Senate Republicans: “Please Hold Until 2012”

Also known as “one man, no vote” as this article puts it.

The Senate has had this sleazy process for a long time, where one senator can place an indefinite hold on a bill or a nominee. They can even do it anonymously. But this tactic is now completely out of control.

As of today, Obama has ninety-one nominees who are still pending. Almost all of them are “pending” because they’ve been put on a hold by a cowardly Republican hiding under a rock.

Any conservatives reading this are thinking at this moment: “Democrats did it too!”

And this is where Reality comes barging in. At this same point in George W. Bush’s presidency, Democrats had placed a hold on 8 — eight! — of Bush’s nominees. Ninety-one to eight.

91 to 8. Sounds like the most lopsided basketball score ever.

And some of the “reasons” behind these holds are more funny than anything else. Jim Bunning is already famous for a previous hold, where he basically told unemployed workers to fuck off and die. In another hold, Bunning tied up the nomination of a U.S. Trade representative. Bunning was sulking because the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative didn’t go after Canada for banning flavored cigarettes.

As contemptible as Bunning is, at least he has the stones to do these holds out in the open — unlike some of his more slippery cowardly colleagues, who do their holds from underneath a rock and don’t even have the balls to slither out and show the public who they are.

The Senate has no specific rules regarding holds. Charles Grassley (R—Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D—Oregon) are trying to eliminate the anonymous “under a rock” syndrome. Grassley said: “If any of my colleagues have holds on either side of the aisle, they ought to have the guts to go public.”

Wyden said: “If you can't make a good public case for why you are doing something, you shouldn't be doing it.”

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Did you know Republicans are now in favor of consumer protection? For themselves, anyway. “Let the buyer beware!” only applies when someone else is the buyer.

Twenty Republican donors are demanding that Charlie Crist give back the money they donated to him. Crist pulled a fast one on them when he switched from Republican to Independent, and now “weee waaant our money baaack!”

And speaking of Republican flipflops — well, actually this last item isn’t a flipflop. It, it’s more of a, uh, a mass hallucination suffered by 300 million Americans. Including You, the reader. Come on, you remember, don’t you? For almost two years, Republican politicians and demagogues have been endlessly relentlessly shouting “Drill Baby Drill.”

Haven’t they???

Nope. Sorry — It’s all in your head.

Terri Schiavo

Ah, nostalgia. Nothing conjures up 2005 better than “Terri Schiavo.” And those two magic words have just transported you back five years.

I wouldn’t have thought the Far Right would want to bring back the Terri Schiavo fiasco, since that was their most embarrassing public relations defeat in recent history. But this is exactly what Marco Rubio is doing.

Florida’s favorite Rightwing Shitburst — and governor wannabe — has been attacking Charlie Crist for not worshipping fetuses devoutly enough. And in a new press release, his campaign dredged up Terri Schiavo:

“Crist also received criticism on the Terri Schiavo debate about where he really stood on a Congressional bill that would have let Terri’s parents take their lawsuit to save her life to federal courts.”

More than any other incident, the Terri Schiavo Show™ put the national spotlight on the Far Right’s chronic severe schizophrenia. Government should be small enough that we can drown it in a bathtub. AND it needs to be big enough to insert itself into millions of Americans’ agonizing personal tragedies.

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Everything you always wanted to know about Reconciliation: Is it a magic wand that will instantly pass every bill the Democrats want? Will it turn Republicans into a horde of screaming foaming maniacs (how could we tell?) who will bring the Senate to a grinding halt?

This article answers a few questions and misconceptions about the Reconciliation process.

Yes, Republicans can offer jillions of amendments to try and paralyze the proceedings. But the total debate time allowed is twenty hours. After 20 hours, “all amendments must be disposed of in a so-called ‘vote-arama.’ So all of those amendments (or motions to waive the amendments) must be voted on in rapid succession.”

Yes, it’ll be a long tedious excruciating process. And that’s all the more reason to get started Yesterday.