Don’t say I didn’t warn you about jackassholery:
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) will force readings of both a nuclear arms treaty and $1.1 trillion spending bill that could eat up hours of the remaining lame-duck Congress.
DeMint will invoke a senatorial privilege to ask that texts of both the New START Treaty and the 2011 omnibus spending bill be read aloud on the Senate floor.
The readings could take seven to 12 hours to verbalize the START Treaty, while the omnibus could take 40 to 60 hours, according to a spokesman for DeMint.
The readings could eat up a substantial amount of time in the closing days of the lame-duck Congress, in which Senate Democrats are racing against the clock to pass through a number of priorities. Democrats hope to pass a tax-cut bill, on which they’ll vote Wednesday afternoon, along with a repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” the START Treaty and the DREAM Act immigration bill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) “hoped” in a floor speech Wednesday that DeMint would not force a full reading, calling the move a “colossal waste of time.”
Just wait until Mike Lee and Rand Paul show up in January. They’ll help DeMint out so that if he is mysteriously overcome with a sudden misplaced sense of reasonableness he has backup to make sure nothing good happens in the Senate. We’ll have to see whether Kelly Ayotte and Pat Toomey is up for the tomfoolery. Will Rob Portman want to be a jackass, too? How about Jerry Moran? Is he Tea Baggy? Is he Tea Baggy like Ron Johnson?
Of course, all this delay is not actually pointless. It’s part of their plan to destroy Obama’s presidency.
And yet, I’m sure this is somehow all Obama’s fault. The US just elected a bunch of absolute nutters to be their local/state representatives, those nutters are reliably nutty and none of this would have happened had Obama pushed for the public option.
Not the public option, a larger stimulus package with more infrastructure projects. In retrospect even the $1.3 trillion that Krugman was pushing for might not have been enough.
Hindsight is 20/20 but proposing 1.7 trillion, mostly infrastructure, unemployment relief, and backfilling state budgets would have turned around the economy and decreased the deficit by now. Then he could have negotiated down to 1.4 trillion.
It wasn’t the public option, it was the crappy economy that lost the House. And you can’t fix that by half measures.
Substantively this may be right (I’d query whether the deficit would really have decreased by now, although that is by the by) this is just pie in the sky thinking. At the time the almost $1 trillion stimulus was proposed (and by the way, the total amount proposed didn’t really get negotiated down and in fact I have read that there was actually an expectation that it would get negotiated up to cater for representative’s pet projects) this was seen as a huge stimulus and one that would be hard to sell. Obama, fresh off his amazing feel good inauguration had to go round the country to sell it and he only just managed to peel off three republicans to break the filibuster.
An alternative gaming of an initial $1.7 trillion stimulus proposal would be that the public and the republicans would be so turned off by the sticker price that negotiations would have gone no-where and the measure just wouldn’t have passed at all leaving the country and the world immeasurably worse off.
Obama needs to bring his guitar, and work on “Kumbayah” with those waskaly Webulicans. Why can’t they just get along? The President is a fine fellow, and continues to stick out his hand. He appears to believe that he is not being bipartisan enough.
Can you give me one instance where Obama has tried to talk to de Mint about anything? this is just mindless repetition of a talking point that has about as much substance as badly formed jello.
Obama is concentrating on the important stuff: giving away his points of leverage before he gets to use them. The GOP wanted one thing above all else – continuation of the tax cuts. Obama traded that for 2 cans of coke and a used sucker. Now the GOP is playing hardball, and GEE the cupboard is bare.
I have never seen such a crappy political player in my life. Lyndon Johnson would not have allowed this to happen.
This is from the same guy whose original post was to the effect that republicans don’t compromise and will stick to their guns on everything and there was no point in Obama negotiating with them. With that in mind, what on earth makes you think that if Obama had played tax cut chicken with them they would have folded? would UI have been extended? other tax cuts that Obama wanted? or do you think that the Republicans would be safe in the knowledge that no-one would fucking call them on their shit: not the MSM for some strange reason, not their own supporters obviously and certainly not the so-called progressives who would no doubt have found some other thing that Obama didn’t do well enough so that they could have the satisfaction of laying it all at his feet.
