Category: U.S. Senate

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Congress U.S. Senate

Chuck Schumer May Have Found A Way To Change Joe Manchin’s Mind About Nixing The Filibuster: Report

Thanks in large part to the massive stubbornness of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), major portions of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda — voting rights, expanding access to affordable health care, and repairing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure — remain on the shelf, unrealized and threatening to bring progress to a grinding halt just five months into Biden’s term.

Could there be a way to convince Manchin and his Arizona counterpart, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, to finally give in and agree to major reform of the Senate filibuster?

According to a report from the New York Times, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) may have found an antidote to Manchin’s recalcitrance:

“Democrats are about to embark on a strategy to try to demonstrate to those reluctant colleagues — and to the public at large — that the filibuster is being abused by Senate Republicans intent on depriving them and President Biden of crucial legislation.”

How will this be accomplished? By bringing extremely popular legislation to the Senate floor and letting reluctant Democratic senators see just how complete Republican obstruction is and how it must be overcome:

“Mr. Schumer said he intended to bring the filibuster showdown to a head beginning next week, by forcing votes on a series of measures that Republicans oppose, including one that was blocked by a Republican filibuster in 2014 that seeks to ensure that women and men receive the same pay for equal work. Mr. Schumer hinted that he could also bring forward legislation on gay rights and gun safety. Most immediately, he promised a vote before the end of June on a sweeping voting rights bill that Democrats say is needed to counter new Republican-led voting restrictions being enacted in states around the nation.”

With that strategy, Schumer and other Senate Democrats believe it will soon become clear that only by nixing the filibuster can anything be accomplished in the upper chamber of Congress:

“The idea is to show Democrats refusing to change the filibuster rules that Republicans led by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, are going to stand in the way of legislation that has widespread support, and that the only way to win their adoption is by overturning the rules.”

It’s the very same strategy former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used when faced Democratic resistance to amending and update filibuster rules:

“It is replicating a strategy that Harry Reid, then the Senate majority leader, employed in 2013 to persuade fellow Democrats to blow up the filibuster for judicial and executive branch nominees. He purposefully lined up a series of votes on highly regarded nominees to the influential United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. When Republicans repeatedly blocked them, Mr. Reid gathered enough Democratic support to change the rules by a majority vote.”

June, it seems, could be the make or break month when it comes to implementing the Biden agenda, with Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) noting:

“It is all building toward a showdown on voting rights, and voting rights are the precondition to every other issue being considered fairly in our country. I do believe a historical moment is about to arrive by the end of June on the Senate floor.”

The bottom line is this: If Manchin and Sinema don’t want to actually accomplish something for their constituents and the nation, they should forego running for reelection.

 

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Congress Joe Biden U.S. Senate

Joe Biden Has Found A Way To Beat Mitch McConnell At His Own Game

Just as he did when Barack Obama was president, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has vowed to obstruct every piece of legislation that comes from the Biden administration, and he appears to have most Senate Republicans on board with the plan.

But what McConnell forgot to factor into his scheme is that President Joe Biden also served in the Senate for decades and knows how the upper chamber of Congress works, which means he has a distinct advantage over the Senate Minority Leader, who is now almost powerless to do anything other than make speeches.

Take for example the White House’s infrastructure package, which Biden continues to insist he wants to have Republicans support, so he keeps talking and negotiating with them.

As NBC National Political Reporter Sahil Kapur explained Wednesday on MSNBC, Biden is reaching out to the GOP because he wants to keep every Senate Democrat on board:

“He has to negotiate with Republicans, he believes, Democrats believe in order to convince the centrist holdouts in the Senate. And also, the House, which doesn’t get quite as much attention, they want to pursue bipartisanship as well. They want to go home and say they did everything they could. The key thing to know is when president Biden is negotiating with Sen. Caputo, he’s really negotiating with Mitch McConnell. There are not ten Republican votes unless you get Mitch McConnell’s signoff for anything major.”

And there’s another strategy in play when it comes to what Biden is doing regarding McConnell: It gives the president flexibility to cut deals on the side with the GOP that also serve to undermine McConnell and weaken his already tenuous hold on his caucus:

“(Biden) can potentially come to an agreement on a number or something like that, but translating that to actual legislation to get ten Republican votes is a much more complicated task. The White House’s challenge here is to figure out whether to cut a deal with Republicans. At best, he can probably get a small deal that falls far short of his target and try to do something separately with Democrats or maybe do the whole thing alone he thinks that could undercut the big package.”

President Biden would love to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill, but he doesn’t need a single Republican as long as he keeps all 50 Democrats on board. Then he can use reconciliation and get a massive infrastructure package through Congress with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote in the Senate.

Mitch McConnell is irrelevant and he knows it. And at the moment Joe Biden is besting him at his own game, proving that while the Kentucky Republican may well be a master Senate tactician, he’s met his match in this president.

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Gun Crime U.S. Senate

Ted Cruz Got His A*s Handed To Him At A Senate Hearing – So He Stormed Out Like A Child

Though it’s been said millions of times before, it bears repeating: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is the biggest, most obnoxious douchebag in the U.S. Senate.

