Posted on 11/21/2013 9:52:06 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
Edited on 11/21/2013 9:53:53 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
A bitterly divided Senate voted Thursday to ease the confirmation process for most presidential nominees, a momentous and potentially risky step that limits the ability of Republicans to block President Barack Obama's choices for executive-branch and most judicial posts.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) engineered the rules change, over Republican objections, with a complicated parliamentary maneuver that ended up placing new curbs on the use of the filibuster—a move so controversial that it is often called the "nuclear option."
"The American people believe Congress is broken. The American people believe the Senate is broken…It's time to change the Senate before this institution becomes obsolete," Mr. Reid said.
The key vote was 52-48, with all but three Democrats voting for the change and all Republicans opposed. Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Joe Manchin of West Virginia broke from their party and voted against changing the rules.
snip
Yes but now they have to go on record as supporting a nominee rather than complaining about the “fillibuster”.
The person I was replying to overlooked Collins as one of the (GOPe) senators who was in the gang of 14, and is still in the senate.
Not much of a point to make, but that's what the point was.
I don't recall why I mentioned Landrieu, maybe I was just impressed (not in a good way) with her hypocrisy.
Here comes unbridled tyranny from the left. The left is going to stack the bureaucracies and the courts!! The federal courts will rubber stamp everything the tyrannical bureaucracies choose to do. Americans are no longer free people.
Knowing the Stupid Party, they will reinstitute the filibuster when they get in power.
Republicans should now, as a party, filibuster every bill, every vote. They should bring the senate to a standstill and force a retreat.
It will be at least 2017 before they have to worry about it.
Is it me, or shouldn’t this be the most prominent news item in a while?
They want it to cause outrage enough to get Obamacare’s failures off the front burner.
My powder is dry and my lead is hard....
Bring it you brown shirt Obama voters. This country boy got something for you.....
They have zero intention of relinquishing power, that is not what this move was about.
If they lose the senate in 2014, they will change it shortly thereafter.
Effing hypocrite traitors. Then we’ll change it and all of a sudden it will be wrong to do.
They have now set the precedent. We will make them live by their own precedent shortly when they’re the ones that get the short end of the stick.
Given now the strategy is to rubber stamp all appointees and judges the next three years,
I think the Republicans need to remember with a House and Senate under their control, they ought to do the following:
1. Put the nuclear option back in the senate, for all judges and all appointments.
2. Write a law to fire all Obama appointees and judges except SCOTUS justices. They have oversight. Congress created and controls the lower courts. Open up all these appointees and judgeships for a Republican president to nominate and fill.
Screw the socialists. They are overtly destroying representative government into an socialist oligarchy.
No, it shouldn’t. The most prominent news item should be obama’s intent, his very DANGEROUS intent, to allow iran to go nuclear which will threaten the entire world, but hardly anyone is writing about it or paying attention to what he is doing in foreign policy while everyone is obsessed with zero care and now this senate gambit.
WE need to stop using the phrase “playing politics” because we are not. We should realize that politics is war by any other name and act accordingly.
We need wargamers led by real war consiglieres, not the sniveling, whining political leaders chosen for us by themselves.
Frankly, I don’t think the Progressive’s are concerned at all about ‘retribution’ for ANYTHING Obama’s done. Once Amnesty passes, they’ve got nothing left to worry about.
I feel the opposite is indicated. State elections are a lot harder to steal than national ones. I feel these moves are to place judges, which cannot be voted out, so that their America-destroying legacy will live on.... past the probable bloodbath in 2014.
Well, it’s hard to argue with facts as they have been for the last 5 years, and Obamacare seems to be the nail in the coffin. But they have many more nails in mind:
Illegal Alien Amnesty
Wealth Confiscation
Gun confiscation
Harsh penalties for speaking against Abortion
Harsh penalties for speaking against the government
Confiscation of lands and properties not deemed homesteads
These are just a few. But I still have hope that this country will wake up (at least the producers) and take it back. It is either a groundswell of electoral dissent, or it is rebellion.
Really?
Does your copy of the Constitution not contain Amendment XXII?
It would take a lot more than one vote to end that limit.
On that, you are correct. Also don’t forget when some Republicans considered doing the same thing to get President Bush’s judicial nominations confirmed, John mc Cain, Lindsey Graham, etal, sabotaged the effort.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.