John F. Kerry

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/op...02mondale.html

walter mondale, the tool that was jimmy carters vp. suggests we rip up the old senate rules and make the new rule for ending fillibusters some low amount of votes like 50. currently u need 60 votes to essentially end debate on any piece of legislation and bring it to a vote- the idea being to protect the minority against an opressive majority - if the minority party is completely opposed to something, and can muster a full 41 votes to prevent the end of a fillibuster, they can delay and stop legislation from passing the senate.

this kind of check has served our country well for 300 hundred years, thru war peace depression and prosperity.

but now, he wants to make it so that a simple majority can pass legislation even over the strong objections of 49 senators.

....i seriously am not gonna devote too much more time to this, but just think about how funny these unpopular liberal people are.

they go around passing law after law when they have the chance, even tho polls show people dont want them... they call those people stupid and laugh at their ignorance and then just keep on doing things that most people dont want them to do.... then they show their contempt not only for the people in america, but for the rules of american government as well, by having opinion articles like this one saying well what we really need to do is make it EVEN EASIER FOR US LIBERALS TO CIRCUMVENT POPULAR OPINION.... for sane people in the past 2 years the fillibuster has been the only thing keeping us from pelosis utopian nanny state that would be bankrupt in 10 years... it has kept the most radical ideas of the far left out of law and forced them to compromise at least somewhat....

remember how scott brown got elected? because people in LIBERAL massachusets were even so fed up with the crazy runaway congress that they elected a republican to fill TED KENNEDYS old seat- JUST TO MAKE HIM THE 41st SENATOR to STOP the democrats madness....

so now walter mondales "plan" to "make america better" is to make it so scott browns election wouldnt have changed democrats rush to madness at all- they would have still had 9 votes more than they needed to get all their crazy shit done.

like in this day and age its just so ridiculously obvious what hes trying to do here, and why, and its so slippery and scumfucky in the same way obama said you could "keep the plan you like best".... god i hate when these uber liberals talk down to us, and even worse, think they know better than our system which has served us well thru war peace depression and prosperity for 300 years.



If tons of people were really behind what he wanted to do - he wouldnt have to write op eds about changing the rules of the senate.... maybe they dems should focus on finding things to do that normal people actually want done rather than use lawyerly bulshit to slide crazy far left liberal garbage thru a congress that doesnt support it.

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Nasa under Obama

OldMan&TheWeed

Moses did not decend the mountaintop with the senate rules in hand. They are a VERY human institution, not even hallowed by history.

The Senate's power to establish its own rules is laid out Article One, Section 5 of the United States Constitution: "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings..." Not only CAN they make changes to THEIR OWN rules, they do--all the time.

Right now the US Senate has 43 rules, with the latest version was adopted back in 2000.

Take the Senate rule that 60 votes are needed to cut off debate. It has been changed many times in the country's history.

There was no cloture provision in the rules through much of the 19th Century. In fact, the first Senate filibuster did not occur until 1837, and actual filibusters were used rarely to stop legislation.
Filibuster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1917, at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic Senate enacted a rule for cloture of debate. From 1917 to 1949 the requirement was two-thirds of those voting.
Cloture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1949 the requirement was changed to two-thirds of the entire Senate membership. In 1959 it was restored to two-thirds of those voting.

Finally, in 1975 the rule was changed so that three-fifths of the Senate membership -- generally 60 -- could cut off debate.

In the last two decades the number of filibusters has exploded. In the 1960s, no Senate term had more than seven filibusters. Since 2000, no term has had fewer than 49 filibusters. In the 110th Congress, when Republicans were in the minority, there were 112 cloture votes.

In practice today, any significant piece of legislation requires 60 votes -- not a 51-person majority vote -- making the Senate a truly undemocratic institution.

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Nintey-three percent of what I say is brilliant, factual information and seven percent is complete bullshit. Have fun deciding which is which.

~1~

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OldMan&TheWeed

Without becoming to goddamned autobiographical, this touches on what I do for a living.

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Nintey-three percent of what I say is brilliant, factual information and seven percent is complete bullshit. Have fun deciding which is which.

The Rev

Works for me. In fact, I think we should change the rules so that no legislation can pass without unanimity. That would keep the government out of our asses beautifully.

"That government which governs least governs best"
-Thoreau



The Rev

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OldMan&TheWeed

I don't disagree.

The Senate was set up as a check on the democratic House, originally elected by state legislature.

But it's up to the Senate to set its own rules. That's all.

__________________
Nintey-three percent of what I say is brilliant, factual information and seven percent is complete bullshit. Have fun deciding which is which.

stoneric

How is this a liberal thing? Because mondale brought it up? There is no advantage to either party either way.

OldMan&TheWeed

The present rules favor whichever party is in the minority. Lately, that has been the Republicans. They simply threaten a filibuster, and a bill dies.

According to rule 22 a three-fifths majority is required to end filibusters.


