With the tide of public opinion moving against barring gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, state Senator and congressional candidate Gary Nodler (R-MO) has a new argument for keeping gays from serving: it’ll offend the people of the Muslim countries where our soldiers are serving and make them more likely to help the terrorists.
Have you heard anyone say “The Republicans won’t allow an up or down vote on a jobs bill.”
Anywhere?
(ed.note: In case you’re wondering, this is a real question, not just a rhetorical one.)
TPM Reader JO keeps it real …
Your question about whether anyone had heard the phrase “up or down vote on a jobs bill” struck a chord. It’s not just the jobs bill. I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard a Democrat use the phrase “up or down vote” on any bill held up by Republicans in the Senate. This is a shame, since a demand for an “up or down vote” is a far better message than the self-defeating complaints about “Republican obstructionism” we keep hearing.
Take me for an example. I’m a fairly liberal Democrat, and during the Bush years, all I wanted from the Democrats in Congress was to obstruct George Bush’s agenda. Thus, with the shoe on the other foot, “obstruction” was exactly what I demanded from my party. I am sure that most Republicans are similarly pulling for their politicians to obstruct Obama’s agenda. “Obstruction”, in other words, is hardly a dirty word in American politics. It’s shorthand for “political hardball”.
That said, during the Roberts and Alito Supreme Court nominations, even I felt a twinge of sympathy for the “up or down vote” argument that Republicans pounded away with. Similarly, the phrase “elections have consequences” resonated, at least a little. After all, America re-elected George Bush, and the nominations of Roberts and Alito was a classic case of reaping what you sow. I might not have liked it, but fair is fair.
A very interesting article in the Times about how Goldman Sachs used questionable and rather opaque derivatives help the Greek government postpone but deepen its day of fiscal crisis.
Since we had a lot of discussion of it earlier today, I wanted to return to this issue of the Democrats and “up or down votes” — my comments and also TPM Reader JO‘s.
It’s certainly not that I think if Democrats started demanding “up or down votes” the Republicans would just suddenly capitulate. As TPM Reader JO notes, just as with Democrats before 2007, there’s a big constituency of Republicans who desperately want as much vote-blocking and obstructionism as possible. And those are the folks — core Republicans voters — that the GOP listens to. Read More
From Steve Clemons …
Several years ago, I met with the Deputy Director of the Policy Planning staff of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I asked him what he was working on — and what China’s grand strategy was.
His reply: “We are trying to figure out how to keep you Americans distracted in small Middle Eastern countries.”
Read the rest here.
It seems that that biology professor who gunned down three colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville likely murdered her brother twenty-three years ago.
TPM Reader CB adds some more thoughts …
Why do you think Congressional Democrats have had such a hard time dealing with Republican obstructionism? It’s been apparent for months that Republicans are unwilling to compromise on legislative initiatives, unless by compromise you mean that they will allow Democrats to agree with their proposals. In such an environment, it is pointless for Democratic lawmakers to ask themselves whether there is a way they can craft legislation so that some Republicans will be willing to vote for their proposal – there is simply no provision that Democrats can add or remove from a bill that will make Republicans want to vote for a Democratic proposal. And yet we keep seeing efforts – like the Baucus jobs bill – in which leading Democrats tinker with or even gut their own proposals in a fruitless effort to get Republicans to sign on to the legislation.
TPM Reader TW is out of patience …
Let’s put the blame for this lack of action and acomplishment squarely
where it belongs: Obama. He has noble intentions of “changing the tone” in
Washington, but sometimes high-mindedness is simply naiveté. Enough with
the Gandhi-esque s–t – it’s time to pass some bills that will make a
positive impact in the lives of millions of Americans.
This little oddity has come up a few times recently when we’ve had to create email addresses for new staffers. But I just did a tally. And even though TPM is still a pretty small organization and has only had paid staffers for a few years, we’ve managed to have two employees named Kate, Laura, Ben, Eric, Justin, Andrew and Rachel. With 14 double-name staffers, that’s got to be more than half the people who’ve ever worked for TPM. Presumably these were very popular names in the 1980s and very late 1970s. But it still strikes me as uncanny.