Obama is trying to get things done. For that he has my utmost respect.
When you negotiate, you need to decide what you want. Obama wants a deal, the other guys want specific things.
He is the worst high-level player i have ever seen at this. He’s incompetent.
yeah, you know generalised statements about negotiating don’t really make good substantive complaints. try harder next time.
And what the f*ck are you? No doubt jobless, friendless and sexless.
As far as respect goes, I reserve my respect for people who do things with principle. Obama is a prostitute. He’ll do anything for $20. So, no, I have no respect for him, because he has NOTHING in the way of principles. For him, any deal, regardless of what it involves, is fine. And that means, for the next 2 years that he has left, we on the Democratic side will lose and lose and lose and lose.
If there are no reserve prices, you sell your house at auction for $20. That’s Obama. He’s selling the house, and getting nothing for it. But, for him, he’s doing a deal, and, hey, he’s got that $20, right?
just so not worth responding to with any substance.
When you can’t counter an argument, it’s best not to try.
You argue like Obama negotiates.
Obamas principles are progressive ones — he is making progress for the American people. Progress can’t always be made by taking a stand or drawing lines int he sand. Sometimes you have to take what you can get. Obama has been masterful at this. Yes, the tax deal is progress — he got an unemployment insurance extension through, and tax cuts for the middle class. Yes, health care was progress, even though it did not have a public option. In every case he has had to give things away, but he has not had a strong hand to play. He is moving the country in the right direction, as quickly as he can.
Well said.
And the original post? That was a little snark, but you appear to be so needful to protecting the Great Conceder that you didn’t notice.
Just for once, I’d like to hear Obama say that he wants to promote an ACTUAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY PRINCIPLE. You’ll never hear that, because Obama has no principles.
It’s got nothing to do with protecting or whatever dumbass thing you tell yourself about people who don’t agree with you. It’s to do with how I see the world, what I read, what I know and how I think. Taking all of those things, I am perfectly able to come to my own view of things without there being any “desire to protect” whomever. I’m not an American, I’m not related to Obama and have no personal interest in his success or failure. I just have very little time for people screaming objections at every turn which have no or very little basis in actual substance. For example, you have twice said that Obama has no principles – what is this based on? Do you think that is going to convince anyone to your way of thinking? Have you read the Audacity of Hope? or more to the point do have any knowledge of politics and what it means to be a ‘high level player’ or whatever the phrase is that you’ve used.
Since you mention Johnson, you might be interested in this graph.
http://arts.bev.net/roperldavid/politics/congress.htm
Note that both Johnson and Roosevelt had huge democratic majorities in the senate -63-69 dems for Johnson, and more at times for Roosevelt. This is how they were able to pass progressive legislation.
If we want more progress, we need to get substantially more dem senators elected.
Destroying the trillion-dollar mostly tax cut to the wealthy would be a part of the Obama presidency I wouldn’t mind destroying. My guess is that DeMint will back off his threat by all those death tax worriers.
Part of it is to waste time, sure, but this is one of the Tea Baggers’ key tenets. I’ve spent a lot of time on Ron Paul forums in the past, mostly debunking their economic nonsense, and it’s something they hold dear: all bills be read out loud so that “everyone knows what’s in it.”
The other part of “reform” they want is to not be allowed to attach stuff to legislation.
WTF does this even mean?
Do they think their Senators will sit there in the audience listening as the bill is being read into the record?
Senators don’t even sit in the Chamber during debate anymore. Democratic Senators tend to have staffers who read the bills, summarize the key points, listen to the arguments, and draft up nice bullet-point descriptions for their Senators. The older Republican Senators have the same kind of staff. Most of the younger Republican Senators apparently don’t, but then they don’t need to either because they just get the summaries from Mitch McConnell and/or Jim DeMint and/or whatever lobbyists have talking points to hand them and then vote the way they’re told.
Jesus. It’s like some people’s knowledge of how American Government actually works comes entirely from the Schoolhouse Rock song “I’m Just a Bill” and some barely-remembered 8th grade Government class.
