An(other) Open Letter to Feckless Harry Reid Re: Nuking the Filibuster

[Scuba]

http://www.politicalgarbagechute.com/harryreidfili/

Okay, Harry. Enough playing around. Personally, I don’t care about the politics of blowing up the filibuster. I don’t care that it could come back to haunt the Democrats when or if they lose control of the Senate. I’m concerned for right now and right now the Republicans are acting like petulant children and have yet again blocked another completely qualified candidate from being appointed to the D.C district courts. This after they swore to you earlier this year, when you had threatened to finally make good on a promise you’d been making to the American people for years, that would play nice and stop their abject refusal to allow the president to fulfill his constitutional duty to put judges on the bench. It’s getting to be embarrassing for you, Senator Reid.

How much more abuse are you going to take from them? More importantly — how much abuse are the American people going to have to put up with from them? What makes it even more galling is that your motivations for dragging your feet are so nakedly political. Blow the filibuster up, Senator Reid. Blow it up now. No one is telling you to strip the opposition’s right to block a Supreme Court nomination, or to stymie a cabinet position. We’re just asking for you to make it a little harder for them to block the president from doing his job, as required by the Constitution itself.

All we’re asking you to do is force them to stand on their feet and actually orate. Make them put in an effort, you feckless coward. Do your job. Show us that you are not just the left-leaning equivalent of your buddy Mitch McConnell. By all means do something because at this point there is no difference between you and them. Both sides are playing politics over substance at this point. There is no excuse for the level of obstruction the Republicans have engaged in over simple court appointments. I can summarize for you very easily why it is they’re blocking the D.C. court nominations so fervently — because they know they aren’t going to win back the White House in the next two election cycles, and because at least three current Supreme Court Justices should be off the bench in that time.

They can’t get elected to the White House because in a country that is shifting, moving in a more socially progressive direction, they are the party of continued discrimination. In a country that has seen the damaging effects of Reaganomics; they are the champions of Reaganomics on Steroids. They are the harbingers of austerity at a time when we see the folly of austerity across the pond in Europe. They are anti-immigrant at a time when most of America wants comprehensive immigration reform. All of this adds up to them knowing full-well the chances of their putting a new blowhard windbag like Scalia on the bench any time soon are both slim and none. So they stamp their feet and keep the president from performing one of the duties that our founding documents — the things that these Republicans claim to love and defend so vigorously — requires him to do.

"Feckless coward"? I was going to go with "complicit saboteur".

[leftyohiolib]

1. do the intended of open letters actually read them?

[msongs]

2. democrats are 100% responsible for any problems in the senate. they control the place and set

the rules. it is harry reid's fault if the dems do not coalesce and act to control the senate because he is the majority leader in charge. If he cannot do the job he cannot blame republicans. They are doing what they are expected to do and it is no secret to anybody.

[Scuba]

4. Yet some here advocate we need more corporate Dems in Washington.

[smokey nj]

19. Indeed. If they'd fixed the filibuster back in 2009, Republicans/DINO obstruction wouldn't have been

a problem.

[geek tragedy]

3. Harry Reid is only as good as the 50th best vote

in his caucus.

Reid can't make the filibuster go away--he needs 49 other votes to do that (plus Joe Biden).

[Scuba]

5. How'd it come out the last time he put it up for a vote?

Oh, wait, never mind.

[geek tragedy]

6. Votes are counted before votes are scheduled.

Ask John Boehner how it works when that's not the case.

[Scuba]

7. So, did Harry call out the Dems who would have voted 'no'?

Why not?

[geek tragedy]

8. Who knows what he says behind closed doors?

Majority leaders very rarely publicly call out members of the caucus who elect them majority leader--McConnell vs Ted Cruz is the only example that comes to mind.

[Scuba]

10. So McConnell has more spine than Harry. Sad.

[geek tragedy]

12. No, it means Reid doesn't have any Ted Cruz's in his caucus.

Keep in mind that Ted Cruz on our side would be obnoxiously and uncompromisingly left wing, not centrist, so we would not celebrate Reid for kicking such a person in the ass.

[Scuba]

13. No, it means Reid doesn't have the courage to call out those who would block filibuster reform.

But then since Harry obviously doesn't want such reform, why would he?

[geek tragedy]

14. Majority leaders govern by consent, not force and intimidation.

If they don't like what he's doing, they can and will replace him.

[Scuba]

15. So they like it. I see.

[geek tragedy]

16. Hard to say. Certainly a good 80-85% of Senate Democrats

want to scrap the filibuster for judicial nominations. But, to get to 50 votes he needs the support of some wishy-washy Democrats or non-Democrats, like:

Pryor
Hagan
Landrieu
Angus King (not even a Democrat)
Claire McCaskill
Heitkamp
Carper
Baucus
Tester
DiFi
Warner
Donnelly

[Scuba]

17. He doesn't need any non-Democrats, unless you mean DINO's.

Fact is, the Dems in Washington have sold us out to their corporate masters.

[geek tragedy]

20. No, it's the fact that Democrats in Arkansas

and other deep red states are not going to be as solidly partisan as those from Vermont.

[dsc]

18. actually you have some names on that list that have advocated a total removal of the filibuster

and you don't have others that have been known holdouts. King, McCaskill, Tester, and Warner have publicly advocated total filibuster removal. Boxer, Leahy, and Levin have been well known holdouts.

[geek tragedy]

21. Ah, I stand corrected. Leahy is on board now. Levin is a pain in the ass nt

[marsis]

9. I got a kick out of this

Last edited Tue Nov 19, 2013, 11:01 AM - Edit history (1)

" I don’t care that it could come back to haunt the Democrats when or if they lose control of the Senate".

When have the Democrats ever shown enough backbone to use it, maybe once in a blue moon but rarely when needed.
Maybe they should change their party name to The Pink Tutus, NEVER met a fight we won't back down from.

[Scuba]

11. You know damn well the R's will change the rules the minute they get control of the Senate.