Senate to debate going nuclear

Uhm? mediamatters and "without the partisan twist" are diametrically opposed to each other.

 

When you boil this down to it's core it's nothing more than a pathetic, desperate attempt by the BO admin to hang on to power. Public opinion is turning, dimocrat support in DC is waning. This move was a last ditch effort to insulate BO against the turning tide. If he can appoint progressive liberal ideologues to the courts his agenda will be upheld. Damn the ramifications of a Repub majority, BO's only concern is pushing his agenda today.

 

When it comes down to it, the Right-wing is angry that their obstruction, their doing nothing caucus, their no ideas strategy, and their anti-Constitution policies can no longer stop the normal functioning of government while their corporate buddies run amok. They can still obstruct government and I'm sure without a single new idea to their credit, they will obstruct every chance they get. Remember they do not believe in government. They actively try to thwart American law to protect an abusive bloated and failing private insurance industry that only worked for the private insurers. Yeah, the image of spoiled children comes to mind.

 

Good Morning, Joe!

 

Good Morning sir! How are you this fine day?

 

I have a question. How come there was absolutely no squawking when the House changed the rules to insure that there would be a shutdown?

The House GOP's Little Rule Change That Guaranteed A Shutdown

AP Photo
Dylan Scott – October 10, 2013, 10:35 AM EDT227451

Late on the night of Sept. 30, with the federal government just hours away from shutting down, House Republicans quietly made a small change to the House rules that blocked a potential avenue for ending the shutdown.
It went largely unnoticed at the time. But with the shutdown more than a week old and House Democrats searching for any legislative wiggle room to end it, the move looms large in retrospect in the minds of the minority party.
"What people don't know is that they rigged the rules of the House to keep the government shut down," Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), ranking member of the House Budget Committee, told TPM in an interview. "This is a blatant effort to make sure that the Senate bill did not come up for a vote."
Here's what happened.
The House and Senate were at an impasse on the night of Sept. 30. The House's then-most-recent ploy for extracting Obamacare concessions from Senate Democrats and the White House -- by eliminating health insurance subsidies for Congress members and their staffs -- had been rejected by the Senate. The 'clean' Senate spending bill was back in the House's court.
With less than two hours to midnight and shutdown, Speaker John Boehner's latest plan emerged. House Republicans would "insist" on their latest spending bill, including the anti-Obamacare provision, and request a conference with the Senate to resolve the two chambers' differences.
Under normal House rules, according to House Democrats, once that bill had been rejected again by the Senate, then any member of the House could have made a motion to vote on the Senate's bill. Such a motion would have been what is called "privileged" and entitled to a vote of the full House. At that point, Democrats say, they could have joined with moderate Republicans in approving the motion and then in passing the clean Senate bill, averting a shutdown.
But previously, House Republicans had made a small but hugely consequential move to block them from doing it.
Here's the rule in question:

When the stage of disagreement has been reached on a bill or resolution with House or Senate amendments, a motion to dispose of any amendment shall be privileged.​

In other words, if the House and Senate are gridlocked as they were on the eve of the shutdown, any motion from any member to end that gridlock should be allowed to proceed. Like, for example, a motion to vote on the Senate bill. That's how House Democrats read it.
But the House Rules Committee voted the night of Sept. 30 to change that rule for this specific bill. They added language dictating that any motion "may be offered only by the majority Leader or his designee."
So unless House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) wanted the Senate spending bill to come to the floor, it wasn't going to happen. And it didn't.
"I've never seen this rule used. I'm not even sure they were certain we would have found it," a House Democratic aide told TPM. "This was an overabundance of caution on their part. 'We've got to find every single crack in the dam that water can get through and plug it.'"
Congressional historians agreed that it was highly unusual for the House to reserve such power solely for the leadership.
"I've never heard of anything like that before," Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told TPM.
"It is absolutely true that House rules tend to not have any explicit parliamentary rights guaranteed and narrowed to explicit party leaders," Sarah Binder, a congressional expert at the Brookings Institution, told TPM. "That's not typically how the rules are written."
Republican staff on the House Rules Committee did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But here's what House Rules Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) told Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) when she raised those concerns before the rule change was approved.
"What we're attempting to do is to actually get our people together rather than trying to make a decision," Sessions said. "We're trying to actually have a conference and the gentlewoman knows that there are rules related to privileged motions that could take place almost effective immediately, and we're trying to go to conference."
"You know that there could be a privileged motion at any time...," Sessions continued as Slaughter continued to press the issue.
"To call for the vote on the Senate resolution," Slaughter interjected. "I think you've taken that away."
"I said you were correct. We took it away," Sessions said, "and the reason why is because we want to go to conference."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/the-house-gop-s-little-rule-change-that-guaranteed-a-shutdown

 

...so, what's your point?

 

Point being the same point I always have to make....Why the hypocrisy? If both parties are doing it, why would either get outraged when the other party does it? Answer: Hypocrisy.

 

So if I follow their scenario, they put a single funny in one bill. Since they actually have a name for it, I really doubt this is the first time such has been done - and I further doubt the last. However, I see nothing to say that they changed any House rules going forward.

 

But, both parties didn't "do it", the dims are the ones who did it!

 

Really? Really? Because in post #26 by yours truly, it would seem to indicate the opposite.

 

I find it ironic that some folks would get upset about one party changing the rules in order to fill long vacant court seats and agency heads but be absolutely silent when rules are changed to shut down the entire federal government risking the US credit worthiness, closing down national parks and monuments, ending treatment for dying cancer patients, trowing thousands of federal workers out of their jobs, and all in a blatantly partisan effort to make sure 10's of millions of people don't have health insurance. You gotta marvel at the cynicism and utter lack of ethics on display by these Right-wing fanatics.

 

Just what does the House have to do with the "nuclear option" in the Senate. Their rules are not related.

 

You totally avoided my analysis of your cut and paste. I guess the facts don't jive with your diversion.

 

In other words, don't talk about rule changes when we do it, just when you do it. Rather like the Right's inability to talk about anything Bush actually did. At least you are consistent hypocrites.

 

I guessed that you didn't read it at all by your response.

 

So tell me what rule they changed.

 

Little Joe, please take a few minutes and watch these short video clips. Then tell us how you feel about the "nuclear option" and the elimination of the filibuster:

http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/11/2...ma-reid-and-biden-were-against-nuclear-option

 

Joe doesn't watch Fox News...he's afraid it might begin to sink in.

 

Except that the filibuster has NOT been eliminated has it? In fact, this rule change only affects judicial appointments but not the Supreme Court and department heads. Repukes can still be obstructionist assholes with their blanket filibusters of EVERYTHING for everything else. And they will.