Control of both houses is one thing, but remember the Republicans have without regard for the actual issue decided that important legislation gets 0 votes from them and will be stalled at ever available opportunity.
With an assumed filibuster you need 60 total votes to get anything passed. In the normal sane world pre-Obama, you could expect a few non-partisan votes here and there.
All Democrats aren’t the same, they have more conservative ones along with the centrists and liberals, getting all 60 of those people to vote on the same thing is apparently harder than getting all 40 Republicans to blindly and without thought or regard for the country to march in robotic lockstep.
The fact that Dems have trouble getting a unanimous 60 votes shows they’re actually trying to govern, not simply showing up while knowing that the only vote they’ll cast that day is nay.
**Magellan, not mswas. But it hasn’t turned out pretty well for moderates. It’s not like moderate bills are getting passed. Nothing is getting passed, because the Democratic leadership doesn’t have the balls to maintain discipline in its own party and they’re letting the Republicans outflank them on everything.
If the Republicans are able to block everything so well with the numbers they have, then why couldn’t the Democrats do the same during the Bush administration? And why didn’t they?
Brown also brings the opinion that water boarding is not torture, apparently, which is a pretty fucking dumb thing for a JAG attorney to say.
The Bush Administration had 9/11. Most of Bush’s signature legislation - including the tax cuts - were passed in the aftermath of 9/11. Obama had lots of political capital from the closest thing you get to a landslide election these days, but nothing like 9/11.
Also, the Republicans have better party discipline. Republicans are better at Democrats when it comes to most political skills.
Because some Democrats will naturally agree with specific bills. It’s the nature of humanity. And to risk sounding partisan, the Democrats during Bush II’s term weren’t shrieking petulant children like the current crop of Republicans are. They scream about death panels, birth certificates and the loss of freedom instead of governing.
You can’t convince me that not one fucking Republican Senator doesn’t think that HCR is a net good for the country. What they know is that the RNC will field primary challenges against them for anyone that even thinks about helping the Democrats. It’s partisanship taken to its highest form. Right now, at this point in history you might as well replace the Republican members of the Senate with cinder blocks that have “NO!” written on them in red paint.
He’s also very publicly against “giving rights to terrorists”, as if rights were something optional that is granted or not depending on the nature of the accusation. Not a confidence-inspiring position for someone hoping to take an oath to support a Constitution he doesn’t quite understand, huh?
Coakley should have nailed him for it in the debates, but then she’d be “soft on defending America” and all that, and she’s just too cautious.
So, why couldn’t the Democrats be more like the Republicans, then? Why couldn’t they have said during the Bush administration, “If you support this Republican legislation, we’re going to heavily fund challenges against you.”? Why can’t Reid say to Ben Nelson or whoever else about this heath care legislation, “Look, this is an important bill for us. So either you shut up, stop causing trouble, and vote for it, or I will make it the goal of the entire Democratic Party to fuck you up. You won’t get any reelection support, and I’ll make sure Nebraska gets no federal money for as long as you’re the Senator.”? There’s just no leadership coming from the Democratic leadership.
Is that what you really want? The Republicans are acting like assholes and they’re putting the country second to their interests. I think it’s a good thing that the Dems aren’t doing that.
If we never got anything done, we’d never get anything done. I think compromise is how we’re supposed to do things, the Republicans are acting like hysterical children and wishing the Dems did it too would just run the whole country into the toilet.
As for Ben Nelson, he knows he can’t get elected in a strongly conservative area unless he brings home some bacon for his state. It sucks, but as I said, Nelson would be un-necessary if the Republicans weren’t acting like unthinking robots.
I think that passing the stuff that the Democrats advocate is in the country’s interests. If the Republicans act like that, the Democrats have to act like that too. The alternative is, like you said, nothing gets done. Then, the Republicans get majorities because people are so upset that the Democrats didn’t do anything, and they get their agendas through.
The country’s already in the toilet after the past 9 years, and I for one aren’t happy about the idea of bringing a knife to a gunfight.
I wish she would have. She wold have gotten killed on it. There is no reason why we have to extend the rights granted to us as citizens to foreign terrorists. Military tribunals work just fine.
Do we stand for human rights, or just such humans as we approve? Do we need to prove they are terrorists, or no? May we assume they are terrorists, and grant them “human rights” when they can prove that they are not?
No? Okay, there are human rights and there are legal rights. Those subject to military tribunals do not have their human rights violated in any way. They are even protected by a set of legal rights. A set just not as full as those afforded your run of the mill criminal.
You are aware, I trust, that President Obama has affirmed the presidential power to hold enemy captives, and has stated that there may be some that may have to be held indefinitely without trial?
You have heard about that, right?
And if so, please explain to me why the suggestion was made for magellan01 to move - I haven’t seen you suggest President Obama move anywhere, though if you did and I just missed it, that would be just fine.
