Y’all know me, I’ve been addicted to politics for more years than I actually want to count. And along the way, I learned a few things, such as there are a few very simple rules to politics. And the first one has always been Don’t do anything stupid! It can come back to bite you in the ass!
But I gotta be honest here. When I look at the current iteration of the Republican party in congress, what I actually see is a scene from the George Romero movie, Dawn of the Dead. I see a bunch of brain dead Trombies, bouncing off of each other like pinballs off of bumpers, desperately sniffing for live flesh. And it’s going to kill them.
Look, the Covid relief bill is going to pass through the Senate, and be signed by President Biden. The bill has a whopping 71% public support, including a majority of Republicans. And here’s the thing. The Republicans can’t stop it. It is going to pass. Even the lowlife GOP trolls in the House didn’t waste any time of effort trying to slow the damn thing down. Rule number one of any war, Don’t fight a battle that you cannot win.
But now the bill is in the Senate. And what does Rostov Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Senator by way of Moscow do? He forces $30,000 a year Senate clerks to read the entire 600 plus page bill into the record. He can’t stop the bill, it is going to pass, but he sure as hell can delay the benefits from going out to the people who need it the most, including his own constituents. And in the process, he’s making Chuck Schumer’s point for him.
McConnell and the GOP caught a helluva break. With a 50-50 split in the Senate, McConnell got his ultimate wish list. He found three Democratic Senators, Manchin from West Virginia, Sinema from Arizona, and Tester from Montana, all of whom were opposed to changing the filibuster. All he had to do was to not fuck it up. And he’s busy fucking it up!
McConnell can’t stop the Covid relief bill from passing, so why bother? But they’re showing the pure obstructionist practices they’ve used for the last 12 years now to delay the inevitable. And in so, they are indelibly scarring themselves as the party of obstruction.
Once the Covid relief bill passes, there are two more critical bills that will come to the floor of the Senate. The We The People Voting Act, and the George Floyd Police Reform Bill. Both of those are critical bills that Biden and the entire party ran on in 2020, and neither can be passed through budget reconciliation, like the Covid relief bill did. And McConnell, Johnson, and the GOP writ large have shown their true colors. These bills are dead in the water.
But the GOP’s insistence on being obstructive, even on a bill that they can’t stop, has made the path forward clear. The filibuster must be reformed. And with the evidence of the current obstruction on the Covid bill, the GOP has given Schumer all the ammunition he needs to pressure his recalcitrant caucus members. In short, they overplayed their hand.
It doesn’t have to be a complete scuttling of the filibuster. The Senate majority makes the rules. McConnell laser targeted his filibuster reform to remove the 70 vote threshold for SCOTUS nominees. Schumer can likewise micro target his filibuster reform to exclude small d democracy bills. That would allow both the We The People Act, as well as the John Lewis Civil Rights Act to slide in with a 50 vote majority.
I’m sorry, but that isn’t good enough fore me. That leaves the George Floyd Police Reform Bill twisting in the wind. And after the African American turnout that made Biden President, that won’t do. I prefer a couple of different changes. The current rule is that there must be 60 votes for cloture. This is insane. Flip the rule instead. Make the minority side get 55 votes in order to filibuster. Or lacking that, go back to the talking filibuster, make the minority hold the floor with a talking filibuster, and when they collapse to the floor, the vote is held.
The point is, that the GOP are some of the dumbest sumsabitches I’ve ever seen. All they needed to do is to pick their battles. But they just couldn’t contain themselves from being obstructionist pricks. The pressure of a filibuster was all about a minority carrying the burden. And there are ways to force the GOP to have to go to some very uncomfortable lengths to do it. Play time is over.
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I agree, why go to the mattresses over the covid bill. When the votes come in it will pass with at least 3 or four republicans. I wonder if Mcturtle is whipping this to show his control of the conference after his disastrous impeachment debacle.
I’m kind of thinking this will be a bit more like some of the “controversial” bills that were filibustered and forced a cloture vote (with the necessary 60) and the actual bill, once cloture was achieved, would end up passing by even larger margins. (Most of these were back in the late Bush/early Obama years when the Dems had around 55 seats in the Senate.)
Once all the assholery is done, the GOPers who’ve been forcing these unnecessary tactics will vote against, but the GOPers who’ve been just kind of sitting there, smiling, will vote for the bill and I’m thinking the bill passes with 60 to 65 votes.
Good points. Can we call him Yertle? What would Dr Seuss of non-scandal do? Blah ha ha.
Johnson fcked it up – they finished reading the bill, no Rs were on the floor, so a D moved to cut debate time to three hours.