Category Archives: senate
Amnesty
Senate Democrats filibustered a bill that would withhold funding from Homeland Security until the president pulls back his executive order on amnesty for illegal immigrants. Not gonna happen.
Besides, a federal judge in Texas already suspended the Obama order. Republicans must have got the news yesterday. Mitch McConnell caved.
Veto Proof
In an interview with NPR President Obama had this to say about losing the Senate in the midterm elections:
I haven’t used the veto pen very often since I’ve been in office, partly because legislation that I objected to was typically blocked in the Senate even after the House took over — Republicans took over the House.
Now I suspect there are going to be some times where I’ve got to pull that pen out.
Within the first hour of the new session of the 114th Congress he threatened to veto the Keystone pipeline bill. He also threatened to veto bills on immigration and regulations.
Still Bush’s Fault
Diane Feinstein issued a Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA terrorist interrogation tactics it called torture. Members of the committee approved those same tactics after the 9/11 attacks.
The report was written the style of the health care bill – 100% by Democrats. And researched Rolling Stone style – none of the accused were interviewed.
Bottom line – it’s almost 2015 and it’s still Bush’s fault.
Chuck Schumer Bails on ObamaCare
Chuck Schumer, the third ranking Senate Democrat, gave a speech trashing ObamaCare. He said it was a mistake to ram through health care reform when the main concern of voters was the economy. The uninsured were a small percentage of the electorate and most of them didn’t vote. ObamaCare meant middle class working people had to pay more for their insurance to subsidize the non-voting beneficiaries of ObamaCare. Schemer said that was politically stupid. As a result Democrats are now getting shellacked at the polls.
The speech came as a shock to Progressives and the press but it’s something Schumer must have given a lot of thought to. As Dan Henninger said in the WSJ, “Let us count the times Sen. Chuck Schumer has blown himself up politically.
That was a short count, wasn’t it?”
Harry Reid’s Desk
A year ago President Obama said, “If you don’t like a particular policy, if you don’t like a particular president, go out there and argue your position, win an election.”
And so it came to pass.
Now that his party has lost the Senate, Obama says he’s willing to listen to Republican ideas – if they have any. Whether he is or they do remains to be seen. But they have had some ideas in the past. Those ideas were packaged into about 350 House Resolutions and passed on to the Senate where they sit in Harry Reid’s desk.
The way Mitch McConnell sees it Reid protected the president from legislation he didn’t like by not bringing bills to his desk.
The New York Times, in January, called Harry a brute.
Politifact, however, says some of those bills are simply caught up in committee. Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post says it’s not at all unusual for Harry Reid to have 300 bills to be stuffed in his drawers.
