Senate GOP invents the filibluster
Watching the Senate floor while they take a cloture vote on Chuck Hagel's nomination while I'm reading that Grampy McCain's Benghazi curiousity was finally satisfied.
Recess! Just like elementary school kids on the playground. Only these overpaid asshats don't have to go back to class and do some real work in 20 minutes. They're off for ten days. I'm not even that keen on Hagel getting the job, but this is a criminal waste of time and money on the taxpayer's dime.
Meanwhile, minority whip John Cornyn took the floor in the after vote laments to declare, (as GOPers have been doing for days), this wasn't really a cloture vote. It is not a filibuster. It's a reasonable delay, dammit. The GOPers still don't know all the things about Chuck. Maybe they need to look at his grocery receipts for the last five years so they know if he's been eating kosher or halal. OK, I made that last part up but their demands for information at this point are as nonsensical.
Hell, they were willing to foist off Mitt as President with far less disclosure than they're demanding from Hagel. Not to mention many of them served with the guy for years. Ye gods. Hagel is a freaking red state Republican and a decorated war veteran. If he was nominated by a Republican president, these idiots would be falling all over themselves to vote yes. But it's not a filibuster, it's just filibluster.
The insiders tell me when they reconvene Hagel will be confirmed. Apparently, the GOPers just need more time to grandstand for the rubes back home before they can do the right thing and let the duly elected President pick his own damn cabinet.
[Thanks to Michael J.W. Stickings of The Reaction for kindly linking in at Mike's Blog Round-Up]
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Thursday that the White House's response to his and other Republican senators' questions on the September attack in Benghazi, Libya was satisfactory. The senior Arizona senator said he is now ready to find a way to end the filibuster that is holding up the confirmation vote for defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, CNN reported. [...]That was posted at about 2:00pm today. At 4:15pm the nation's greatest deliberative body started sauntering in for a cloture vote. McCain was one of the first no votes. Initial count was 59-39 with one present and GOP's "Diaper" Dave Vitter skipping the vote. So ultimately, cloture fails 58-40. The whole sorry charade is a pathetic farce. And the only reason they delivered this act of the eternal kabuki this afternoon? As somebody said on twitter: "Senate agrees to 4:15 vote on Sen Hagel to showcase how divided they are in time to leave Thursday night for week off."
McCain said he is now trying to get answers to questions posed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) regarding Hagel's sources of income. If those inquiries are answered, McCain said, there won't be a need to end the filibuster with a vote. Instead, the Senate could move to vote a straight up-or-down vote on Hagel, which would require only a simple majority of 51 votes to be confirmed.
Recess! Just like elementary school kids on the playground. Only these overpaid asshats don't have to go back to class and do some real work in 20 minutes. They're off for ten days. I'm not even that keen on Hagel getting the job, but this is a criminal waste of time and money on the taxpayer's dime.
Meanwhile, minority whip John Cornyn took the floor in the after vote laments to declare, (as GOPers have been doing for days), this wasn't really a cloture vote. It is not a filibuster. It's a reasonable delay, dammit. The GOPers still don't know all the things about Chuck. Maybe they need to look at his grocery receipts for the last five years so they know if he's been eating kosher or halal. OK, I made that last part up but their demands for information at this point are as nonsensical.
Hell, they were willing to foist off Mitt as President with far less disclosure than they're demanding from Hagel. Not to mention many of them served with the guy for years. Ye gods. Hagel is a freaking red state Republican and a decorated war veteran. If he was nominated by a Republican president, these idiots would be falling all over themselves to vote yes. But it's not a filibuster, it's just filibluster.
The insiders tell me when they reconvene Hagel will be confirmed. Apparently, the GOPers just need more time to grandstand for the rubes back home before they can do the right thing and let the duly elected President pick his own damn cabinet.
[Thanks to Michael J.W. Stickings of The Reaction for kindly linking in at Mike's Blog Round-Up]
Labels: Broken Government, Obama administration, Senate
posted by Libby Spencer at 6:32 PM
4 Comments:
I was writing on the press treatment of this yesterday, surprisingly Fox News was willing to call it a filibuster but the NYT presented it as a he-said/she-said story.
Sadly, this doesn't surprise me.
That's the soft bigotry of low expectations. See, you're a bigot! I hope you feel appropriately chastened.
One of my co-bloggers is equally cynical on all press matters. The only thing that surprises him is my repeated surprise on these stories. It's a sad world where I'm considered a Pollyanna.
I'm actually one of the biggest Pollyannas on the intertoobz. But not so much when it comes to legacy media. More a realist about that but always believing that somehow we can break through and change the way it works. That's rather Pollyanna-ish no?
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