Keyword: filibuster
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The Senate is on the verge of striking down the long-standing filibuster rules for most presidential nominations, potentially doing so on a party-line vote that would alter nearly 225 years of precedent. Democrats, infuriated by what they see as a pattern of obstruction and delay over President Obama’s nominees, expect to trigger the showdown by bringing up one of the recent judicial nominees whom Republicans blocked by a filibuster. According to senior Democratic aides, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) will set in motion a complicated parliamentary process that ends with a simple-majority vote setting a new rule that will...
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Democratic leaders are again taking the temperature of their caucus on whether to finally go “nuclear” and change the Senate rules after Republicans blocked another judge Monday night, aides said. Conversation about the “nuclear option” between leaders and the rank and file began as members trickled back into town before a failed 53-38 cloture vote on the nomination of Robert L. Wilkins to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Though Democrats have threatened to change Senate rules on multiple occasions this Congress—and have yet to blow up procedure to remove the 60-vote hurdle for nominees—talking about rules change again would...
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Senate Republicans on Monday blocked a third nominee of President Obama’s to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In a 53-38 vote, the Senate failed to get the 60 votes necessary to break a Republican filibuster and move to a final confirmation vote on nominee Robert Leon Wilkins. Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) were the only Republicans to vote to end the filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also switched his vote to no to preserve his ability to bring the nomination to the floor again. The GOP argues confirming Wilkins to the court would tilt...
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Senator Elizabeth Warren got on the Senate floor on Wednesday to charge that her Republican colleagues are still so bitter about the election results last year, they are doing everything within their power to “nullify” the results of that election by fighting President Obama at every turn, including filibustering Cabinet and judicial nominees. Warren reminded Republican senators that they may hate the policies Obama’s pushed for, but he ran for reelection on them and won handily. Warren called them out in particular for blocking Obama’s nominees to fill the vacancies on the D.C. Circuit Court, explaining that this is a...
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans blocked another of President Barack Obama's picks for one of the nation's top courts on Tuesday, the latest skirmish in a nominations battle that has intensified partisan tensions in the chamber. The vote derailed Obama's selection of Georgetown University law professor Cornelia Pillard to fill one of three vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The roll call was 56-41 in favor of ending GOP procedural delays that have blocked Pillard from winning confirmation — four short of the 60 votes Democrats needed.
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Senate Republicans on Thursday filibustered one of President Obama’s nominees to sit on the federal appeals court in Washington, arguing that while the woman is well-qualified, confirming her would allow Democrats to shift the political balance to the left on the country's second-most important court. The vote was the latest skirmish in the fierce, though usually hidden, battle over federal judgeships, which are increasingly becoming a part of the political spoils system. Republicans accused Democrats of trying to pack the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals by adding Patricia Millett to the bench, saying Mr. Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry...
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Republican Sen. Mark Kirk has said he'd vote for a clean debt limit raise. His colleagues are less forthcoming As Salon’s Brian Beutler and others have reported, Senate Democrats are moving to test Republican claims that the votes aren’t there in the Senate to raise the debt ceiling without Democratic concessions. (Beutler wrote Monday that Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to revive a gambit previously pitched by Mitch McConnell, under which over half of Congress could cast votes against raising the debt ceiling, and barring a two-thirds majority, the president could do it anyway.) An aide to Senate Assistant Majority...
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The fabric of our entire nation is being torn to bits by what I call the "fringers," the small groups that have taken over as the mouthpieces of their organizations. They march to their own drums and drown out any dissenting voices. The most notable one is the Republican Party which is being held captive by the tea partiers, one of the most destructive entities that has ever bollixed up our democracy that has endured for so many years since its exciting creation. There have been roadblocks in the past, most notably the Civil War, but at no time has...
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Even though his filibuster against Obamacare is no proof that Ted Cruz is a real conservative, he deserves much credit for doing what he did. And his Republican opponents are equally deserving of criticism, for their response to Cruz’s “red line”—and to be sure, Cruz did indeed draw the proverbial red line—is most certainly proof that they are not the conservatives who they claim to be. First, it is “limited government,” and the individual liberty that this entails, for which Republicans are supposed to stand. Obamacare, though, is perhaps the most glaring affront to limited government and individual liberty that...