U.S. Senate: Reference Home > Virtual Reference Desk > Cloture

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Nintey-three percent of what I say is brilliant, factual information and seven percent is complete bullshit. Have fun deciding which is which.

stoneric

Right. But the rule itself doesn't favor either party.

John F. Kerry

interesting historical info oldman, i was familiar with the increase in cloture votes in recent years but some of that other stuff is pretty informative...

my different take on part of that is that in the 90s and 00s weve had so much more open communication and exhange that thats one of the reasons partisanship has increased and one of the reasons there are more fillibusters, another point to this would be that it doesnt necesarily matter the exact number ,but it has been 60 for a long time now, since the 70s, and the dems dont want to arbitrarily change it because of some philosophical argument... they realize that 60 was the high water mark for the most liberals or left leaning people they could ever hope to get in the senate, and now , seeing how that probably wont get that high again for decades, they want to make it easier to get the same power they previously had for 2 years when they had the 60 votes... yet the VOTERS themselves spoke against the dems agenda, and they still want to change the rules that are like 40 years old now , just to nullify the will of the voters.

so that idea of nullifying the election more than anything else is what really grinds my gears. pelosi and reid are STILL THERE>.. what a bunch of blind inept windbags, if pelosi had any grace or conception of reality outside san francisco she would have left , but no , the voters dont know whats best... .and now they try to mess with even semi sacred things like the number of sens to invoke cloture.

__________________
Nasa under Obama

OldMan&TheWeed

Dude, Pelosi is a member of the House of representatives, and has nothing to do wit the Senate rules.

And as far as, "if pelosi had any grace or conception of reality outside san francisco she would have left , but no , the voters dont know whats best." She's there by virtue of the fact that she one an election. Elections don't always go our way, but we accept the results. That's how it works.

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Nintey-three percent of what I say is brilliant, factual information and seven percent is complete bullshit. Have fun deciding which is which.

DdC

Reaganesque tax cuts for the wealthy that didn't work in the 80's, but that was before the Klintoon Busheney Inc NAFTA/GATT letting the rich pricks off on their tax responsibility to trickle down jobs... for China and India. SOS... cheap labor. Gut the unions, outsource. The American Dream of Fascists everywhere. Natzifucks are always whining about shit after they rape and pillage and cheat, lie and steal behind closed doors. Cheney energy policy? If the GOPerverts actually filibustered instead of little snips to stall and divert. No fix would be needed. Bitchin' about the Band-Aids and nothing about the mad GOP slashers cutting up people. As it stands the krats could do the same asshole maneuvers and nothing would get done. That isn't representing my tax buck. Although ConPromises aren't dealing with the needs either. Or reality.

Quote:

"Corruptisima republica plurimae leges." (The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.) -- Tacitus, Annals III 27

The solution is simple. Eat the rich. Divide the spoils among those working. Take care of the cripples, kids and elderly. Stop gestapo cops with tanks and swat twits busting down junkie doors shooting 92 year old black women. Let the junkies be, give them cheap heroin with sterile needles and they purr like pussycats. But copsuckers need snitches making up 75% of the cases tax paid DA rock stars can get 6 figure salaries convicting. Preying on the very kids these GOPervert and slimy sneaky Demonkrats like Biden's RAVE and Rolm claim they're saveding. LAPDoGates DARE & Nan Rayguns praising child snitches turning in their brothers and neighbors and parents. Forfeit the house and sell the kids to the Foster care system. Not a peep out of old grizzly ma adams. Turn Inoton? Not a backbone in the entire Dick Armey. Draft dodging chickenhawks.

Investigative Report:
The untold story of the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy
How the public's business gets done out of the public eye - The Bush administration has removed from the public domain millions of pages of information on health, safety, and environmental matters, lowering a shroud of secrecy over many critical operations of the federal government.

Cheney energy policy?



Cheney Energy Task Force
The composition of the task force, according to the report, was confined to government officials. According to media reports at the time, energy industry executives participated in the Task Force. In particular, those identified as having been involved included then-Enron President and Chairman Kenneth Lay and lobbyists Haley Barbour and Marc Racicot.

The names of participants cited on the lists include:

* Eli Bebout, "an old friend of Cheney's from Wyoming who serves in the state Senate and owns an oil and drilling company", visited in March 2001.
* Red Cavaney, "president of the American Petroleum Institute, also met with Lundquist"
* Jack N. Gerard, "then with the National Mining Association, had a meeting with Lundquist and other staffers" in February 2001.
* Wayne Gibbens and Alby Modiano, U.S. Oil and Gas Association.
* Alan Huffman, "Conoco manager until the 2002 merger with Phillips, confirmed meeting with the task force staff."
* Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron, "came by for the first of two meetings."
* Bob Malone, BP regional president, and Peter Davies, chief economist, and "company employees" Graham Barr and Deb Beaubien.
* Steven Miller, Shell Oil chairman, "and two others."
* Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Royal Dutch/Shell Group's chairman.
* James J. Rouse, former Exxon vice president. In 2005 Rouse "denied the meeting took place." In 2007, Rouse was revealed to be "One of the first visitors, on Feb. 14, [2001] ... then vice president of Exxon Mobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration".
* J. Robinson West, "chairman of the Washington-based consulting firm PFC Energy and an old friend of Cheney's" met with Cheney.
* Daniel Yergin, "chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of The Prize, a history of the oil industry", met with Cheney and Lundquist.