The real point is, how is the upper house of our legislature supposed to function with such ridiculous procedural rules?
It has always been thus in the upper chamber. I wouldn’t mind seeing the senate rules regarding filibusters to be modified, but I also won’t expect that to happen any time soon.
Yeah, try and tell them that. They just say you want a corrupt government that allows Senators/Reps to “slip things in when no one’s looking.” Apparently, reading the bill out loud will prevent this from happening.
Yeah they really are ignorant about how the government works, but they’re ignorant about most of reality, so no surprises here.
Yeah, that really worked with the Separability Clause in the health care bill. Anybody track down who pulled that?
Rome burns and the GOP fiddles hoping to buy up the properties (You and I and everything we own) cheap after the disaster destroys everything of value to non-millionaires.
…we should just tell him he doesn’t have to work so hard at burying Obama…
The Prez seems to be doing a bang-up job of that all on his onesies…and seems unconcerned by it all because, after all, when he goes down, we’ll all be going with him (by hook or by crook), because the middle-class is pretty much screwed
If/when we get rid of the filibuster in January, can we get rid of this bullshit too?
The takeaway from this:
Jim DeMint can’t read. He has to have the bills read to him, and his reader is beginning Christmas vacation.
Some Democratic Senator should hire John Moschitta Jr. as a staffer and have him read the bills. In fact, this should have happened long ago.
Heh. Hard to believe that commercial sold many micromachines.
I think I still have a large bin of MicroMachines around here somewhere. I loved those things.
My 11 year old has a bunch. We roll them down a ramp (tilted book) sometimes.
awesome call.
Better yet, get one of those computer programs that read aloud and set the speed on mosquito or whatever is fast enough to get it done in about an hour. Then tell the pukes you’ve fulfilled the letter of the precious rules.
You know a person has Obama Derangement Syndrome when they blame him for the Rules the Senators REFUSE to change in a different Branch of government. Sorry Haters, he cannot rewrite them. Hate on……
I can blame Obama for one thing. He hired Tim Kaine, didn’t he? And what has happened on the state level since Obama has been elected? Lots of states are turning into disasters. Which will drag the economy down in the end.
I disagree. Obama is the leader of the Democratic Party. He can make filibuster reform as high a priority as he wants. Also, he could, if he chooses to, get angry at Demint’s obstruction or he could decide to continue to blame DFH’s for obstruction.
Obama could use his State of the Union to highlight the unprecedented number of filibusters, holds, etc to explain why government is failing working class americans.
Obama has power (actually a ton of power, more power than anyone else in the US) and he could use it towards institutional reform, but chooses not to, much to the shock of a lot of his supporters who mistakenly thought this was what the whole “change you can believe in” slogan was all about. If you don’t want institutional reform, you’re probably not upset that he doesn’t use political capital towards achieving it. If you do want institutional reform, you are perfectly within your right to shake your fist at Obama, Senate Dems, and the democratic/liberal elite who do nothing to change the status quo.
Oh for pete’s sake, can we get off this hackneyed idea that Obama is blaming DFH for obstruction. First, the people complaining are not really DFH’s but professional commentators who just want to make a name for themselves. But more importantly, the complaint is not that they are obstructing but that they have such an unvarnished, unrealistic view of things that they cannot appreciate the progress that has actually been made. And, by the way, Obama got plenty angry at Demint’s waterloo comments, repeated them till the cows came home. So, to put it simply, he blames republicans for obstruction (which he has done countless countless times, including in his latest press conference where he referred to them as hostage takers) and gets frustrated by idiotic so-called progressives who seem only to care about the progress that hasn’t been made rather than the progress that has.
As for filibuster reform, he has also highlighted this but he can’t actually DO anything because it is not in his power to do so – you know the three branches of government thing?
He could – if he wants to piss off Democratic Senators.
The blockage to filibuster reform comes from Democrats right now – Republicans can’t do jack when it comes to re-writing the rules in January but Reid needs enough Democrats who want to re-write the rules to go along with it. And he doesn’t have it. So the President could make a speech in an attempt to shame a group of people who have no shame (i.e. Senate “moderate” Democrats) and guarantee that he will piss them off to the point where he won’t be able to get them to compromise with him on anything in the future, or he can take it as a given that the preening jackanapes in the Senate Democratic Caucus aren’t willing to part with their power and he can attempt to route around it.
