Tag Archives: government

Filibuster

Posted on by
2

Harry Reid, who was for the filibuster before he was against it, has determined that this hallowed protection of the political minority from the tyranny of the majority must end.  First, some background.

The Senate’s filibuster process is enshrined in two Senate rules, Rules 22 and 5.  Rule 22 says in pertinent part

“Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?” And if that question shall be decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn—except on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, in which case the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting—then said measure, motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished business, shall be the unfinished business to the exclusion of all other business until disposed of.

Thus, if only 90 Senators of 100 sitting are present, ending the filibuster would still require 60 votes.

Rule 5 is this, in its entirety:

SUSPENSION AND AMENDMENT OF THE RULES

1. No motion to suspend, modify, or amend any rule, or any part thereof, shall be in order, except on one day’s notice in writing, specifying precisely the rule or part proposed to be suspended, modified, or amended, and the purpose thereof.  Any rule may be suspended without notice by the unanimous consent of the Senate, except as otherwise provided by the rules.

2. The rules of the Senate shall continue from one Congress to the next Congress unless they are changed as provided in these rules.

There are three items of interest here:

  • it takes a 2/3 vote of sitting Senators to approve a Rules change
  • a rules change effort requires at least a one-day advance notice
  • rules continue from one Congressional session to another—that’s why they’re called “Standing Rules.”

As Hans A von Spakovsky, writing in the National Review Online, puts it,

[T]he Senate has always considered itself a continuing body, because only a third of its members are up for election at any one time.

Now the move.  Enter stage left, the Progressive Senator from Nevada, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV).  Reid has announced that he will move to alter (eliminate) Rule 22 (the filibuster rule) in the coming Congressional session.  And he’s said he’ll do it

on the first day of the new session

and

it will take only a simple majority of 51 votes to shut down debate on the proposal.

There are three items of interest here, too.

  • a minor point: he cannot do this on the first day of the new session; Rule 5 demands a day’s prior notice—this means he cannot attempt his change until the second day.
  • a critical point: he cannot do this without a  2/3 vote to end debate on his proposed change—no simple majority allowed—unless
  • a critical point: he violates Rule 5 (again) by disregarding the fact that the Senate’s Rules continue from Congressional session to Congressional session.  That’s the only way he can get from a super majority to shut down debate on his Rule change to a simple majority.

There’ a fourth item of interest, too.  This is what Reid said in 2005, when the Republicans were contemplating a similar move:

For people to suggest that you can break the rules to change the rules is un-American. …a rule that now says to change a rule in the—in the—Senate rules to break a filibuster there still requires 67 votes….  But now we’re told that they’re going to…come in here and have the Vice President [preside], and he would just say the Parliamentarian, which would acknowledge that it’s illegal, it’s wrong…he would just overrule.  You would be breaking the rules to change the rules—very un-American.

And

The filibuster is far from a “procedural gimmick.” It is part of the fabric of this institution. It was well known in colonial legislatures, and it is an integral part of our country’s 217 years of history.

…

The roots of the filibuster can be found in the Constitution and in the Senate rules.

…

If Republicans rollback our rights in this Chamber, there will be no check on their power.  The radical, right wing will be free to pursue any agenda they want.

And from President Barack Obama, through Dan Pfeiffer, his White House Communications Director:

The President has said many times that the American people are demanding action. They want to see progress, not partisan delay games.  That hasn’t changed, and the President supports Majority Leader Reid’s efforts to reform the filibuster process.

Which follows Senator Obama’s remarks on filibuster in 2005:

What [the American people] don’t expect is for one party—be it Republican or Democrat—to change the rules in the middle of the game so that they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet.

…that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster, if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse.

Is there any clearer demonstration of the dishonesty of the Progressive Movement in the United States government?

Good Faith Negotiations

Posted on by
2

Here’s another example of good faith, Progressive style.  This occurred in the failed fiscal cliff “negotiations:”

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table.  What do I get for that?”

