After Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proposed a change, the Senate struck down traditional filibuster rules for most presidential nominations.
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After Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proposed a change, the Senate struck down traditional filibuster rules for most presidential nominations.
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To stay in the loop, bookmark our homepage.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell accused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Thursday of “trying to change the subject” with a proposed rule change.
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Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) spoke to Breitbart News after leaving the floor earlier in the evening as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) continued his quasi-filibuster to prevent funding Obamacare. Cruz intends “to speak out in defense of defunding Obamacare until [he] can no longer stand.”
“This is a significant move. It’s a bold move by Senator Cruz. He’s doing this to draw attention to an important debate that needs to happen before the American people and with the American people,” Lee explained.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) reacted to Cruz’s move to take the floor by telling reporters, “There’s no filibuster going on now.” He added, “People can come and talk, but they can’t do anything to change when we vote.” The vote is scheduled for Wednesday.
Lee responded to Reid’s remarks, telling Breitbart News, “If they want to get really technical about it, they can call it whatever they want. They can call it a lengthy speech. They can call it a hot fudge sundae. I don’t care what they call it.”
Lee continued, “What they’re saying, in essence, is because in theory he can’t speak forever but is limited to the 21 hours or whatever it is until the next break in the schedule, I don’t care if that’s what they’re saying.”
According to the Utah senator, the response to the defund Obamacare effort has been “overwhelmingly supportive.”
“The effort is to communicate to the American people why its important to do everything we can to stand with the House Republican leadership who in turn are standing with the American people to defund Obamacare,” Lee said.
House GOP leadership may attach a one-year delay of Obamacare’s individual mandate to the Senate bill to avoid a government shutdown, Politico reported on Tuesday.
If House Republicans decide to go this route, it would all but provoke a government shutdown, since Senate Democrats might not even schedule a vote on a bill that includes that provision, Senate leadership staffers say. Even if the Senate schedules a vote, there might not be time to move the legislation through the slow-moving chamber.
Lee said that a delay could mean a number of things, but he still believes the best way to delay Obamacare is by defunding it.
“So when people talk about delay, I always say I want to see what you mean. I want to see details. Because you can’t truly delay Obamacare without defunding it, and if you’ve defunded it, you’ve delayed it,” he said.
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Killing babies “heroic,” opposing Obamacare offensive
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
September 25, 2013
While cheering a 10 hour speech by Democratic state Senator Wendy Davis that succeeded in blocking a Texas bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy as “the filibuster heard around the world,” leftists have displayed little else but contempt towards Ted Cruz’s marathon stand against Obamacare.
The Huffington Post characterized Cruz’s quasi-filibuster against Obamacare, a sentiment shared by most Americans, as a “hijack” of the Senate, a somewhat different tone to how they reported Davis’ opposition to a policy that was not shared by the majority of Texans.
Democratic Congressman Mark Takano also tweeted his view that Davis’ success in ensuring babies were killed after the 5th month was “the greatest filibuster of all time!”
The Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas scorned Cruz while labeling Wendy Davis’ tirade a “heroic effort”.
Other Twitter users drew attention to the left’s hypocritical disdain for (quasi) filibusters.
However, it’s not just leftists who attacked Cruz. Some faux conservatives fell in line with RINO Republicans to lambaste the Texas Senator, including the Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein, who penned a sophomoric piece which served to communicate the message that his attempt to sink Obamacare was doomed to failure.
Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71
FOLLOW Paul Joseph Watson @ https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
This article was posted: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 at 6:03 am
Tags: domestic news, healthcare, legislation
Killing babies “heroic,” opposing Obamacare offensive
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
September 25, 2013
While cheering a 10 hour speech by Democratic state Senator Wendy Davis that succeeded in blocking a Texas bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy as “the filibuster heard around the world,” leftists have displayed little else but contempt towards Ted Cruz’s stand against Obamacare.
The Huffington Post characterized Cruz’s quasi-filibuster against Obamacare, a sentiment shared by most Americans, as a “hijack” of the Senate, a somewhat different tone to how they reported Davis’ opposition to a policy that was not shared by the majority of Texans.
Democratic Congressman Mark Takano also tweeted his view that Davis’ success in ensuring babies were killed after the 5th month was “the greatest filibuster of all time!”
The Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas scorned Cruz while labeling Wendy Davis’ tirade a “heroic effort”.
Other Twitter users drew attention to the left’s hypocritical disdain for (quasi) filibusters.
However, it’s not just leftists who attacked Cruz. Some faux conservatives fell in line with RINO Republicans to lambaste the Texas Senator, including the Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein, who penned a sophomoric piece which served to communicate the message that his attempt to sink Obamacare was doomed to failure.
Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71
FOLLOW Paul Joseph Watson @ https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
This article was posted: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 at 6:13 am
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U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) speaks to the media about an immigration reform on Capitol Hill in Washington June 18, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate’s top Democrat and Republican yielded no ground on Sunday as they neared a showdown over President Barack Obama’s executive-branch nominees that could dramatically change how the Senate operates.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid charged that Republican obstructionism has prevented Obama from getting much of his second-term team in place.
Unless Republicans permit a number of Obama’s nominees to be confirmed this week, Reid has threatened to change the rules and strip Republicans of their ability to block the president’s picks with procedural roadblocks known as filibuster.
Nominees set for vote on Tuesday include Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Gina McCarthy to head of the Environmental Protection Agency; Thomas Perez as labor secretary, and three picks for the National Labor Relations Board.
“I want everyone to hear this. The changes we are making a very, very minimal,” Reid said, sounding as if a final decision had already been made.
