to the Senate floor and denounced Democrats, saying that if they changed the rules, Republicans would consider them applicable to all judicial nominees, including those for the Supreme Court. Mr. Reid has said he supports keeping intact the minority party’s ability to filibuster controversial Supreme Court nominees.
“Apparently the other side wants to change the rules while still preserving the ability to block a Republican president’s ability to replace a liberal Supreme Court Justice with an originalist,” Mr. Grassley said.
Senate Democrats appear ready to take a step that members of each party have threatened for the better part of a decade, but have not taken, in part because of the political disruption it would create. But senators know this year’s majority could be tomorrow’s minority, yearning for the filibuster as a weapon.
The problem, as Democrats see it, is that Republicans have effectively rewritten Senate rules to create a supermajority requirement for confirming presidential nominees. Filibustering cabinet-level officials, once extremely rare, is now routine.
At least two fire bombs were thrown at the Fort Worth office of state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) on Tuesday night, according to the Star Telegram.
Davis was not in her office at the time, but some staff members were present. They used a fire extinguisher to put out the small blaze.
No one was injured in the attack, but the lawmaker’s office was damaged by the fire.
“It’s unfortunate when things like this happen in the public arena,” she said. “It reminds us of how important it is for us to remain very civil in our discourse and to work not to foment this kind of anger in our community as we discuss things that are challenges that we all face and care about.”
Anthony Spangler, Davis’ communications director, said he had no idea what motivated the attack.
Twenty young kids were gunned down in Newtown Connecticut last December. That’s in addition to the thousands who are killed each year from gun violence. But is all that enough to appeal to the cold hearted nature of the Republicans?
Not even close. Congressional Republicans are promising to block any attempt by Democrats to implement sensible gun laws.
Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are threatening to filibuster gun-control legislation, according to a letter they plan to hand-deliver to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office on Tuesday.
“We will oppose the motion to proceed to any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions,” the three conservatives wrote in a copy of the signed letter obtained by POLITICO.
Reid plans to bring up a gun-control measure that focuses on broadening background checks and cracking down on interstate gun-trafficking after the current Senate recess.
Conservatives are concerned that once that bill reaches the floor, amendments could stiffen restrictions on gun control.
Just when you thought this Drone debate couldn’t take any more twist and turns, you haven’t been paying attention to your United States Congress lately.
For 13-hours, Sen. Rand Paul babbled on and on about the Obama Administrations position on the Drone Program and its possible effects on the American citizens rights. Sen. Paul even placed actress Jane Fonda into the mix by stating Obama could even target her, given the fact that she once spoke out against the United States in the 1960’s during the Vietnam War. His publicity stunt was received glowingly by many of his Republican brothers and has been on every television news outlet, both cable and local.
But two of his colleagues were not amused.
Sen. John McCain and his tag team partner, Sen. Lindsey Graham weighed in on their fellow Senator’s Filibustering act in their session today, with not so flattering and outright disapproval of Paul’s ranting. Sen. McCain said;
“If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids in college dorms.”
McCain even called Paul’s assertions of the Drone Program, “unfounded”. Continuing, McCain added;
“To somehow say that someone who disagrees with American policy and even may demonstrate against it, is somehow a member of an organization which makes that individual an enemy combatant is simply false.”
Jane Fonda is now off the hit list. (Sign of relief from Ms. Fonda).
As Sen. McCain yielded to his partner, Sen. Graham took on Sen. Paul with an awesome display of, well, let’s just say, verbal corporal punishment. He began his speech with the normal rhetoric of downing the Presidents agendas including Obamacare but then, he did a complete 180 degree turn, comparing of all people, President Bush’s drone program in taking out the ‘enemy’. He stated that President Obama’s approach is completely parallel to his predecessor. Graham politely challenged the room by stating, “To my Republican colleagues, I don’t remember any of you coming down here suggesting that President Bush was going to kill anybody with a drone, do you?” Graham said. “They had a drone program back then, all of a sudden this drone program has gotten every Republican so spun up. What are we up to here?”
Ok, after I picked myself up from off the floor, shook my head to get the cobwebs out and did a double-take to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, I actually applauded Sen. Graham for his boldness in setting Paul and the rest of his Party straight. For a brief moment, we actually witnessed bipartisanship and it was beautiful.
