Tag: nuclear option

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Featured Rape

Rush Limbaugh’s Sick Logic – Compares Changing Filibuster Rules to Raping Women

Here we go again.

Responding to the recent Nuclear Option used by Democrats to put a stop the some of the Republicans’ record breaking filibuster marathon, Rush Limbaugh resorted to what he knows best in attempting to explain the process to his audience. Limbaugh’s way of explaining the rules change to his low information listeners, was to compare the change to raping women.

 Let’s forget the Senate for a minute. Let’s say, let’s take 10 people in a room and they’re a group. And the room is made up of six men and four women. OK? The group has a rule that the men cannot rape the women. The group also has a rule that says any rule that will be changed must require six votes, of the 10, to change the rule. Every now and then, some lunatic in the group proposes to change the rule to allow women to be raped. But they never were able to get six votes for it. There were always the four women voting against it and they always found two guys.

Well, the guy that kept proposing that women be raped finally got tired of it, and he was in the majority and he was one that [said], ‘You know what? We’re going to change the rule. Now all we need is five.” And well, ‘you can’t do that.’ ‘Yes we are. We’re the majority. We’re changing the rule.’ And then they vote. Can the women be raped? Well, all it would take then is half of the room. You can change the rule to say three. You can change the rule to say three people want it, it’s going to happen. There’s no rule. When the majority can change the rules there aren’t any.

He couldn’t tell then the truth, so he uses language his listeners are sure to understand.

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Politics

Living with a Nuclear Option – Reid Pushes the Button

Kaboom! Republicans dared Harry Reid to do it, and he just did, finally. The Senate has voted to change the filibuster rules, 52-48. Democrats Carl Levin, Joe Manchin, Mark Pryor voted against changing the rule.
The new rule that will allow just a simple majority vote for all nominees except for the Supreme Court. For the remainder of this Congress, President Obama’s nominees will only need 51 votes to be appointed. What that means immediately is that, while the Republicans continue to play games to delay action on the Defense Authorization, the nominations of Patricia Millett, Nina Pillard, and Roberts Wilkins to the D.C. Circuit can move forward. So can the nomination of Rep. Mel Watt to the federal housing agency. In other words, the Senate can start functioning again. At least on nominations.

This will likely just further enrage Republicans, making them even more obnoxious and obstructionist. So next stop, ending the filibuster on legislation. That will probably happen at the beginning of the next Congress, January, 2015.

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Mitch McConnell Politics

Mitch McConnell Cannot Understand Need for Nuclear Option – Republicans Love Obama!

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.

Take it away Mitch!

Categories
Politics

Democrats Set to Go “Nuclear” Today

It’s about time!

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.

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