I think Obama is a terrible negotiator in general – he seems to pre-emptively move himself into a weaker position rather than attempting to start from a strong position and then “let” his opponents “bargain him down” to something lesser that they can consider a victory. But I don’t think one of the things he’s done wrong is to stay out of the Senate’s way and let them run their Chamber. Unless you’re a president with a LOT of friends in the Chamber (see Johnson, Lyndon B), that strategy is a guarantee of failure because Senators do not like being told what to do and they can very easily gum up the works in a multitude of ways.
link
But, if only the WH got angry about republican obstruction!
He has a lot more power than issuing sternly worded press releases. Cut off any dem from party funds and top donors who doesn’t support filibuster reform. Veto funding for anything and everything that demint holds dear. Politics isn’t for wordsmiths and people who are good at writing press releases- its a dirty game and i don’t think obama has the stomach for it (I’m not saying I do either-im sure I don’t, but I’m also not running for office or have millions of americans counting on me).
Not to mention slow-walking any of DeMint’s earmarks.
Weird how all the GOP senators have no problem being told what to do by mitch mcconnel. I guess he’s unlocked the secret and is the only person who knows how to get somebody to do something they wouldn’t do regularly.
If you haven’t noticed the differences between how Republicans respond to authority and how Democrats respond to authority, I don’t know what to tell you. Democrats do not respond well to being told what to do and they never have. Republicans like to line up behind an authority figure and do what they’re told. It’s baked into the two political parties at this point.
It’s not even like this is a new thing – it’s been true of the Democratic coalition since at least Andrew Jackson. I think it may even be older than that. For Republicans it’s a newer phenomenon, but since Reagan at least they’ve been purging the “wrong-thinkers” from their party and becoming straight-up authoritarians. And of course those “wrong-thinkers” move into the Democratic party (which is about the big tent) and make it more fractious even as the Republicans become more lock-step.
Thanks for this post. I tire of false equivalence.
I assume you’ll be contributing to Joe Lieberman’s reelection campaign then of course since he’s carrying on the noble democratic tradition of party disloyalty.
And to be clear, I’m not arguing for us to purge moderates or “wrong-thinkers.” You’re enabling the status quo that thrives on the filibuster when you make such arguments. It is possible to reform the filibuster AND still have a big tent party- i’ve never said anyone in our caucus shouldn’t be able to vote their conscious on substance. On procedural votes, however, we do need to act unified- that’s not authoritarian-style thinking, that’s just a little common sense plus a basic understanding of our political institutions.
Until now, bucking leadership on a procedural vote was unthinkable for a Democrat. Now, there are Democrats for whom that is their whole shtick.
The Commission which is determining the cause of the financial disaster is falling apart. The Repukeliscum are not allowing any words like “regulation” or “banks which fucked us 6 ways from Sunday” into their version of the Report. In other words, it’s Repukeliscum financial theory, and damn the facts.
Will Obama condemn them? If he does not, the Repukeliscum will continue to rewrite history.
Is there a single Democratic principle, even one, that Obama will not sell for 30 pieces of silver and a used sucker? Will he condemn the Repukeliscum? Or will he say “Both sides have good ideas”?
Well, I just ripped Demint’s aide a new one. Had it w/this clown. Then I called Lindsey’s office & let them have it too. Basically, told them I know you idiots don’t support my political ideology, but NatSec is the last straw w/you crappy Senators. When alQaeda hits the US w/a loose nuke, it is so on you & the GOP, etc., etc.,etc. Truly pissed at this Chicanery.
Also2, in the real world where I worked for 20yrs for Govt, only Holiday is Xmas Day. Just one day, Sucker is all I got & I’m not sure U deserve that! (Kyl & Demint haz a sad cause they’re Christian & have to work at Xmas time!) Can U believe this shit?
Good job! Now if we could convince the rest of South Carolina to get rid of these turds
As a native South Carolinian, let me say “From your lips to God’s ear”.