Cruz proved what a petulant shitbag he is once again recently during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence when he accused Democrats of wanting to “defund the police,” which is a lie that gets repeated by conservatives whenever anyone says there’s far too much death and destruction caused by the weapons of mass murder produced by arms companies in the United States:

“You just said a moment ago that no Democrat favors abolishing the police. If that were the case why did every single Democrat vote to confirm Vanita Gupta—a nominee for the number three position at the Department of Justice who said last year in writing, in written testimony before this Senate, advocated abolishing the police?”

Of course, what Cruz said contains not a shred of truth. Gupta has written that she favors using some of the funds currently spent on cops to programs that would focus on improving care for the mentally ill, addressing the underlying economic causes of violent crime, and looking for alternatives to merely hiring more police officers.

Despite having already misstated what Ms. Gupta stands for, Cruz continued to trash a woman who dares to have an opinion that differs from his:

“And [Gupta] was confirmed by one vote. Every single Democrat was the necessary vote to confirm a radical who advocated abolishing the police and just this week we’re taking up Kristin Clarke, another radical, who has last year in testimony before this Senate advocated abolishing the police. If you don’t support abolishing the police why do you keep voting for nominees who advocate abolishing the police?”

But Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT) called Cruz out for his nonsense, reminding him:

“As you well know Senator Cruz, that is a complete distortion of their positions. We’re not here to talk about those nominees. If you want to stay, we can do it at the end of the hearing. But right now we’re going to move on.”

Rather than stay and participate in rest of the hearing, Cruz stood up and walked out like a child taking his toy and running home to mommy. Seems the Texas senator isn’t just a lying asshat, he’s also unable to take criticism, which is a sure sign of insecurity.

Maybe it’s time to rename Sen. Cruz the Raving Infantile Liar. It’s a hell of a lot more accurate.

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Coronavirus U.S. Senate

Sherrod Brown Says What We Suspected About Rand Paul: ‘He’s Kind Of A Lunatic’

If we’re being completely honest, we’ve all thought at one time or another that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) isn’t quite right.

Now, however, we have confirmation that Paul is indeed off-kilter, and it comes to us courtesy of a colleague of his in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

AlterNet reports that during a mass vaccination event in Columbus, Ohio, Brown remarked:

“He’s kind of a lunatic. He thinks he wants to be different, but it doesn’t serve the public interest.”

Just a couple of months ago, Paul clashed with Dr. Anthony Fauci during a Senate hearing on COVID-19. He insisted that it was “theater” for those who were already fully vaccinated to still wear a protective mask. Fauci disagreed and let the senator know just how ignorant he sounded saying such a thing. He also explained why it’s a good idea to wear a mask even after one has been vaccinated:

“The expert immunologist has warned that although the COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer and others offer major protection, it is still possible for someone who has been fully vaccinated to be infected and spread COVID-19 to others — and for that reason, Fauci recommends wearing masks as an added precaution.”

There was also this confrontation between Paul and Fauci back in June of last year:

Did you wonder why there were fewer cases of the flu last year, especially during peak flu season? Because so many of us were wearing masks! Maybe we need to do that every year when it’s flu season if only to save lives. Why does this have to be controversial? We should all be willing to do what’s best for others and not just what makes us feel good. That’s what it means to be a member of a civilized society.

But there’s something more at play here: Rand Paul is a dick. Plain and simple. He knows he is, and he plays it up because he thinks that’s what his constituents want to hear. Maybe he’s right, but he’s still a lunatic and a douchebag.

 

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GOP Joe Biden U.S. Senate

McConnell Is Worried Because Joe Biden Is Delivering Results For Americans

Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is not happy.

Now that he’s Senate Minority Leader and has absolutely no power whatsoever, McConnell is irrelevant and cannot make a single decision when it comes to Senate business.

 

Even worse for McConnell is the fact that President Joe Biden has good poll numbers and Americans say they agree with the vast majority of his policy proposals, including his infrastructure plan and wanting to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthiest taxpayers.

All of this has McConnell very nervous, according to presidential historian Tim Naftali, who made his remarks during an appearance on CNN “Newsroom”:

“Mitch McConnell is nervous. When Mitch McConnell, who doesn’t really care much about the writing of history, starts talking about the 1619 Project, when others in his caucus start talking about the fact that the federal government doesn’t want you to eat red meat, they’re trying to change the subject.”

Naftali then added that Biden is playing McConnell and the GOP like a fiddle because he knows exactly how to beat them at their own game:

“Because Biden has been in Washington so long, he knows how Democrats have failed,” continued Naftali. “Biden understands you’ve got to change the message. You’ve got to deliver for rural America. Mitch McConnell sees that as a threat. Will he be successful if the people of Kentucky start to see the benefits of a Biden-pushed stimulus and infrastructure program.”

Imagine it’s 2024 and Biden has indeed created millions of new jobs with his economic programs. The economy is humming along and the incumbent president has high approval ratings. Democrats have added to their majority in the House and Senate and the GOP looks like little more than a party of whiners.

Mitch McConnell should be nervous. He’s up against a man who wasn’t thought to have any chance of being president. Now he’s in the White House and he’s kicking McConnell’s ass on a daily basis.

Here’s Tim Naftali on CNN: