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Murkowski and Other RINO’s Lose Filibuster Fight – Badly

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Photo Credit: APBy Wall Street Journal. Senate Majority Leader Rich Trumka, er, Harry Reid held a gun to the head of Republicans on the filibuster, Republicans blinked, and President Obama and the AFL-CIO will now get their nominees confirmed for the cabinet and especially a legal quorum for the National Labor Relations Board.

Cut through all the procedural blather and that’s the essence of the Senate’s “deal” Tuesday over the 60-vote filibuster rule. While Democrats didn’t formally pull the trigger of the “nuclear option” to allow a mere majority vote to confirm nominees, they have now established a de facto majority-vote rule. Any time Democrats want to do so, they can threaten to pull the majority trigger.

Republicans might as well acknowledge this new reality, even if it means admitting defeat in this round. GOP Senators should state clearly for the record that the next time there is a GOP President and a Democratic Senate minority wants to block an appointment with a filibuster, fuhgedaboutit. Majority rule will prevail.

Otherwise Republicans will be conceding that the filibuster remains the rule—except when Democrats say it isn’t. Democrats would be able to use the filibuster to block confirmation of GOP nominees the way they did John Bolton for U.N. Ambassador during the Bush Presidency, but Republicans couldn’t return the favor. Bottom line: This week Democrats killed the filibuster against executive-branch appointees when the same party holds the White House and Senate.

They did so, moreover, to serve AFL-CIO chief Trumka, who all but ordered Mr. Reid to threaten the nuclear option. Big Labor desperately wants a quorum of at least three National Labor Relations Board nominees to keep issuing pro-union orders that have become the NLRB’s standard operating procedure in the Obama years. Today there are only three board members and Chairman Mark Pearce is set to resign on August 27. Read more from this story HERE.

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Compromise, Senate GOP Style

By Daniel Horowitz. Who could have predicted the outcome of the latest filibuster imbroglio in the Senate? Republicans paid the full ransom. What else is new?

Once again, Mitch McConnell outsourced his leadership position to the McCain-Graham duo. He tapped them, along with Bob Corker and Roger Wicker – all from solid red states – to negotiate a compromise with Reid and Schumer over the filibuster and executive nominations. What could go wrong?

The outcome produced a compromise similar to the deals the Israelis cut with the Palestinians. In other words, it was all one-sided. Republicans agreed to allow Richard Cordray to direct the Consumer Financial Protection Board, even though he was originally appointed illegally. The following senators voted for cloture:

Ayotte (NH)
Blunt (MO)
Chambliss (GA)
Coats (IN)
Collins, S. (ME)
Corker (TN)
Flake (AZ)
Graham, L. (SC)
Hatch (UT)
Hoeven (ND)
Isakson (GA)
Johanns (NE)
Kirk (IL)
McCain (AZ)
Murkowski, L. (AK)
Portman (OH)
Wicker (MS)

Read more from this story HERE.

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Richard Cordray vote a leaves GOP at a loss

By MJ Lee, Kate Davidson and Kevin Cirilli. For almost two years, Senate Republicans have insisted they would block anyone from being confirmed as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without major changes in how the agency conducts its business.

On Tuesday, Republicans relented and agreed to allow Richard Cordray to be confirmed as the bureau’s leader. The vote was 66-34.

And in the end, what do Republicans have to show for their two-year fight? Pretty close to nothing — which raises questions about why it took so long to strike a deal and highlighting how poisonous the debates over presidential nominations had become in the Senate leading up to this week.

“This shows the danger of overplaying your hand,” said Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Guggenheim Partners who has followed the debate closely. “By not dealing when they had a hand to play, the Republicans get nothing out of this.”

Republicans defended their strategy, insisting their effort was not futile because they were able to raise important questions about whether the CFPB, a pillar of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, has too much power. Read more from this story HERE.

Sen. Harry Reid Morphs Into a Constitution-Loving Patriot in Describing Why the Filibuster Must Go (+video)

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Photo Credit: J. Scott ApplewhiteBy Stephen Dinan. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday that the men who wrote the Constitution intended for the president’s nominees to be subject to only a majority vote, and said filibusters of nominees were never envisioned.

The Senate’s leading Democrat, who led repeated filibusters of President George W. Bush’s nominations when Republicans held the majority, said he’s changed his mind since then, and he accused the GOP of forcing his hand by slow-walking so many of President Obama’s nominees.

Mr. Reid, of Nevada, said the Constitution only requires supermajority votes for specific circumstances: treaties, impeachments, constitutional amendments and overrides of presidential vetoes. He said everything else should be subject to a majority vote. Read more from this story HERE.


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Senators: No Deal Yet on ‘Nuclear Option’

By Newsmax, Reuters and The Associated Press. U.S. senators said on Monday that no agreement had yet been reached to avert a showdown over President Barack Obama’s executive-branch nominees and threats by Democrats to strip Republicans of their filibuster power to block such nominations.

As the talks entered their fourth hour, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said a deal was unlikely on Monday, but Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss said the chamber’s two leaders, Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Mitch McConnell, were urged to keep trying to find common ground.

Votes are set for Tuesday on seven of Obama’s nominees.

Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester indicated progress, telling reporters: “The two sides aren’t off by far.”

All but three senators returned to Washington Monday night for the unusual joint-caucus meeting behind closed doors to hammer out a deal. Read more from this story HERE.

Texas Gov. Perry Calls Second Special Session on Abortion, Gets Viciously Attacked by Left

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Associated Press. After a one-woman filibuster and a raucous crowd helped derail a GOP-led effort to restrict Texas abortions, Gov. Rick Perry announced Wednesday that he’s calling lawmakers back next week to try again.

Perry ordered the Legislature to meet July 1 to begin 30 more days of work. Like the first special session, which ended in chaos overnight, the second one will include on its agenda a Republican-backed plan that critics say would close nearly every abortion clinic across the state and impose other widespread limits on the procedure.

“I am calling the Legislature back into session because too much important work remains undone for the people of Texas,” Perry said in a statement. “Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn.”

The first session’s debate over abortion restrictions led to the most chaotic day in the Texas Legislature in modern history, starting with a marathon filibuster and ending with a down-to-the wire, frenetic vote marked by questions about whether Republicans tried to break chamber rules and jam the measure through.

The governor can convene as many extra sessions as he likes and sets the agenda of what lawmakers can work on. Also listed on the session’s agenda are separate bills to boost highway funding and deal with a juvenile justice issue. Read more from this story HERE.

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Fu****r: Left Viciously Attacks Governor Perry for Not Giving Up on Pro-Life Legislation

By Jason Howerton. Perry’s move infuriated the left and they let everyone know it on Twitter Wednesday. It got ugly (Warning! Strong and hateful language):

tx gov
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txgov
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txgove

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Threatens ‘Nuclear Option’ if Senate Doesn’t Confirm His Leftist Judicial Nominees

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Photo Credit: AP

President Obama supports many things he opposed as Senator Obama—such as unlimited terrorist detention—but for flip-flopping with a high degree of artistic difficulty nothing beats his judicial filibuster ultimatum on Tuesday. If Republicans don’t confirm his three, yes, three, new nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, he’ll unleash Democrats to gut the Senate’s filibuster rules.

Mr. Obama didn’t explicitly state the threat portion of that ultimatum—he’s leaving that dirty work to the reliable Harry Reid. But everyone knows that’s the subtext of Tuesday’s announcement, which is a political attempt to realign the balance of power on an appeals court that has frustrated the Administration’s regulatory overreach.

The Senate has “a constitutional duty to promptly consider judicial nominees for confirmation,” Mr. Obama averred in the Rose Garden. “Throughout my first term as President, the Senate too often failed to do that.”

He might have added, but somehow didn’t, that the Senate also too often failed to do that “duty” when George W. Bush was President. You could even say that Senate Democrats invented the filibuster against D.C. Circuit nominees. Who can forget the successful Joe Biden-John Kerry effort to defeat the distinguished appellate lawyer Miguel Estrada mainly because he is Hispanic and might make it to the Supreme Court someday?

Read more from this story HERE.

Harry Reid Whines, “Tea Party Ted Cruz isn’t Playing by the Rules!!!”

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Photo credit: Gage SkidmoreThe Wall Street Journal Editorial Board is upset with Ted Cruz for leading a filibuster against gun control.

John McCain tweeted out the Journal’s editorial in a moment of wackiness.

Bill Richardson, the scandal plagued former Governor of New Mexico, says Ted Cruz can’t be called hispanic despite being hispanic because Ted Cruz isn’t a race baiter like Richardson.

And now Harry Reid calls Ted Cruz a schoolyard bully for Cruz objecting to Harry Reid trying to expand government in a bipartisan fashion.

Most interesting to me is this part of Harry Reid’s statement of frustration:

He pushes everybody around and is losing and instead of playing the game according to the rules, he not only takes the ball home with him, but he changes the rules that way no one wins except the bully who tries to indicate to people that he has won.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul and Ted Cruz Threaten Filibuster on Guns (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are threatening to filibuster gun-control legislation, according to a letter they plan to hand-deliver to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office on Tuesday.

“We will oppose the motion to proceed to any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions,” the three conservatives wrote in a copy of the signed letter obtained by POLITICO.

Reid plans to bring up a gun-control measure that focuses on broadening background checks and cracking down on interstate gun-trafficking after the current Senate recess.

Conservatives are concerned that once that bill reaches the floor, amendments could stiffen restrictions on gun control.

Watch the video here:

[our apologies, but this video is not viewable on all browsers]

Read more from this story HERE.

Five Reasons Why You Should Take Rand Paul Seriously (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

A few weeks ago, Rand Paul was far down the list of 2016 GOP presidential prospects — a freshman senator with a devoted but mostly marginal following of young libertarians. Now he’s being mentioned in the same breath as Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush.

With his filibuster against the Obama administration’s drone policy, a first-place finish in the Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll — and on Tuesday, a speech pressing for immigration reform — the Kentuckian is on a roll.

The Iowa Republican Party announced Tuesday that Paul will headline their Lincoln Day Dinner on May 10, a coveted invitation for any GOP presidential hopeful.

But is Paul the Republican flavor of the month or someone who could realistically contend for the nomination? Party elites scoff at the idea that Ron Paul’s son would ever become the GOP standard-bearer.

Yet the ophthalmologist is a better politician than his father, and he continues to defy expectations.

Watch video here:

Read more from this story HERE.

Establishment GOP Wages War On Newcomers

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Photo Credit: WND

Old guard Senate Republicans are using the term “wacko” to describe new members promoting the tea party call for smaller government and accountability, and a congressional source for WND says it’s a sign of an emerging inter-party clash.

Referring to the fallout from the filibuster this week by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a top Republican aide said there “could not have been a starker contrast in terms of the new reformers of the Senate, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, all fighting the overreach of this executive, versus on the handful of senators having dinner in one of the most expensive hotels in the country.”

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who both criticized Paul for his nearly 13-hour filibuster of the vote on John Brennan for CIA director, were among the Republican leaders who dined with Obama. According to the Huffington Post, McCain referred to tea party Republicans, including Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., as “wacko birds.”

“I don’t think you could get a clearer and starker vision of what one side thinks Washington should be doing versus the other,” the source said. The energy generated by Paul’s filibuster and the stances taken by Sens. McCain and Graham show why “they don’t have the backing and support of the American people,” the source said.

In the hours after Paul’s filibuster, both McCain and Graham launched deeply critical attacks against Paul, claiming that, fundamentally, the American people have nothing to fear from their government. Paul, Cruz and Lee raised alarm when the Obama administration wouldn’t immediately assure the public it would not kill an American citizen on home soil with a drone.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul: ‘McCain Is On The Wrong Side Of History’ (+audio)

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On Friday, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul stopped by “The Mike Huckabee Show,” where he sharply criticized Sen. John McCain’s opposition to his dramatic filibuster earlier in the week.

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

“You know, I think he’s just on the wrong side of history, and the wrong side of this argument, really,” Paul said. “When you think about it, it is pretty important. … Our soldiers go overseas, and they’re fighting for our Bill of Rights, and I was sitting next to a war veteran here at a conference just a few minutes ago, and the whole idea is that it wouldn’t be important that everybody gets their days in court — that you could accuse someone of something, and they wouldn’t get to defend themselves.”

“I really think that goes against everything America stands for,” Paul continued. “I had this exchange with Sen. McCain on the floor about a year ago. The government can indefinitely detain someone — an American citizen — and I said, ‘Does that mean you could send them to Guantanamo Bay from America without a trial?’ And he said ‘Yes, if they’re dangerous.’ But that begs the question: Who gets to decide whether you’re dangerous person or not?”

Listen to audio:

Read more from this story HERE.

Sen. Rand Paul: My Filibuster Was Just The Beginning

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Rand Paul, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Kentucky.

If I had planned to speak for 13 hours when I took the Senate floor Wednesday, I would’ve worn more comfortable shoes. I started my filibuster with the words, “I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the CIA. I will speak until I can no longer speak” — and I meant it.

I wanted to sound an alarm bell from coast to coast. I wanted everybody to know that our Constitution is precious and that no American should be killed by a drone without first being charged with a crime. As Americans, we have fought long and hard for the Bill of Rights. The idea that no person shall be held without due process, and that no person shall be held for a capital offense without being indicted, is a founding American principle and a basic right.

My official starting time was 11:47 a.m. on Wednesday, March 6, 2013.

I had a large binder of materials to help me get through my points, but although I sometimes read an op-ed or prepared remarks in between my thoughts, most of my filibuster was off the top of my head and straight from my heart. From 1 to 2 p.m., I barely looked at my notes. I wanted to make sure that I touched every point and fully explained why I was demanding more information from the White House.

Read more from this story HERE.