Senate rules change

[Swampman]

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/s ... 00227.html

Fox News is pretty partisan on this one this morning. I expect that most of the pundits will be as well. Personally, I have no problem with this rule change. Traditions? They're made to be broken. The Senate is supposed to provide "advice and consent" to the President on his nominees. The ability of one party to prevent the other from seating certain people in positions of power is, in my view, contrary to what was intended.

I think that presidents and party leaders have, over the years, tended to choose more partisan people for appointment just to spur a fight. The reason? Make the opposing party look bad. Removing the 60 vote majority required will, I think, eliminate a lot of the bickering and one-upmanship we see in the Senate. This is one step towards restoring civility to our governing bodies. Granted we have a long way to go, and it won't happen overnight. The Republican party will be back in power soon enough and will have the same benefit the Democrats have now.

Another line on this story is that the Dems are, in the words of one commentator, "Freaking out" over Obamacare. It is thought that Harry Reid is doing this to try and distract from the debacle created by the government takeover of one-sixth of the economy. The Dems are scared to death that they're going to lose the Senate next year. They know that if they lose they'll never get Obama's picks through. Changing this rule is not only a distraction from Obamacare, but it also allows them to get Obama's appointments through before the election. This WILL come back to haunt them, but at this point they don't really care.

[Remek]

Thiese reasons fit, but not as tightly as that they need to get the people appointed to start their fundamental change to our society!

Welcome to the USSA!

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[GregVa]

This is complete bs... How can they change the rules so they can get what they want through? This is like playing a board game with a 6 year old.

Can't believe this. Next they will change the rules on the 2A without majority how will you feel then?

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[Kreutz]

I don't share your optimism; this gives a POTUS (and irregardless of who a future POTUS may be the office has acquired way too much power as it is) an even easier time to enforce their agenda without any real check.

[mamabearCali]

Unacceptable. Lawless. We are living in a time where the rule of law no longer exists. When they can change the rules of the game with such little fore thought.

I was not in favor of this in Bush's time. I am horrified at it today. They are basically usurping our laws to remake our society in their own Marxist image. That they are doing so to distract from the horrendous, embarrassing, damaging roll out of their signature legislation is even worse.

I was not aware that my hatred of these yahoos in charge could get any greater. I was wrong. They are disgusting criminals intent on imposing their Marxist immoral political system on us.

Tyranny. Lawlessness. Immorality. All of those should be hung on Reid's neck.

[skeeterss0]

I'm just hopeing the Republicans gain control of the senate soon, and the Dems will see their nuclear option backfire in their faces.

[Remek]

This is the very reason they want to stop the republicans from barring things. They want to push through the obaminations appointments before they LOSE the mid-term and have no chance of ruining the country.

I don't share your optimism; this gives a POTUS (and irregardless of who a future POTUS may be the office has acquired way too much power as it is) an even easier time to enforce their agenda without any real check.

If that was directed at me, I am sorry. I think my thread wasn't written as sarcastically as I intended. We stand in agreement, 100%.

[FiremanBob]

Swampman, unfortunately your analysis is completely wrong. One has to read the words of the Framers about separation of powers and the restrictions on federal government power to understand the importance of the filibuster. The Senate was originally designed to be the body that represents the states. That is, senators were supposed to protect their states against federal government abuse of power. The 17th Amendment was the Progressives' way to destroy the original purpose of the Senate and turn it into a partisan mechanism to enhance the power of the president and speed the "wheels of progress". The filibuster was the last protection against the rights of the people and the states being railroaded by one party.

The cynical hypocrisy of the Democrats who just a few years ago, when the Republicans had a majority in the Senate, were screaming about protecting the filibuster is all you need to see to understand its importance.

As Kreutz points out above, the purpose of Senator Palpatine's move yesterday was to pack the federal court system with partisan hack judges who will support the entire Democrat agenda.

Many people today confuse "democracy" with "constitutional republic". They think that the idea of "majority rules" is correct in all things. This is not true. The real cornerstone of the American system is the primacy of each person's natural rights, protected by the Constitution. The Framers understood clearly that the greatest threat to individual liberty was the federal government; that is why they took such care to craft a system that would slow it down and limit its power.

[Remek]

... Senator Palpatine's move yesterday was to pack the federal court system with partisan hack judges who will support the entire Democrat agenda.

Many people today confuse "democracy" with "constitutional republic". They think that the idea of "majority rules" is correct in all things. This is not true. The real cornerstone of the American system is the primacy of each person's natural rights, protected by the Constitution. The Framers understood clearly that the greatest threat to individual liberty was the federal government; that is why they took such care to craft a system that would slow it down and limit its power.

Every thing was well said, as usual, but I just wanted to quote this section. It was very important to me.

And, I love the PALPATINE reference.

[ratherfish]

Obama's "soft tyranny" just became a Tyranny with a big T.

Right after the rules change Zero forwarded 30 or so appointments!!!!!

