Harry Reid goes nuclear!
By Thom Hartmann A...
Yesterday, majority rule finally returned to the U.S. Senate. After five years of Republican obstruction, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid invoked the so-called “nuclear option,” with 52 Democrats voting to reform the filibuster. Since President Obama took office, Republicans have used the filibuster more than any other time in our history. And, they have held up more than 1,000 executive nominees to courts and federal agencies.
Back in July, Senator Reid tried to make a deal with Republicans to avert the nuclear option. Reid vowed to leave existing rules in place if Republicans agreed to allow a vote on some of President Obama's nominees. But, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold up his end of that bargain, and blocking three presidential appointments to the all-important D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Finally, enough was enough for Harry Reid and the Democrats, and they voted to change the filibuster rules.
For five years, Republicans have used the filibuster to block the President's choices for important agencies like the EPA, the DC Circuit Court, the National Labor Relations Board, and even the Department of Defense. They have used the procedural maneuver as a weapon, to prevent these agencies from functioning, or to hold on to Republican control of high-profile courts. The level of obstruction was unprecedented, and the nuclear option was far over-due.
Comments
#2
Quote Kend:DAnne if you believe in solar you should invest in it. But I don't so why should I pay for it with my tax dollars.
Kend ~ Oh, gee, I don't know. I don't believe in bombing villages in Afghanistan; yet, somehow, I seem to be paying for it. Kend, you've asked that same stupid questions over, and over, and over again. Do you ever get tired of sounding like a gibbering idiot. I just defined insanity for you. You could expand that definition to include asking the same question over and over and over again--if you really expect a different result.
The government spends our tax money in efforts to meet the common needs of everyone as it sees fit. The fact that we don't always like or agree with how that money is spent comes with the necessary evil of government. There will never be a time when you, I or anyone else approves of how every penny is spent by the government. However, the simple fact of the matter is that the government is the only organization capable of spending that money the most efficiently. That means a bigger bang for the buck. When it comes to something like education, healthcare, and infrastructure efficient spending is my main concern. In addition, the government is the only organization that is answerable directly to We the People. That is why you will never convince myself, or, anyone else who agrees with me that something as critical as energy is something the government doesn't have any business in. As far as I am concerned investing in solar energy is investing in children's health care. It is preventive medicine. It is money that help to improve and maintain their health throughout their lives. If you're looking to fund actual health care why don't you pick cutting our military spending? That is a far greater waste of money with absolutely no return. Military spending only pays for death and destruction. That makes no sense to me at all.
The reality of the situation is this. The government has worked perfectly up until the time of the Reagan Administration. The wealthy interests that backed Reagan did so with the intention of stealing the infrastructure that We the People paid for through the government and then rent it back to We the People for profit. That was not the intent of the original investments. This crime is nothing new. It has already been done in Mexico. The result, the commons go unfunded and unmaintained. Meanwhile, the people get taxed twice, once to fund a "limited" government, and again to use the privatized commons. Great system. Since you love that sort of thing so much you should move to Mexico. You'd love it there. Hasta la vista, baby!
#3
DAnne you keep bringing up military spending, I hate military spending unless we are under a threat of attack.
I might of said this before but, I used to have low income apartments that I rented. People in my city built them and rented them because they could carry themselves and we would hope they would go up in value and we old sell them in our later years and retire. The city decided the rents where not low enough so they built low income housing complexes. With tax payers dollars. Our apartments where always cared for and well maintained as we had a lot of money in them and wanted to get good tenants. The city complexes became all run down and gang project looking. Owners like me couldn't compete with the bottomless pockets of the city so we did condo conversions on our buildings and sold them. There hasn't been a private low income apartment built in my city for 25 years. They are mostly city owned and run down. Those poor people have no option now but to stay iin those horrible buildings. So I find I very very hard to believe government can do it better. They completely screwed up the rental market here And it the poor who are paying for it.
