Posted on 12/05/2012 10:37:25 AM PST by pabianice
WASHINGTON -- Keeping with his post-election pledge to reform the filibuster, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday proffered that changes to the rules of the upper chamber will be made, leaving it up to Republicans if they would like to participate.
"There are discussions going on now [over filibuster reform], but I want to tell everybody here. I'm happy I've had a number of Republicans come to me, a few Democrats,” Reid told reporters Tuesday at his weekly press availability. “We're going to change the rules. We cannot continue in this way. I hope we can get something that the Republicans will work with us on.”
“But it won't be a handshake,” he added. “We tried that last time. It didn't work.”
Harry Reid was against the filibuster rule change before coming out for it. In 2005, when Republicans threatened to change the rules to weaken Senate Democrats, Reid was a vocal opponent.
“For people to suggest that you can break the rules to change the rules is un-American,” said Reid in 2005, in response to Republicans wanting to change the rules. “The only way you can change the rule in this body is through a rule that now says, to change a rule in the Senate rules to break a filibuster still requires 67 votes. You can’t do it with 60. You certainly cannot do it with 51. But now we are told the majority is going to do the so-called nuclear option. We will come in here, having the Vice President seated where my friend and colleague from Nevada is seated. The Parliamentarian would acknowledge it is illegal, it is wrong, you can’t do it, and they would overrule it. It would simply be: We are going to do it because we have more votes than you. You would be breaking the rules to change the rules. That is very un-American.”
>>The GOP can shut the Senate down
>> >>How, exactly?
The House can refuse to sign any funding bills, and shut the government down. Refuse to raise the debt limit, refuse to pass any funding measures, refuse to pass any fiscal cliff resolutions . . . until there is a reassurance NOW that there will be NO changes to effect minority filibuster rights the House must cut off the funding spigot which supports the Senate.
That's because the media, academics, and the entertainment industry have their backs. If Republican’s acted the way they do they'd label them Nazi's and say they are trying to kill grandma or babies. Look at the way they labeled Romney as anti-woman.
What's required is a viciously vigorous response and putdown of each and every criticism and false accusation these jerks make. Liberals were able, through their popularization of the term ‘McCarthyism’, to put all concerns about communist/socialist influence in a fluff/dismissive category. We need to label all of their ‘Republicans are coming after women and grandma's social security’ crap the same way, so that people automatically dismiss it out of hand. This can be done.
Judge's and Treaties are the only reason Dingy Reid would do this. With a Republican House, no legislation is going anywhere. Absent the filibuster, we could end up with Van Jones on the Supreme Court and a UN Treaty banning firearms.
I also suspect Reid is willing to do this now because he knows he isn't going to run again.
Question is, will he find 51 votes?
Well some have said they would like the dems to implement all they have so the country crashes and the dems are blamed. So this rule change would help with that. However the country is so big and resilent I don’t think it will fail fast enough for voters to learn cause / effect. Who knows? Plus as others mentioned the dems will use this to install marxist judges / justices. So we are screwed. I don’t even see any side benefits to this.
It’s kind of weird for me, but I’m to the point I’m no longer pissed off at this type of crap... just sad for the passing of America.
It’s over.... America as we knew her is dead.
>Is there a peaceful way a civil war could happen?
I do not believe so. Generally these are the bloodiest types
of war.
Better pray we don’t have one.
Easily. They're democrats, and for them the party is First and Foremost in their lives. Some will express a few misgivings, but they'll be whipped into shape. This is going to happen.
No, there won't be. There may be some scattered violent activity, but a general mobilization into a CW isn't going to happen. The other side has all the weaponry, and will be quite willing to use it to get the attention of the populace.
. If Republican’s acted the way they do they’d label them Nazi’s
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Right, this basically started with Bush I.
‘They’ started the starve the children, grandparents eating dog food etc and the ONLY response - after much probing and saying GET off your arse and defend yourself - did the administration say
“The American people are to intelligent to believe this trash and I refuse to dignify it”.
They didn’t realize that enough American people DID believe this garbage because they were getting it force fed to them on the evening news and late night talk shows....also the daytime ‘loser’ shows.
AND we never really picked up on anything - a result being GORE lost by a whisker and Kerry was way to close - granted ‘we’ didn’t have a strong candidate BUT when the R’s...read the 3 women R’s running for Senate in 2010 were abandoned by the ‘party’, allowing Reid to maintain control, a lying sac ‘o $hiite wins in CT (MA this year) and a long time loser in Delaware.
Rove virtually openly campaigned against these women, if not by insult etc, by neglecting to say anything...
In retrospect, Palin could have handled her situation a little more gracefully - 1st, by ‘setting a precedent’ and stepping down as Governor to enable her to campaign full time, then when the VEEP didn’t pan out, she should have run for Senator in Alaska - unless of course she didn’t really ‘feel the love’ of enough constituents to win a supposedly winnable race.
With the electorate currently at D+6 (probably more as time goes on)? It's extremely unlikely we're ever going to see that again.
Will Boehner lives up to his word that all bills originating in the Senate are DOA in the House after sleazy Harry uses the nuclear option?
You mean like the Republicans kept the two Lesbians Soda Jerk and Kagan off the bench?
I can't call Reid a hypocrite without calling the repubs hypocrites too.......
So I'll just call him an untrustworthy lying a'hole
I don’t see how this helps except with judicial nominees (which are very important of course, but far from the only key issue).
The GOP controls the House — and will control it in 2015-2016 as well, so it’s not to get legislation rammed through. It’s already been made clear that anything passed under these rules will not be taken up in the House.
And here’s what is really stupid on Reid’s part — if the GOP takes the Senate in 2014 or 2016, they now have carte blanche to do the same thing — at the same time that they control the House, so they WOULD be able to ram things through. The Dems doing this won’t enable them to pass any legislation on to the President because they don’t control the House. It’s a really foolhardy move on Reid’s part.
The filibuster is not in the Constitution. It is strictly a tradition of the Senate.
There is nothing similar in the House and the country has nevertheless survived.
Two stolen Senate seats (Al Franken’s post election manufactured win and Ted Kennedy’s selected-not-elected replacement) plus bought votes and a “filibuster proof Senate” passed Obamacare.
Shove this crap back down Harry Reid Demonic Mormon’s piehole and out his keister.
I’m going to use such rhetoric because it’s the only thing mouthbreathing Democrats can understand.
Stalinists can never be called hypocrites because they are always changing the rules to make sure they are never held to them.
The only way this will help the Dems is to ram-through judicial and cabinet appointments. Obama is determined to pack SCOTUS with insane Leftists. That will hurt for 35 years.
The Pelosi-Reid Congress. Most ETHICAL ever. So they said and so the liberal media agreed.
History books better tar and feather this traitor.
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