The DC appelate is the forum for suits against the feds and all regulatory agencies. NO ONE'S TALKING ABOUT THAT!

The NYT is lauding the change. They of course lauded Stalin, ignored Nazi death camps and now earned the title of US Pravda.

[HighExpert]

The fact that struck me is they changed the rules on a party line vote without reaching 60 votes. By those standards...Repubs take the Senate, 51 vote majority, repeal OCare with 51 votes. For that matter, why not outlaw the Progressive Party forever and maybe raise the taxes on everyone who supported Obama to triple their normal rate until all the bills are paid and then take their citizenship away permanently. All we need is a strong rightwing government who really wants change. This was a very bad idea that the Deems came up with. Goes right along with all the other bad ideas.

[ratherfish]

That assumes the spineless RINO's have the gonads for a fight.

They don't. They want to put forward Krispy Creme Christy and lose again.

[Remek]

I'm telling you, they are in bed together, aside from the tea partiers, libertarians, and, possibly, some independents.

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[Swampman]

Firemanbob - unfortunately, that is your opinion, and I thank you for expressing it. I don't believe I am wrong in my thinking. Could be misguided, but that can be corrected.

Let's hear from more of you. Why do you think I am wrong?

[GeneFrenkle]

Firemanbob: The real cornerstone of the American system is the primacy of each person's natural rights, protected by the Constitution. The Framers understood clearly that the greatest threat to individual liberty was the federal government; that is why they took such care to craft a system that would slow it down and limit its power.

But this is exactly what the progressives/statists have been chipping away over the last 75-some-odd years. iirc, it was mambear that correctlypointed out God endowed us with those natural rights making them unrevokable. Thus, the elimination of God makes those rights revokable or much more easily limitable.

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[Reverenddel]

People!

Ssshhhuuussshhh!!!

You're acting like the Democrats did this WITHOUT the Republicans KNOWLEDGE OR SUPPORT!

All you're hearing is "fluff"

The Republicans, and Democrats are two side of the SAME F"CKING COIN!

They trade power to offset the "reputations", but they have been doing this since ABE LINCOLN!

We're NOT a "free country", and haven't been since 1865

[FiremanBob]

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/s ... 00227.html

Fox News is pretty partisan on this one this morning. I expect that most of the pundits will be as well. Personally, I have no problem with this rule change. Traditions? They're made to be broken. The Senate is supposed to provide "advice and consent" to the President on his nominees. The ability of one party to prevent the other from seating certain people in positions of power is, in my view, contrary to what was intended.

I think that presidents and party leaders have, over the years, tended to choose more partisan people for appointment just to spur a fight. The reason? Make the opposing party look bad. Removing the 60 vote majority required will, I think, eliminate a lot of the bickering and one-upmanship we see in the Senate. This is one step towards restoring civility to our governing bodies. Granted we have a long way to go, and it won't happen overnight. The Republican party will be back in power soon enough and will have the same benefit the Democrats have now.

Another line on this story is that the Dems are, in the words of one commentator, "Freaking out" over Obamacare. It is thought that Harry Reid is doing this to try and distract from the debacle created by the government takeover of one-sixth of the economy. The Dems are scared to death that they're going to lose the Senate next year. They know that if they lose they'll never get Obama's picks through. Changing this rule is not only a distraction from Obamacare, but it also allows them to get Obama's appointments through before the election. This WILL come back to haunt them, but at this point they don't really care.

OK, Swampman, you asked for it. What I wrote was not mere opinion, but factual analysis of the situation, based on the historical facts of the Senate's creation and the tradition of the filibuster. I will go in order of the fallacies in your post.

1. Why do you say "traditions are made to be broken"? Are not many traditions in place because they represent the best way to do things, rather than arbitrary or ideological constructs that don't work in the real world? For example, at a 4-way stop sign it is traditional for the cars to proceed in the order in which they arrived. Traditional marriage and family structure has been proven superior in the upbringing of children. I could go on with many more examples.

2. I urge you to read Madison's Notes from the Constitutional Convention and any history of the writing of the Constitution that was not written by left-wing revisionists. You will see that the purpose of the Senate, and of the filibuster, as I described it is not merely opinion but historical fact. BTW, Mark Levin is talking about exactly this topic on the radio right now.

3. You misunderstand the purpose of the "advise and consent" clause. The "advise and consent" power of the Senate is not meant to support the President's wishes. It is an essential element of the separation of powers. It is a limit on the President's power to appoint people he wants to high positions, especially lifetime appointments in the judiciary. It is expressly designed to prevent the President from appointing certain people to office. It is not a rubber stamp. When you have a rogue President, as we have, the Senate's power to prevent his appointing unqualified or corrupt partisans is exactly the point of the clause (contrary to your opinion) and critically important to the constitution and to your freedom.

There was not too long ago a similar incident to this one. In the 1930s, after the Supreme Court ruled many of FDR's New Deal programs unconstitutional, FDR floated the idea of increasing the number of justices so that he could appoint a majority. The Senate made clear to him that it would not support that, and the idea died.