#4
Quote kend:Are you saying that you have to be lucky or crooked to become wealthy? some are just hard working driven people
There are a lot of very hard working people that work a lot harder than many of those people who got lucky. The lucky ones were either born with a silver spoon in their mouths or they got lucky because they knew people...had connections. Of course, there are some exceptions...some people just got lucky because they thought of a good idea and took a chance in implementing it. But lots of people get good ideas but they don't all pan out. Some people just lose their shirts. It's a gamble isn't it? Just like going to a Casino...if you're lucky you win...if you're not...you lose. Many people lose. And it is the braggadocio, egotistical and selfish winners who look down their noses at those who lost. They develop a superior, holier-than-thou attitude over the ones who didn't make it. Their megalomaniacal and warped beliefs deserve the hatreds that they've earned. Oh sure, some of them may even try to make themselves look beneficent and generous by donating to some charity but they are merely giving back a little bit of the booty that they stole to begin with. We all would be way better off had they not stolen it to begin with. In France, when the snot-nosed wealthy thought they were too good to pay taxes and made the little people bear the burden, the little people rose up and lopped of some heads. Maybe it's time we break out the guillotines again!
#5
I guess when people refer to "the government" they all have differing views as to what "the government" is. The people who call "the government" bad because they try to regulate the wolves from being rapaciously greedy really have very little room, today, to make such claims as they have gotten away with, literally, murder in the name of maximizing profits. They own the government because they control the government. They pay so little taxes that they are forcing the burden on those of us who are having a very hard time trying to make ends meet. Some of us are actually dying from the results of these greedy bastards who own the government. And people may have to resort to a self-defense mechanism, some day, and fight back lest they subserviently submit and resign themselves to their slavery and eventual death beds.
The government is supposed to be there for the majority of the people... not mollycoddle the wealthy. So, when the wealthy bad-mouths "the government"...they don't mean "the government", the corrupt government that assists in making them wealthier and more powerful..they are talking about "the government" that performs in the manner it was originally supposed to perform in protecting the people. They mean "the government" that regulates what they can and cannot get away with.
#6
Quote kend:The city decided the rents where not low enough so they built low income housing complexes. With tax payers dollars.And just who do you suppose profited from building those "low income housing complexes"? Yes, tax dollars taken mostly from those who don't have the power to resist paying their taxes like the corporations do. And those businesses that built those housing complexes made themselves even wealthier. Tax dollars shelled out to businesses and corporations always makes a lot of money for them. Oh, and excuse me, you're not complaining because the Casino didn't pay off big time in a real estate bubble scam are you? Again, it seems to me that it is obviously yet another attempt at trying to blame the little guy for you not getting as much of a windfall as you had hoped. Think about how much money is lost by millions of homeowners who bought into the big lie...the big scam...before the bubble burst. All those real estate people, builders, financiers, etc. who all made a killing by running up the prices that caused the bubbles really victimized millions of people.
#7
Palin I don't know any wealthy person who looks down at the ones who don't succeed. they want everyone to succeed. I guess I must be made up different as I don't care if someone was born into money or got lucky Good for them. One less who isnt struggling.
down there politics does work a little different I can't believe how weathly they get in the USA. just google them on celebrity net worth it will blow your mind. A government worker all there life and worth millions.
I do have to remind myself I live in a different country than you and things are a bit different. We are taxed more here and you don't have to work a day in your life to get health care and a good education.
#8
Quote kend:Those poor people have no option now but to stay iin those horrible buildings.Pay them a decent wage and benefits, stop sending our jobs overseas, stop forcing the tax burden on those least able to pay and maybe people could afford to pay higher rent or buy houses and keep their values up. But a lot of people are now truly downtrodden and beaten to a pulp by greedy, capitalist, rapacious pigs who maximize THEIR profits in all sorts of devious ways. What incentive do slaves have to do anything meaningful (in the eyes of the lucky wealthy people anyway)?
#9
Quote kend: A government worker all their life and worth millions.No kidding!!! And our politicians also do illegal drugs too...as well as other very sordid things. I wouldn't doubt that many are being blackmailed and that is part of the reason why criminals own them. And the fact that those powers have already demonstrated a number of times what they can do to politicians who don't play ball. JFK, RFK, MLK, etal, have all found out what they can do to influential people if they don't let the criminals get what they want.