Senator Paul has been on Fox News often, spreading so much far-right wing stench, that it was nauseating. And yesterday, for 13-hours, I believe he thought he was going to score party points and justify his ‘position’ in the Grand Old Party. Well this time, it may have backfired. It was great to see Senior Senators of his party stand up in support of the President for once, and gave Paul a Public Butt Kicking.
Well deserved, well said and long overdue. Oh, and Sen. Paul, this Too will be Televised.
Stand by Ted Cruz. After Paul shellacking, you’re on notice.
After having dinner with Republicans last night, things have changed today. President Obama has a new friend in Washington and his name is John McCain. Of course we don’t expect this this new found relationship to last for too long, so while it exist, we will point it out.
Rand Paul said that his filibuster was because he needed information from the Obama administration that the president would not use drones to “kill Americans” on American soil. It is a baseless argument, because most everyone knows that the government will not use Drones to kill Americans. The argument being made by Rand Paul and some Democrats in Congress and even some journalist like Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, intentionally remove the word terrorist or enemy combatant from their argument, and leaves the impression that Obama is going to use drones to kill regular Americans.
The video below shows John McCain today, dismantling Rand Paul’s filibuster of an Obama nominee.
One Republican putting another Republican in his place? Yeah, we’ll highlight that any day.
We all knew this was going to happen, that Republicans would eventually endorse and vote for Chuck Hagel’s confirmation. So what exactly was the point of them filibustering ‘their Republican friend’ last week? I mean, at what point will they put politics aside and just do what they all knew they would do from the start?
Hagel cleared the threshold when five-term Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama said he would vote for the former GOP senator from Nebraska after joining other Republicans last week in an unprecedented filibuster of the Pentagon nominee.
“He’s probably as good as we’re going to get,” Shelby told the Decatur (Ala.) Daily.
Although a Republican, Hagel has faced strong GOP opposition, with many of his former colleagues voting last week to stall the nomination. Republicans have questioned Hagel’s support for Israel, tolerance of Iran and willingness to cut the nuclear arsenal. His opposition to the Iraq war after his initial vote for the conflict angered his onetime friend, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
GOP lawmakers demanded more time to review the nomination that a divided Armed Services Committee had approved on a party-line vote.
Shelby’s support was a clear sign of weakening Republican opposition, and it prompted two letters within hours from Hagel’s fiercest GOP foes. One letter went to the president calling on him to withdraw the nomination, the other to GOP senators pleading with them to stand together against Hagel.
Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid was heard earlier today lamenting the fact that Republicans were filibustering Chuck Hagel‘s confirmation. It must have came as a surprise to Reid, especially after he shook hands with the Republican minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and accepted McConnell’s pledge that Senate Republicans will cut down on filibusters.
Consider this another broken republican promise Mr. Reid… as if you really expected the Republicans to be honorable to their words. Jeeze!
When it became clear to Reid that Hagel’s confirmation was being filibustered, Reid voiced his displeasure;
“It is tragic that they have decided to filibuster this qualified nominee. It is really unfortunate. “This isn’t high school getting ready for a football game, or some play being produced at a high school. In less than two hours, our country will be without a secretary of defense.”
Yes Reid, it is really unfortunate.
What’s unfortunate is the fact that you and the Senate Democrats had a chance to change the Filibuster rules and you chose not to. You saw the way the Republicans have used and abused the filibuster over the last 4 years and instead of putting a stop to it, you crumble to a handshake from a Republican and you believed what he told you. That Mr. Reid, is unfortunate and the confirmation of the President’s nominee to head the Department of Defense is suffering because somewhere along the line, you Mr. Reid, lost whatever backbone you may have had.
The confirmation is now on hold because after the final vote today, Democrats failed to muster the 60 votes needed to end the filibuster. And according to Harry Reid, our country is now without a secretary of defense.
So yes, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reidcaved on filibuster reform, despite telling various reporters that changing the filibuster has to happen. In an interview with Rachel Maddow back in October 2010, Reid said, “this has to change. It’s wrong what they’re doing, cause it’s has never happened before. The Republicans, just this time, have abused the system. And it’s gonna have to change. We’re gonna have to look at ways to change that, because there should not be a 60 vote threshold in the Senate.”
Then on Thursday, when he had a chance to change the filibuster, Reid went back on his “no-60-votes-threshold” claim and for some strange reason, he basically left the filibuster in place.
But he has a reason…
Ezra Klein summed it up best when he said, “Reid and McConnell have come to a deal on filibuster reform. The deal is this: The filibuster will not be reformed.”
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