4. Presidents do not make appointments "to spur a fight". That's a ridiculous idea. They make appointments to put people in positions of power who will support their ideology and agenda. The Obamunists know that if they get enough of their hacks into lifetime judgeships, they can wreak havoc on the Constitution even if we someday get a conservative Congress and President again.

5. The reason that the US Senate became renowned as "the world's greatest deliberative body" is precisely its tradition of unlimited debate. Your view of such debate as "mere bickering and one-upmanship" shows that you are not aware of the history of the Senate. While the quality of the political rhetoric and tactics has fallen to a shameful level in modern times (concurrent with the general debasing of our culture), it was not always that way. Unbridled debate in the Senate, by senators who represented their states, not their party, was the intention of the Framers. It was meant to slow down the federal government and ensure that it did not overstep the constitutional boundaries of its power. The 17th Amendment was designed to destroy that, as I wrote earlier. The civility you seem to want is actually the cowed silence of the minority, so that the majority can rule with whatever degree of tyranny they wish. Is that really what you want?

When you say that disarming the minority party in the Senate would lead to an increase in civility, do you realize what you are really saying? It is the same as the argument of the gun-grabbers: "If nobody had weapons, there would be no crime." The filibuster is the weapon of the minority party to be used in self-defense against the aggression of the majority. Without it, your rights are the victim.

5. Thanks to the Democrats' strategy of making millions of voters dependent on government handouts, combined with the corruption and election fraud machinery of the Democrat party, it is not true that the Republicans will come back to power "soon enough." In fact, it may be that the Democrat machine has utterly destroyed the integrity of the election process in sufficient states that we will never have another honest national election. Look at the progress they made in Virginia this year.

For reason #5 above, I do not believe the Dems fear losing the Senate next year. I think we are about to see an election that will be as dirty, corrupt and fraudulent as anything in Venezuela, Cuba or Russia.

The Democrat propaganda machine is the Left's best asset; the Republicans' is their weakest. Obamacare will fail, but the Obamunists will succeed in blaming it on the Republicans - not because it would be true, but because their lies will prevail after being amplified by the constant drumbeat of the left-wing traditional media.

Learn your history, my friend, and you will see the reality of the present crisis.

[SilentServiceVet]

We used to be the only nation in the world whose legislative body provided a significant amount of power for the minority party -- a move the founding fathers did in order to protect our nation from an out-of-control majority. Well, not anymore. The irony is that Harry Reid warned the Republicans against making this very same move back in, I believe, '06. Now that Reid has done it, and with the ACA such a dismal failure thus far, the Dems have nothing to lose and will go for broke, taking a wrecking ball to whatever laws and appointments they can. Reid is Obama's puppet and if Obama can't leave a legacy of healthcare reform, he will damn sure leave a legacy of liberal appointees to as many high-ranking positions as he can. What better way to spread his leftist, socialist agenda?

I hope people are paying close attention because we just reached, and passed, a critical tipping point, but most people simply either don't care or are just plain too stupid to know when the canoe is going over the falls. Most people, IMHO, simply just want to live their lives and not have to pay attention to what our elected officials are doing ... until it's too late. I can only hope that the pendulum swings back the other way in the 2014 elections and we re-take the Senate so we the People can then return the favor to Reid, and do to the Dems what they are about to do to us. But I have this feeling that I'll be disappointed once again.

[Kreutz]

5. Thanks to the Democrats' strategy of making millions of voters dependent on government handouts, combined with the corruption and election fraud machinery of the Democrat party, it is not true that the Republicans will come back to power "soon enough." In fact, it may be that the Democrat machine has utterly destroyed the integrity of the election process in sufficient states that we will never have another honest national election. Look at the progress they made in Virginia this year.

For reason #5 above, I do not believe the Dems fear losing the Senate next year. I think we are about to see an election that will be as dirty, corrupt and fraudulent as anything in Venezuela, Cuba or Russia.

The Democrat propaganda machine is the Left's best asset; the Republicans' is their weakest. Obamacare will fail, but the Obamunists will succeed in blaming it on the Republicans - not because it would be true, but because their lies will prevail after being amplified by the constant drumbeat of the left-wing traditional media.

Learn your history, my friend, and you will see the reality of the present crisis.

This.

We're approaching terminal velocity since we've been in freefall for awhile; the only question is how long to impact the bottom?

Some say any day, I say three+ generation...who knows though?

At this point though theres nothing one can do to stop it. Try and enjoy the ride.

[Remek]

My prediction: within 10 years, more likely 3, and I really like the number 2, so two years.

When the realization comes that we arent going to get better, foreign purchases of our bonds will cease. All it takes is one major buyer to stop, and everyone will stop. I think Americans are also smart, and realizing that they shouldnt buy anymore, so the only thing propping them up will be the SS system, but that is faulty anyway.

Crash crash crash away.