Posts tagged “Obstructionism”
Republicans. In the Senate. By Filibuster.
In the next hour or so, Republicans are poised to kill a bill that would provide much needed aid to states (“which would save thousands police officers and firefighters from getting laid off”) and funding for teachers (“which would help states retain 130,000 K-12 teachers”). This is a bill that’s fully paid for, partly by [...]
Are You Experienced?
The first line of the Jimi Hendrix song goes “If you can just get your mind together”. It looks like Amanda Terkel of ThinkProgress couldn’t, when she wrote: Franken has had experience with the filibuster dating back to before he was even seated as a U.S. senator. As Republicans attempted to drag out the recount [...]
The Party of No Agenda
Originally, the derisive “Party of No” label the Republican Party earned for itself referred to the spectacularly determined display of no-fucking-way obstructionism they have put on since Obama was elected President. But it’s looking more and more like by the time the midterm elections are over — and the Republicans have gained much fewer seats [...]
Literally Unprecedented Obstructionism
The Huffington Post headline reads: “Unemployment: Congress Has Never Before Dropped Extended Benefits With Jobless Rate So High“. Though the jobs crisis shows few signs of abating and the unemployment rate continues to hover near 10 percent, Congress allowed extended unemployment benefits to expire at the beginning of June, causing so far more than 1.2 [...]
Every Which Way They Can
Here’s the latest Republican obscenity: Senate GOP blocks jobless aid extension Senate Republicans on Thursday once again blocked legislation to reinstate long-term unemployment benefits for people who have exhausted their aid, prolonging a stalemate that has left more than a million people without federal help. With the Senate apparently paralyzed by partisan gridlock, the fate [...]
The Sheer Laziness Of The Endangered Journalist
It didn’t make much of a ripple, but yesterday morning the Senate suddenly upped and confirmed a large number of long-stalled Obama nominees. How many people were confirmed? That’s where it gets hilarious. The Washington Post offers us “more than 60″: Senators confirmed more than 60 Obama administration nominees Tuesday after months of disagreement on [...]
Pardon My French
Last week, the American Energy Innovation Council tried to highlight the urgency of the need to act on a radically new energy policy: On June 10, a group of technology-focused business leaders — including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr, and the current or former chief executives of General Electric, [...]
The Republican Notion Of Bipartisanship
Ron Brownstein had a story in the National Journal over the weekend, pointing out exactly how much the Republican Party’s position on immigration has moved since the good old days of 2006, when lawmakers from both parties actually worked together constructively even on the thorniest of issues, and obstructionism manifested itself not in the Senate [...]
Reuters Predicts Easy Passage for Wall Street Reform Bill
To hear Reuters tell it, it’s a foregone conclusion that the Wall Street reform bill will be passed into law. The only question at this point, according to them, is whether amendments to the Senate bill will require 50 votes or 60 votes to pass: Democratic leaders had not yet determined as of late Monday [...]
Curing Bipartisanality
Just early last week, the Wall Street reform bill was innocently going about its business, perfectly secure in its bipartisanality. It wasn’t just bipartisan-curious, it was actually practicing a bipartisan lifestyle. It didn’t just include Republican ideas, Republican senators had actively participated in drafting the bill. And then along came Mitch McConnell last Tuesday — [...]