Godfuck the Nine Pissant Republican Senators

The BBQ Pit
1

The Senate today finally passed the Medicare legislation the rescinded a 10% pay cut for doctors serving Medicare patients. Bush and his Republican flying monkeys in the Senate had blocked the bill in a test vote before the July 4th holiday, when it got 59 votes, one short of cutting off debate and passing the legislation.

Today, Ted Kennedy, bearing visible scars from brain surgery and still recovering from cancer chemotherapy, strode into the Senate to thunderous applause and cast the 60th vote, and guaranteed passage of the bill.

So why the Pitting? Nine godrotten Republican Senators, immediately upon realizing the bill would pass anyway, switched their votes so as not to be caught on the wrong side of a vote that might cost them in the fall. This kind of cheesy, self-interested, public-be-damned attitude is what really pisses me off about Republican politicians. They can always , always be depended on to do whatever benefits them or their big business cronies, no matter how it fucks over the regular folks in this country. I hope that before the November election, these sweaty, dogturd disgraces to the Senate are exposed for being against Medicare before they were for it.

And Ted Kennedy? That brought tears to my eyes; that man has surpassed godhood in my book. What a guy!

2

How much you wanna bet that if Bush does veto the bill, they switch back?

Plus, what the hell is Arlen Specter doing in this company?

3

I’m sure the god-like Democrats have never switched votes when the outcome of a bill becomes certain, for precisely the reasons you specify. What, never? Well, hardly ever!

I generally don’t use smilies, but I am rolling my eyes so hard they will probably become stuck like that.
Roddy (neither Pub nor Dem)

4

Don’t forget John McCain, he skipped the vote, so he can say anything he wants; just like he’s done with the veterans bill.

5

Everybody does this, on both sides, with full approval of their party, any time the vote doesn’t matter any more.

When I lobbed for living-wage legislation in the New York State Legislature, Republican Assemblymen from Buffalo were as on-board as the hardiest lefty, because there was no way they could go back to their constituencies and win reelection if they voted against it, and the Assembly was so heavily Democratic anyway that their votes didn’t matter.

Same thing with Democratic Senators- you couldn’t get them to vote “straight” even on core/divisive Democratic issues, because they needed the cooperation of their brethren across the aisle in more centrist matters.

When a vote is done, and the remaining votes don’t matter, there is nothing inglorious about voting the way Joe Sixpack wants you to vote.

Quite simply, what is appealing to Joe Sixpack might not be the most fiscally or socially or legally sound move, and so you have to vote against what’s popular and for what’s right (“right” in this case being a subjective term depending on party affiliation or personal outlook), especially when the chips are down and what’s right won’t pass without you (or, more cynically, when the Party comes calling and you gotta toe the line- which certainly happens).

In many cases, you even know which people not to lobby, because they will cut a deal with their party or with their brethren to vote last, so that if the outcome is decided before their turn comes, they can immediately vote “popular,” and only have to vote “right” if there’s no other alternative.

BUT, when the fate of the bill is sealed, one way or the other, every vote left votes not for “right” but for “popular.”
And if the electorate is unable or unwilling to figure that out, then they deserve the politician they elect based on cursory glances at hot-button issues.

6

Democratic senators haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory today, either. The Medicare bill was a good thing. The FISA bill, not so much, and both of my senators (Casey and Specter) voted for it. So did Obama. I’m somewhat disillusioned…

7

And are loudly pilloried for it by the right! I will leave that to you, next time it occurs; I’m a shameless partisan.

8

The Dems have a veritable Pantheon going, what with Obama and now Kennedy.

9

Seriously. I now understand the right’s ability to call Helms a great man a little better.

10

He’s got to find something to occupy his time, now that his crusade to hold hearings into the nation-stirring crisis of the NE Patriots’ signal-stealing has faltered.
ETA: That’s a helluva useless comment to waste my 10,000th post on, innit? :rolleyes:

11

I’ll try to remind you when you get close to #100,000, so you can work on something really snappy.

12

huh. can’t tell ya what/when mine was.

13

It was regarding your personal collection of exotic hamster porn. You had been drinking, as I recall.

14

One of my favorite memories is of telling off Senator Chambliss to his face on his ignorance of the situation in Darfur. God, it felt good to disrespect that man. His blank look while I was speaking to him indicated to me that it didn’t happen all that often.

15

Thanks, podner! I’ll try hard to make it an execrable pun.

16

huh. when did I switch from gerbls?

17

Shall I alert the Clerk of the Warrants Division?

18

Apparently, about an hour after you switched from tequila to absinthe with bongwater chasers.

19

no wonder I don’t remember.

Bill Clinton’s still pres., right?

20

We wish…