“What we are doing is saying, ‘Look American people, shouldn’t President Obama have somebody working for whom he wants?’” Reid said.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell his party was obstructing the process and urged Democrats to reconsider plans for an unprecedented change in Senate rules.
Filibusters have long been part of the Senate’s basic fabric, providing the chamber’s minority leverage to extend debate and force the majority to compromise.
But in the past decade or so, each side, when in the majority, has accused the minority of misusing the filibuster to produce gridlock, not change.
Reid is moving toward abolishing the filibuster only on executive-branch nominees, not on judicial nominees or legislation.
Democrats charge that Republicans have blocked a number of top nominees, not because they are unqualified, but because Republicans oppose the agencies that they would head.
Senate rules state that 67 votes are needed to change its rules. But Democrats, who hold the Senate, 54-46, could do it with just 51 by essentially rewriting the rule book with a procedural power plan known as “the nuclear option.”
Once Democrats switched the threshold on rule changes, they would then reduce to 51 from 60 the number of votes needed to end filibusters on executive-branch nominees.
“The reason they call this the ‘nuclear option’ because it is breaking the rules of the Senate to change the rules of the Senate,” McConnell said in a separate appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
With Senate Democrats and Republicans set to meet privately on Monday to discuss their difference, McConnell urged calm.
“We need to start talking to each other rather than at each other,” said McConnell, who last week said Reid would go down as “the worst Senate leader ever” if he invoked “the nuclear option.”
In 2005, the then-Senate Republican majority threatened “the nuclear option” in response to Democrats blocking a number of Republican President George W. Bush conservative nominees.
At the time, Reid spoke against “the nuclear option,” saying it would undermine the Senate, while McConnell argued for it, saying change was needed.
The threat was averted when a bipartisan deal was reached only to filibuster judges in “extraordinary circumstances.”
“I’m glad we didn’t do it,” McConnell said of the 2005 showdown. “We went to the brink and we pulled back because cooler heads prevailed …. That is what I hope happens here.”
(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) speaks to the media about an immigration reform on Capitol Hill in Washington June 18, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate’s top Democrat and Republican yielded no ground on Sunday as they neared a showdown over President Barack Obama’s executive-branch nominees that could dramatically change how the Senate operates.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid charged that Republican obstructionism has prevented Obama from getting much of his second-term team in place.
Unless Republicans permit a number of Obama’s nominees to be confirmed this week, Reid has threatened to change the rules and strip Republicans of their ability to block the president’s picks with procedural roadblocks known as filibuster.
Nominees set for vote on Tuesday include Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Gina McCarthy to head of the Environmental Protection Agency; Thomas Perez as labor secretary, and three picks for the National Labor Relations Board.
“I want everyone to hear this. The changes we are making a very, very minimal,” Reid said, sounding as if a final decision had already been made.
“What we are doing is saying, ‘Look American people, shouldn’t President Obama have somebody working for whom he wants?’” Reid said.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell his party was obstructing the process and urged Democrats to reconsider plans for an unprecedented change in Senate rules.
Filibusters have long been part of the Senate’s basic fabric, providing the chamber’s minority leverage to extend debate and force the majority to compromise.
But in the past decade or so, each side, when in the majority, has accused the minority of misusing the filibuster to produce gridlock, not change.
Reid is moving toward abolishing the filibuster only on executive-branch nominees, not on judicial nominees or legislation.
Democrats charge that Republicans have blocked a number of top nominees, not because they are unqualified, but because Republicans oppose the agencies that they would head.
Senate rules state that 67 votes are needed to change its rules. But Democrats, who hold the Senate, 54-46, could do it with just 51 by essentially rewriting the rule book with a procedural power plan known as “the nuclear option.”
Once Democrats switched the threshold on rule changes, they would then reduce to 51 from 60 the number of votes needed to end filibusters on executive-branch nominees.
“The reason they call this the ‘nuclear option’ because it is breaking the rules of the Senate to change the rules of the Senate,” McConnell said in a separate appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
With Senate Democrats and Republicans set to meet privately on Monday to discuss their difference, McConnell urged calm.
“We need to start talking to each other rather than at each other,” said McConnell, who last week said Reid would go down as “the worst Senate leader ever” if he invoked “the nuclear option.”
In 2005, the then-Senate Republican majority threatened “the nuclear option” in response to Democrats blocking a number of Republican President George W. Bush conservative nominees.
At the time, Reid spoke against “the nuclear option,” saying it would undermine the Senate, while McConnell argued for it, saying change was needed.
The threat was averted when a bipartisan deal was reached only to filibuster judges in “extraordinary circumstances.”
“I’m glad we didn’t do it,” McConnell said of the 2005 showdown. “We went to the brink and we pulled back because cooler heads prevailed …. That is what I hope happens here.”
(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Sen. Rand Paul has announced his formal intention to filibuster President Obama’s nominee for CIA chief, John Brennan, if Brennan and the Obama Administration continue to refuse to answer questions about executive authority as it relates to the drone program.
Today, Sen. Paul sent what his office says is the third and final request for information.
The question that I and many others have asked is not whether the Administration has or intends to carry out drone strikes inside the United States, but whether it believes it has the authority to do so. This is an important distinction that should not be ignored.
Until you directly and clearly answer, I plan to use every procedural option at my disposal to delay your confirmation and bring added scrutiny to this issue and the Administration’s policies on the use of lethal force. The American people are rightfully concerned, and they deserve a frank and open discussion on these policies.
Whether or not Sen. Paul will place a hold on Brennan’s nomination is still up in the air, though that would certainly be within the scope of “every procedural option” at the disposal of a Senator.
Kevin Glass is the Managing Editor of Townhall.com.