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How fitting that Senator Ted Cruz’s 21-hour anti-Obamacare speech on the Senate floor in Washington, D.C., happened to coincide with the opening of the U.N. General Assembly and the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City. Rarely is the distance separating the caste that rules our world from its few, heavily despised critics so literal.
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McCarthyism is on the march again from within the leadership of the Republican Party. Oh no, you say, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is from the Tea Party, not a Republican leader. Tell that to Sarah Palin and others who argue that Cruz is the new leader of the Republicans. They point out how Cruz took the Senate floor for 21 hours, arguing that he had to stop Obamacare funding by shutting down the government. They are proud that he said that, unlike the world that refused to stop the Nazis in 1940, he would be the hero of America and...
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Senators from both parties linked arms to defy Sen. Ted Cruz, overcoming his attempt to filibuster the stopgap spending bill, which allowed Democrats to add back in full funding for Obamacare and power the bill through the chamber. The 79-19 vote saw 25 Republicans join with all Democrats to advance the bill, easily overcoming Mr. Cruz and his allies who had argued this was the key point that would determine whether major parts of President Obama’s health care law take effect next week. Once that hurdle was cleared, the rest of the votes were preordained. The Senate waived budget rules,...
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So, this week history was made. I say we look at some different perspectives... Let's start out with who made history... He laid out some great arguments for what America should be And what America is turning into because of bad legislation To many, watching Ted Cruz speak, and say the things he said, we felt like And when Reid & Co. finally showed up on the Senate floor the next morning...it wasn't pretty And don't forget about the lecture from McCain, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war... And of course....the Democrats and their words, get ALL the...
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This is as low as it gets in politics. Sen. John McCain literally offering himself to become the mouthpiece of the Democratic attack machine against Sen. Ted Cruz. Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer even gleefully was the one to yield time to McCain so he could get up and make his attack today after Sen. Ted Cruz concluded his 21 hour, 19 minute filibuster against ObamaCare. What came out of McCain’s mouth were pure Democratic talking points. He lauded Democrats for the way they conducted the original process that passed ObamaCare into law (which was partisan and used Reconciliation to pass...
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Watching Ted Cruz's majestic, twenty-one hour speech in defense of defunding ObamaCare was thrilling. Observing all the small-minded critics on both sides of the aisle go after him as though he were a serial killer was so distressing. I am reminded of a fine film, made in 1941, titled People Will Talk. In the film, a horrible little man, played by Hume Cronyn (looking eerily like Harry Reid), strives to bring down a fine man, a doctor (Cary Grant). The man tries every dirty trick in the book and fails. But just before the end, the doctor's friend, Shunderson, played...
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More at Reaganite Republican...
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The crux of his message throughout the 21 hours...I think it's important to point out that in all those 21 hours, he didn't say one critical or personal thing about anybody, Republican or Democrat. Despite the fact that the only opposition to him was personal, vicious, and mean, he did not sink to that level. Obviously he didn't need a teleprompter for any of it. But the points that he tried to make over and over again was this legislation, this health care reform is a disaster. It doesn't deserve to be implemented because it's so bad....
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In the aftermath of Senator Ted Cruz’s epic performance on the Senate floor, a few observations: After his disgraceful attacks on Cruz, including his reach-across-the-aisle, dog-in-the-manger response today, this should be the end of Senator John McCain as a voice of influence in the Republican party. Ditto his mini-me, Senator Lindsey Graham. Indeed, the entire Old Guard of business-as-usual “comity” fans passeth. When you care more about what the other side thinks, it’s probably time either to switch teams or step down. There is new leadership in the GOP, whether the party wants to admit it or not: Cruz, Rand...
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(VIDEO-AT-LINK)As Sen. Ted Cruz continues his marathon talk on the Senate floor, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said, “He can always just read the Obamacare bill itself.” “Hey, you know if Ted Cruz runs out of material there to speak of in this filibuster of his he can always just read the Obamacare bill itself, because I bet you no one else there on the Senate floor has actually read it,” Palin said Tuesday on Fox News’s “Hannity.”“If he would read it though, then perhaps Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) she’d be watching the C-SPAN station there and she’d be able to...
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