“You get nothing,” the president said.  “I get that for free.”

It’s certainly true that a number of chuckleheads, as one Republican participant called them, let themselves be confused into thinking that voting to preserve the present tax rates for 99.8% of Americans was the same as voting for a tax increase—even though the Great Grover Norquist had given permission for such a vote.

But the fact is, that President Barack Obama has been discussing in bad faith all along: he wants the cliff.  With the cliff, he gets tax rate increases all across the board, he gets to gut Defense spending, and he gets to blame Republicans for the economic and security disaster that will result—all Progressive dreams.  And that blame is as important to Obama’s ego as are the tax increases and the Defense cuts.

It is unfortunate that the GOP has chosen to be complicit in this shameful affair, but there it is.  They’ve emasculated themselves with an idiotic civil war, and they’ve rendered themselves impotent for the next two years.  Look for the Progressives to retain control of the Senate and regain control of the House in 2014, and to retain the White House in 2016.

Had the Republicans been able to pass Plan B in the House, those chuckleheads would have achieved three things: they would have voted for the present tax rates for nearly all Americans, they would have put the onus on the Progressives—as Speaker of the House John Boehnor (R, OH) put it

[T]he president will have a decision to make.  He can call on the Senate Democrats to pass that bill, or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history

—to come up with an honest counterproposal.  And put the failure of the negotiations squarely on the shoulders of the Progressives in the Senate and the White House.

Now, Republicans don’t have anything at all for the debt ceiling debate other than an understanding of how to fail.

Congratulations, guys.

Never Let a Crisis….

Posted on by
Reply

The Democrats, led by President Barack Obama and Senators Diane Feinstein (D, CA) and Chuck Schumer (D, NY) want to “discuss” gun control and make it harder/impossible for us to retain our 2nd Amendment rights.  But this would make us more like Europe, and that’s a Good Thing, isn’t it?

Here’s what Europe is blathering on about in re the Newtown mass murder.

[The Newtown massacre] is once again the unavoidable result of a national culture….  Once again, the United States is debating its gun laws, even if the discussion is likely to be short and inconclusive.  But the real thing that must change (though it hardly will), is the misunderstanding that America’s formative myth of “freedom” allows for weapons to be as widespread as smart phones.

And from Süddeutsche Zeitung, this:

Their [Republicans and the gun lobby] opposition to almost any kind of gun control borders on political complicity in murder and manslaughter.

And from Die Welt, this, even as they “recognize” the legitimacy of private ownership of guns:

A country-wide weapons registry would make sense. … [A]t least a ban on semi-automatic weapons, such as the one that existed during the administration of Bill Clinton, makes sense.

And from Stuttgarter Zeitung, this:

[T]this variety of martial liberalism is a relic of a bygone era that no longer fits in the time.

Never mind our Creator’s endowment of rights and the expression of them in our Bill of Rights.  The latter exists to facilitate our satisfaction of our individual endowment of obligations, which includes our obligation to help each other enjoy those inalienable rights.  Which demands an ability to defend ourselves and our fellows by force of arms, if necessary, not only against other members of our compact and intruders from outside it, but also against an overweening, overly intrusive government that is a necessary evil and not the fount of our rights, responsibilities, and freedoms.  Which in turn demands a 2nd Amendment that explicitly acknowledges our inherent right to be adequately armed for executing that self- and mutual defense.

Disarming us, as even the Süddeutsche Zeitung understood elsewhere in its editorial, cannot have prevented such mass murders.  Disarming us would not disarm the criminals, or the insane, or the criminals who would use the insane.  Progressives dismiss this as ridiculous, a catch phrase, but it is no less a truth for that.

Nor has the threat receded in a modern, dangerous world, as the Stuttgarter Zeitung so innocently hopes.  Thinking so is dangerously naïve.

