Posted on 12/21/2009 9:10:35 AM PST by Servant of the Cross
Why did the Senate gather at 1 a.m. Monday for a vote to move ahead on the Reid Amendment to the Democrats' national health care bill? Democrats blame Republicans. "Everyone knows we're here at one in the morning because of my friends on the other side of the aisle," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said moments before the vote. On CBS Sunday, Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu said, "We don't have to vote in the middle of the night, but [Republican Sen. Tom Coburn] is the one making us do it -- not Harry Reid, not the Democrats. It is a Republican obstructionist that is making us vote in the middle of the night."
Coburn has no doubt slowed debate on the bill. But the fact is, there is no reason the Reid Amendment vote could not have been held at a more reasonable hour. One a.m. Monday was the earliest moment that Senate rules allowed a vote, but there is no rule keeping the Senate from voting at some time after 1 a.m. If Reid had scheduled the vote for, say, 11 a.m. Monday, that would have been fine. If he scheduled it for 4 p.m. Monday, or 10 a.m. Tuesday, that would have been fine, too.
But Reid is determined to pass the national health care bill by Christmas, and to do so he has to get the cloture vote on his amendment done at the earliest moment. The timeline is Reid's and Reid's alone. "The bottom line is, Sen. Reid schedules the floor," says one well-connected GOP aide. "He is the only one who can schedule the floor." If Reid had scheduled the vote during business hours on, say, Tuesday, a final vote would not have taken place until the day after Christmas -- an outcome Reid apparently found unacceptable.
This is how it works. Reid introduced his amendment Saturday morning. (It's the one that has the Sen. Ben Nelson Medicaid buy-off and other curious features.) Senate rules say there has to be an intervening day between the introduction of the amendment and a vote on limiting debate on the amendment. That intervening day was Sunday. That meant the cloture vote could be held Monday, or any time thereafter. The rules also say that the vote has to be held at least one hour after that next day has begun. So the Senate's Monday business began at 12:01 a.m., and the Reid Amendment vote could be held at 1:01 a.m. (As it happened, Reid himself spoke last, and his remarks went over the mark by six minutes.)
After the middle-of-the-night vote, there will be a maximum of 30 hours debate on the amendment. Then there will be a 30-hour period for a Republican substitute bill, followed by a 30-hour period on the final bill. Reid's schedule calls for a final, final vote on the health care measure to take place at about 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Voila! The bill will be passed by Christmas. That couldn't be done unless the Reid Amendment cloture vote were held in the earliest hours of Monday morning, setting off the final chain of votes and waiting periods. "This is purely to satisfy a self-imposed, arbitrary deadline," says the GOP aide.
By the way, when the 1 a.m. vote took place, the Reid Amendment had been public for about 36 hours, and the public had not had a single business day to examine it. "Make no mistake," said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a few minutes before the vote. "If the people who wrote this bill were proud of it, they wouldn't be forcing this vote in the dead of night." Referring to the Nelson buy-off and other special arrangements in the bill, McConnell said few people would have imagined that the health care debate would have ended "with a couple of cheap deals and a rushed vote at one o'clock in the morning."
But that's what happened. In the end, to no one's surprise, the Reid Amendment moved ahead, 60-40, on a straight party-line vote. Democrats can blame Sen. Coburn and Republicans all they like, but the fact is, there is no reason, beyond the Christmas deadline, that the vote had to take place at 1 a.m.
They are both wrong as to the blame.
As it is with most things, “It’s Bush’s fault”...
The STUPID Voters...
Ok, so where is Coburn to refute this? He just going to let it stand?
Actually the vote should have been scheduled for 3:00 am, generally considered to be the ‘witching’ hour, when all the spooks, creepy-crawlies, evil spirits and demons start prowling around.
Oh wait, the ‘Rats and RINOs do that 24 hours a day anyway.
Never mind.
Evil is usually done in the darkness.
Of course! Why should ANY of the Republicans grow a spine now?
The GRAND prize winner ....
The DemocRAT party (not going to use the word Democratic, it doesn’t fit this bunch of fascists) has become the party of absolute evil, so I’d expect nothing less. If their lips are moving...well, you know the rest.
We are the laughingstock of the world...People the world over look at the fools we ourselves elect to run our country and they have to laugh...
We elect the weakest, dumbest, most self-centered among us, then we have the audacity to complain....
Hey Reid, go F yourself you POS. I have seen repulsive people in my life but you take the cake. I hope you burn in Hell Harry.
Please take us out of this nightmare with these pigs.
You’re full of it. You don’t know Tom Coburn, and all he has done to thwart this bill. Sheesh.
More democrat lies. Republicans don't have enough votes to stop anything. I'm so sick of the party of corruption being in power (not that the republicans were much better).
28:28 When the wicked rise, men hide themselves: but when they perish, the righteous increase.
Gregg: Welcome to a New America [Robert Costa]
American government changed last night. “We are now functioning under a parliamentary form of government,” says Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) in a conversation with NRO. “An ideological supermajority in Congress, along with a government run by community organizers, has taken over.”
“They’ve taken over the student-loan program, they’ve taken over the automobile system, and now they’re taking over the health-care system. There is no limit to their belief that people should be controlled by smart bureaucrats in Washington,” says Gregg. “They’re putting our country on a path that will reduce the quality of life for the next generation, undermine our nation’s wonderful exceptionalism, and Europeanize our economy to curb its growth.”
Harry Reid’s health-care bill “was purchased,” says Gregg. “Our system of checks and balances is gone. We now have a government that lurches with great speed even though our system is founded upon incremental change.” And don’t hope that the House stops the runaway train, he says. “I think the House is ideologically even further to the Left than the Senate. There are many people there who are committed to taking us down the road toward nationalization.”
“In the future, discretionary dollars won’t be able to be spent on college or a new house, but on this massive new burden for Americans,” says Gregg. “Eventually, at some point, the pressures on the private sector will tip the scales so that employers offering private insurance send people over to the health-care exchange. It’s all part of their ultimate goal to get a vast amount of people subsidized by the government.”
This is an “unsustainable course for our nation,” says Gregg. “We can’t sustain the debt we’re adding. Soon we’ll reach banana-republic status.”
John 3:19
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
don’t expect on dem to ever take the blame for anything...they are perfect walking in the footsteps of the messiah himself....
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