#10
Quote kend:We are taxed more here and you don't have to work a day in your life to get health care and a good education.Sounds like a Utopia to me...even the taxes...as long as the taxes were spent on things like single payer healthcare and good education...as long as people were taxed progressively so that the wealthy don't have so much corrupting influence that can buy or threaten the government that administers it all. As long as the taxes aren't squandered away on unnecessary and illegal wars that kill millions of civilians.
The government is supposed to be by the people, and for the people...not by the wealthy few, for the wealthy few.
And I know from experience (from when I had to work in Edmonton one time) that Canada does try (or at least did try) to protect Canadian jobs. Do they offshore jobs like they do in the US? Beautiful cities!...Edmonton and Calgary. And I've been to Vancouver and Toronto, too.
#11
Gotta go for now...final episode of Boardwalk Empire!
#12
A legitimate function of government is to protect the weak from the strong. Right wing libertarians and opponents of government intervention are generally of the "strong" and are concerned only with the vested interests of the owners of business - more narrowly, big business - and consider those who work for someone else expendable and dispensable like so many objects for their own use or discard. To remove government intervention is to leave the strong to prey upon the weak at will.
The "magic of the marketplace" theory is, therefore, a patent sham, it merely allows the weak or less powerful to be consumed. If you point this out to an exponent of the theory they don't deny it but say, in the same breath they just finnished saying the magic of the marketplace assures everyone's well being without government intervention, that it is OK for the less powerful to be sacrificed because everyone's well being should not, after all, be assured and that that's for the sake of everyone's freedom (but not the freedom of the less powerful, I suppose). Actually, of course, it's not for everyone's freedom but for their own class privilege. It's only for that that the marketplace has any magic.
#13
They have more option now than they had before. "Tax payer dollars" are a very appropriate source for housing the free market is not providing. Either you pay more taxes, Kend, or you don't undercompensate the poor as an employer. What you don't pay in wages, Kend, you will pay in taxes. If you refuse to do either, Kend, and prevail, the plight of the poor you purport to care so much about will go unassisted, unimproved and will, no doubt, worsen and spiral deleteriously.
Kend, you are an employer, those who work for someone else have nothing that doesn't ultimately come from you or other employers. We cannot all be business owners. Even in your perfect world, where everybody's perfectly ambitious and entrepreneurial, some people will have to work for someone else. The only question is will they be justly compensated. What you don't pay in wages you will pay in taxes but the question remains will they be justly compensated. Compensating them as little as you can get away with is NOT just compensation. The question is are they getting a fair percentage of the profits and are they getting the decent life they deserve (unlike the poor you concern so much about).
There should be no such thing as the "working poor". That, itself, should be oxymoronic, that, itself, is injustice. Nobody should have to work full time for the privilege of living in poverty.
And, everybody deserves a job.
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Kend ~ I believe you meant "redistribution." You know Kend, the definition of insanity is the repetition of the same act, each time expecting a different result. Limited government has been tried under Ronald Wilson (666) Reagan and after 30 years has proven itself to not succeed. "Trickle down" "supply side" economics benefits only the few at the top. The private sector does nothing with "a business atmosphere that everyone wants to invest in" other than take every advantage and screw everyone they can. Corporations are answerable to their shareholders and not We the People. That is the major problem. The only way to ensure that people have access to their basic needs--a good job with a good wage, retirement savings, a great education, and health care--is to place all of those services directly under the control of everyone; that is, the control of the government. Screw limited government. The government is the only thing that stands between regular people and the ravaging wolfs of Wall Street. The government is the only social resource that pools the power of everyone. The government is the best, cheapest, and most reliable source of providing all the services you are talking about. To leave those duties up to private, for profit organizations is the most stupid and irresponsible suggestion I've ever heard. Not only does it not make sense on paper, but recent history testifies that such a system is a catastrophic failure for everyone involved who is not directly profiting from it. The idea that such a system is a viable solution to these problems can only be described as the ultimate pipe dream.