The Senate will vote through the weekend on pending nominations that Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would like to see completed before Christmas — just don’t expect most Republicans to be there for it.
Many GOP senators, still bristling from the rules changes enabling Democrats to proceed on said nominees, are planning to hit the exits for Christmas after Thursday night’s 11:15 defense bill vote. In the minds of these members, as long as one of their colleagues hangs behind to block consent requests from Democrats that would allow everyone regardless of party to go home, they apparently are cool skipping votes they have no power to defeat.
Okay, I just liked the Lebowski reference. It’s more like the Senate Republicans are acting like two year olds. If they can’t win, they’re just going to take their votes and go home. But, of course, they are arranging it so the Democrats still can’t get unanimous consent for anything and they will force all debate time to be used up so the Democrats cannot spend the holidays with their families.
The words for this are not nice words: spite, petulance, revenge, temper-tantrum, whining, sore-loser, joke.
One of the nominees under discussion is Janet Yellin, who is set to become the next Federal Reserve chairman. It’s a pretty important position, but apparently her suitability for the position isn’t worth debating and only a handful of Republicans will be on hand to vote for or against her.
Maybe the Republican senators can give me a Christmas gift and not come back.
