66 Minutes Of Obama Punching The GOP In The Rhetorical Nuts

'House republican retreat' is oddly ironic, considering how they distance themselves from reality.

He may be the worlds biggest meep in a fight, but you gotta respect the guys talent in a war of words.
66 enjoyable minutes.

'worlds biggest meep in a fight'

He's a lawyer, an academic, and a politician. The only way he's ever fought is with words. So on what grounds is he the 'world's biggest meep'?

On the grounds that he can't hold a line. When attacked he retreats and compromises. Compromise is necessary in a democracy but that doesn't mean you have to fold and run every time somebody throws up a bluff.

This entire conversation is senseless. The GOP isn't going to negotiate on anything. They will continue to be the party of NO for Obama's entire term and will not give an inch regardless of what could and should be accomplished during that time. They are ALL banking on the failure that they are helping to create as their next political tool to stay in office. Just keep voting no on everything, demonizing the other party with every press opportunity and then blame the state of everything on them come election time.

It's all about politics. They either want any ''compromise'' to be 100% in their favor (meaning the Democrats do ALL of the compromising) or they'll all belly up to their little meepons and vote NO, unanimously. Appeasing this behavior by giving them what they want as an act of ''reaching across the aisle'' is foolhardy and ends up making the Democratic party look pathetic, weak and completely disorganized.

The GOP is getting exactly what they want; a lame-duck administration, and Obama and his administration are playing right into their little game.

Obama has the power to remove or radically alter this filibuster bullmeep and take it completely out of play but doesn't have the spine to do it and he'll end up a lame-duck one-termer because of it. Mark my words.

Mark your own words, dude. Whatever the media debate is, the republicans are still significantly out of synch with the mood of the nation, and they are just now apparently proposing to privatize social security while cutting it. In one way or another, obstruction on health care and national policy is going to come back to bite them in the meep. Political parties that fight against reality self-destruct, or you should make them.

If our politicians aren't persuasive enough, well that's too bad, but one way or another we are the ones that are meeping ourselves to death. We've had many many years to get this done. Political action from the grassroots is the only way out of this. And the cynical mothermeepers who sit back thinking this wasn't a significant political moment haven't been paying attention.

The perception that Obama is spineless seems like another GOP tactic to me. Still, Wotak is right - he has to stop seeking bipartisan utopia and drop the hammer.

'MAYBE WE CAN!'

legalize pot!

[...] he has to stop seeking bipartisan utopia and drop the hammer.

Exactly. Obama's biggest weakness seems to be that he believes the Senate can come together as a single force of good for the American people and work together to improve the way things are done in this country. In my opinion he is absolutely wrong. The Republicans have been wielding this filibuster/cloture loophole like a spiked club for far too long. It's time it was removed and the majority vote or, the 'constitutional option' be put into effect. That's the way a meeping democracy is supposed to work. The ''filibuster it to death'' loophole needs to be removed permanently.

According to wiki, the filibuster was invoked sparingly in even less partisan times - an average of once a year in the 1950s, but 139 times by Republicans in 2008.

In the 2007-08 session of Congress, Republicans forced 112 cloture votes, nearly doubling the Democrats' record when they were in the minority.

''We have crossed the mark of over 100 filibusters and acts of procedural obstruction in less than one year,'' Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, said on the floor on December 20, 2009. ''Never since the founding of the Republic, not even in the bitter sentiments preceding Civil War, was such a thing ever seen in this body''

It's time for some of that meeping change that Obama was so fond as using to rally support during his presidential election. Americans, as a majority, voted for change, not endless debate and a constant bending to the will of the Senate minority.

In the House of Representatives, the filibuster was used until 1842, when a permanent rule limited the duration of debate. The disappearing quorum was a tactic used by the minority until an 1890 rule eliminated it, so it's not an unprecedented option to remove this filibuster bullmeep from our government bodies. It was eliminated in the House and for good reason; nothing was getting accomplished. It's time for it to be done in the Senate as well. meep a ''supermajority'', let's just meeping practice democracy as it was intended and get meep done with a majority vote.

If Obama want's to show some spine, put the hammer down and actually accomplish some change for the better, this would be a great place to start.

See, what gets to me about him-and I don't know if this just me being fooled-but I have the distinct sense that he's planning on doing that. But, of course, no evidence. In the campaign, I suppose, he had a way of nicely timing his moves. We'll see what he's got up his sleeve, its game time now.

Relax. Year 1 was mr. nice guy. Now he can say he tried that.

Wotak: What is this hammer that you keep speaking about?

I believe it is known as Mjollnir

(pronounced: mi-joul-ner)

Mog, I think that you will find the answer to your question in the words that Lownotes and I have already written.

I don't. What can Obama do about fillibusters? I'd love to hear some ideas about what he himself can do other than what he is doing. Raising money and awareness to combat the political FUD. Trying to get support in congress and senate for his policies. The true solution should have come from the Senate itself, changing the rules of fillibusters while they had the supermajority.

The existing filibuster rules can easily be changed by a simple majority vote. This President currently has the weight, the political capital and the influence to ask that this be done.

From Wiki: ''The current Senate rules state that 67 votes are required for future rule changes. Despite this written requirement, the possibility exists that the filibuster could be changed by majority vote, using the so-called nuclear option, also called the 'constitutional option' for political reasons and because of its roots in constitutional majoritarianism.

The filibuster, as we know it today is a bullmeep loophole. Today the Senate uses the lazy man's filibuster or the ''procedural filibuster''. As defined in Senate Rule 22 the procedural filibuster permits a filibuster in which actual continuous floor speeches are not required. This is absolute bullmeep and means that the minority doesn't have to actually debate anything. All they have to do is declare a filibuster and it jams up the Senate gears for no good reason. The good news is that the Senate Majority Leader may require an actual traditional filibuster if he or she so chooses. This will force actual continuous speeches. When the speeches stop, cloture kicks in automatically. So, this is one thing that Obama can ask of his Senate Majority Leader.

Also, according to the Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v. Ballin (1892), changes to Senate rules can be achieved by a simple majority vote.

So, you ask me what Obama can do about filibusters. It's pretty simple, he can throw his influence behind a majority vote to modify the Senate Rule 22. With his influence and the existing Democrat majority, he could easily become the driving force behind a major game changer that would allow the Senate Majority to actually get some meeping work done and put the most of the petty politicking out of play.

That's a meeping hammer that needs to be swung.