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News & ArtsFriday, February 26, 2010
Politics On Reconciliation
Posted by Eli Sanders on Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 1:19 PM
After yesterday's health care summit—at which the Republicans' big idea for health care reform was to scrap the whole thing and start over—there's increasing talk about the Democrats using the "controversial" reconciliation process to push their reform bill through the Senate now. The maneuver requires only 51 votes and gets around the obstacle of a Republican filibuster (which would require 60 votes to overcome, which the Democrats don't currently have).
It's well worth putting the word "controversial" in quotes above because, while Republicans are whining about the potential use of the reconciliation process now, in the past they've been more than happy to use it themselves to ram through things like tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Here, to remind you just how much Republicans used to like using reconciliation, is Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) speaking in praise of the maneuver—and unyieldingly so!—in 2005:
Via Cynthia Tucker.
2
I wish the dems would just get a god damned spine and do it. All this hemming and hawing about using 'controversial' methods is posturing bullshit. It is a valid process and the dems are the majority. just fucking do it already.
3
@2, well you have to think about that. That would be using "power." And that's what the Republicans do, so we don't want to act like that!
6
Well, there's just one teensy-weensie little problem (also known as "the elephant in the room"): They don't even have 50 votes.
7
Can we scrap the GOP and start over?
I suggest first we get rid of all their ideas that harm America - you know, stupid things that real conservatives hate, like foreign wars of adventure, massive anti-capitalist tax exemptions for corporations that hinder the invisible hand of capitalism, or massive tax cuts for people who export that capital overseas to their comrades along with our jobs.
Mind you, after those are removed, there won't be any GOP left over, so we can just sell off the assets and use it to pay down the massive debt they got us into with their moronic policies and Republic Party of No obstructionism.
I suggest first we get rid of all their ideas that harm America - you know, stupid things that real conservatives hate, like foreign wars of adventure, massive anti-capitalist tax exemptions for corporations that hinder the invisible hand of capitalism, or massive tax cuts for people who export that capital overseas to their comrades along with our jobs.
Mind you, after those are removed, there won't be any GOP left over, so we can just sell off the assets and use it to pay down the massive debt they got us into with their moronic policies and Republic Party of No obstructionism.
8
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willie boy.
you've never been bright but you've become really boring too.
maybe those generics are fakes?
willie boy.
you've never been bright but you've become really boring too.
maybe those generics are fakes?
10
They hate it when I point out how unpatriotic and non-conservative they are - it reminds them of how many deferments they got and how they were "too busy" to fight in any of the Iraq or Afghanistan Wars ...
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And while we're at it....
Two of my roommates are unreconstructed fundie Republicans (yes, it makes for an interesting living situation). They talk a big talk, all about slashing spending and compassionate conservatism (heavy emphasis on one's own bootstraps comes into play a lot)... The other night I happened to ask them how much each had donated to help Haiti. Do I even have to type the answers? No, neither one gave a dime - one is completely against foreign aid of any sort (even for a natural disaster), the other (who is in fact wealthy because of an inherited stock portfolio) claimed he was too poor to help. I make the least amount of money, and I gave three times (no applause, I know others who gave waaay more than I did).
But I just found it interesting, as yet another real-life anecdote that these people who self-identify as Repugnicans really don't seem to have even the tiniest speck of compassion in them. They live in a state of fear, sure that they and their 'values' are being attacked on all sides, all the time.
Actually, if Repugs didn't have any fear, they wouldn't have anything at all.
:/
Two of my roommates are unreconstructed fundie Republicans (yes, it makes for an interesting living situation). They talk a big talk, all about slashing spending and compassionate conservatism (heavy emphasis on one's own bootstraps comes into play a lot)... The other night I happened to ask them how much each had donated to help Haiti. Do I even have to type the answers? No, neither one gave a dime - one is completely against foreign aid of any sort (even for a natural disaster), the other (who is in fact wealthy because of an inherited stock portfolio) claimed he was too poor to help. I make the least amount of money, and I gave three times (no applause, I know others who gave waaay more than I did).
But I just found it interesting, as yet another real-life anecdote that these people who self-identify as Repugnicans really don't seem to have even the tiniest speck of compassion in them. They live in a state of fear, sure that they and their 'values' are being attacked on all sides, all the time.
Actually, if Repugs didn't have any fear, they wouldn't have anything at all.
:/
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right.
amazing that you room with two "liberal's stereotypical vision of a Republican" wet dream figments of your imagination.
in the real world Conservatives donate to charity much more than Liberals.
right.
amazing that you room with two "liberal's stereotypical vision of a Republican" wet dream figments of your imagination.
in the real world Conservatives donate to charity much more than Liberals.
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8
9
no, no nerves struck.
Conservatives are much more at peace in their own skin and with the world than liberals.
We don't self-destruct or self-loath, in or out of power.
the teabaggers are political theatre.
and good, at that.
Obama's administration is going much better than we could ever have imagined, and a new campaign is already upon us.
sure, the nation and society face huge threats and, frankly, it's doubtable that we're going to pull out of the dive are are in.
but tommorow is another day and we will build a new society out of the ashes of the old.
with an unsolicited but appreciated assist from global warming or tectonic plates (Pacific, here we come!...) or Kim Jong-il (Seattle, San Franciso, Los Angelos- are your bomb shelters stocked?) or Al-Qaeda (another wack at Manhatten seems much more likely than wasting your only nuke on Boise or Birmingham...) or the next sexually transmitted Plague we expect the demographics of the Brave New World to be much more socially sustainable than this one.
(are we in Gommorah, yet?...)
it's all good either way.
Life is Fair.
no, no nerves struck.
willie has just really become tiresomely boring.
9
no, no nerves struck.
Conservatives are much more at peace in their own skin and with the world than liberals.
We don't self-destruct or self-loath, in or out of power.
the teabaggers are political theatre.
and good, at that.
Obama's administration is going much better than we could ever have imagined, and a new campaign is already upon us.
sure, the nation and society face huge threats and, frankly, it's doubtable that we're going to pull out of the dive are are in.
but tommorow is another day and we will build a new society out of the ashes of the old.
with an unsolicited but appreciated assist from global warming or tectonic plates (Pacific, here we come!...) or Kim Jong-il (Seattle, San Franciso, Los Angelos- are your bomb shelters stocked?) or Al-Qaeda (another wack at Manhatten seems much more likely than wasting your only nuke on Boise or Birmingham...) or the next sexually transmitted Plague we expect the demographics of the Brave New World to be much more socially sustainable than this one.
(are we in Gommorah, yet?...)
it's all good either way.
Life is Fair.
no, no nerves struck.
willie has just really become tiresomely boring.
15
@2 - you're right. The Dems need to grow a fucking pair and get on with it. Eight months from now at election day, nobody's going to give a shit (or remember) the process to how they got there with health care. They're going to remember that either we have health care or we don't. And that's how they're going to vote.
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