Government has no need to know what its employers have in our possession.  Fishing expeditions, which include a national gun registry with its associated limits on the purpose for which we might be permitted to possess and use a firearm, and of which restrictions on what we are in the end permitted to own are a subset, are at once an early step in the erosion of freedom and a textbook example of why another requirement was written into our Bill of Rights: the need for a separately court-approved search warrant before our government might pry into our private affairs.  A government that assumes, a priori, that its employers are dishonest is a government that, even more so, cannot be trusted.

What those who idolize Government, those who truly think that government is the origin of our rights, responsibilities, and freedoms—rather than an unfortunately necessary tool for helping us preserve our individual liberties and satisfy our individual responsibilities—do not understand is that these are truly individual; our liberties and obligations are individual and are inherent in us as individuals.  Thus, we cannot wish them away onto another entity for preservation or satisfaction.  They cannot be divorced from us any more than our lives can be.

In the end, the only ones who want to disarm a population are those in Government with guilty consciences about their own designs on liberty and those who truly believe that freedom flows from Government and not from God.  Both sorts are dangerous.

There’s Secession and There’s Secession

Posted on by
Reply

There are petitions on the White House’s Web site, signed by a sufficient number of petitioners to require a response from the White House, advocating secession from the union by various states.  These are being carefully ignored, but that’s a different story.

In Wisconsin, when the democratic process went against Democrats, those Democrats seceded from Wisconsin, decamping for motels in Illinois.  They remained in their state of rebellion for weeks, paralyzing Wisconsin’s government, attempting to destroy the democratic process they hated so much.

In Indiana, when the democratic process went against Democrats, those Democrats seceded from Indiana, also decamping for motels in Illinois.  They remained in their state of rebellion for weeks, paralyzing Indiana’s government, attempting to destroy the democratic process they hated so much.

Now, in Michigan, when the democratic process went against Democrats, those Democrats seceded from Michigan, this time relocating nearby.  That these Democrats’ rebellion failed so quickly (but not for lack of effort) was only because Michigan’s laws made the Michigan Democrats’ secession toothless.  There were sufficient majorities (and no need for supermajorities) in both houses of the state’s government from non-Democratic Party representatives and senators to form a quorum in each house, and neither the Michigan government nor Michigan citizens’ continued access to democracy were harmed materially by the Democrats’ rebellion.

The state citizens’ petitions to secede from the union were never serious efforts to depart; they were protests of an overweening federal government, gestures only.

The Democrats’ secessions from those three state governments were not gestures.  They were conducted for the avowed purpose of bringing down those democratically elected governments so Democrats could impose their minority will on the majority; so Democrats could override the will of the citizens as implemented by their elected representatives to their governments.  What the Democrats could not achieve through the democratic process they attempted to force into being by force of rebellion.

“Elections have consequences.”  But those consequences are acceptable only when they serve Progressive ends.  That’s the face of Progressivism and the Democratic Party today: rather than abide by a democratic election result, secede and try to prevent government from functioning.

Spending

Posted on by
Reply

Here‘s an interesting table, from The Motley Fool.

A couple of notes.  Spending in 2012, the fourth year of the Age of Obama, relative to our nation’s total economic output, our GDP, is up 18%.  The government spends nearly a quarter of our total economic production, production that by the government’s usurpation we in the private sector cannot use for our own ends.

Defense spending is down more than 17% from its long term average.  Even so, President Barack Obama is bent on gutting our defense capability by another half-trillion dollars, starting next month.  Never mind that al-Qaeda is resurgent across northern Africa, the Middle East, and western Asia.  Never mind that Iran is on the verge of a nuclear breakout.  Never mind that Russia and the People’s Republic of China both are increasing their own military spending and that the PRC, especially, is becoming increasingly aggressive militarily with their growing capability.

Welfare spending is nearly 9% of our GDP, up nearly two-thirds from a skosh over 5%.  Yet Obama wants to increase welfare spending even further.  I’ve written here about the trap that is welfare; one can only speculate about Obama’s motives for this.