"One advocacy group that visited was the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, founded in 1998 by Grover Norquist and Gale A. Norton, who became Bush's first interior secretary. Later, the group was run by Italia Federici, who was involved socially with Steven Griles. Griles, then Norton's deputy at Interior, was recently sentenced to prison for obstructing a Senate investigation of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Cheney Rejects Requests for Information



Judge Orders Cheney to Explain Task Force Secrecy
The White House has acknowledged that representatives of failed energy-trading giant Enron Corp. were among industry experts the task force met with last year while it was formulating the Bush administration's energy policy. But the administration has refused to release other details of the task force's operation, such as the names of people it consulted, saying this would harm the president's constitutional right to get candid advice.

SCOTUS: The United States District Court for the District of Columbia entered discovery orders directing the Vice President and other senior officials in the Executive Branch to produce information about a task force established to give advice and make policy recommendations to the President.

Cheney’s Energy Meetings, Iraq Oil & 9/11 - A TVNL Reminder
The common sense question is this: How could Cheney include Iraq’s oil resources as part of our energy policy if we had no diplomatic or business relationship with them?

The Enron, Bush, Baker, Rockefeller connection

Busht Cheneynagans D.E.A.th & Oil!

Ken Starr Underling to Judge Cheney in GAO Suit



Fix the potholes and reduce the garbage by not over packaging it duh! Stop shitting poisons in the rivers and lakes that eventually reaches the aquifer some dumb white trash operation rescue preggo drinks. Aborting more babies than RvW. Stop sucking yo non human corporate mama's tit till your 35. Stop picking on those out of a job. The job that you sent to china with the tax bail out trickle me elmo bullshit for the rich. Stop protesting the oppressed, dumbshit. Getting people off the streets cost less in the long run... since there isn't a moral carbuncle in the lot to do it out of mercy. American spoiled yuppie idiots following their spoiled yuppie idiot elders greed and profit on misery.

A Web Of GOP Influence
These groups style themselves as independent, grass-roots organizations, though they are tightly interconnected.
The network is behind a slew of campaign ads this fall.

“Can There Really Be Fascist People In A Democracy?”
– John Dean Exposes The Authoritarians that Are Leading the Way

John Dean on Countdown: Conservatives Without Conscience
To put it simply, Dean makes the case (with data he uncovered) that many conservatives of today need an authoritarian figure to guide them and they willingly do whatever it takes to please that figure. Dean cites G. Gordon Liddy as the perfect example of a guy willing to be shot in the street to indulge his master. He highlights the fear mongering that this administration has been using for years now as a model that allows the concept to be implemented. The way Tom Delay controlled the House is another perfect illustration of this behavior. Dean is a Barry Goldwater conservative.



Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W, Bush by John W. Dean


Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches by John W. Dean


How to Win a Fight with a Conservative by Daniel Kurtzman


The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule by Thomas Frank


Utter Incompetents: Ego and Ideology in the Age of Bush


What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception


Bivings Group
Bivings work, premised on the power of the Internet, engages in covert online attacks and web based front groups.

Authoritarians
Authoritarians Wrecking Crew

Corporate Welfare Rats



Grow up, chop wood carry water and smile. If you get through the day without hurting someone or being hurt count your blessings and move the fuck on. Stopping the various Drug wars and utilizing the value of Ganja and Hemp in local markets instantly producing jobs is tangible reality. Fuck the DC killers of Justice and just about anything left in the decent things category. Can't even watch a ball game without moneysluts hawking some cheap plastic or booze. Its logo's spewed on uniforms. Let alone the redneck left turn billboards. Have you no shame or self respect? You gossip and point fingers falsely at those trying to gain back some semblance of honor and dignity.

GOPervert Tea Baggers for Oxy Fauxnews



The GOPervert Congress did nothing for the American people except cut off 911 victims, unemployed workers and their great triumph toppling a charity helping the poor buy cheap housing. Offending the moneysluts profit on real estate. Demand affordable housing. Take back the excess. Tax the rich until there are no poor for the workers to deal with. Those that haven't been et yet. Plug the tax shelters the traitors horde in their bank accounts while we pay their share fighting wars and fixing infrastructures. They're all Bernie's bilking the majority while a few lead the idiots to do their bidding. In spite of their own children's lives, exactly the same drug worrier mentality. Uncaring sons of a bitches. Kill the kids for profit and glory, send them to die for lies in some foreign desert. Protest health care and clean air. What kind of Idiots are we raising here? What else are you if not a moron proud of destroying the middle class and the very planet you live on?

You think minimum wages are wrong and laugh at an actual real life living wage. You buy Wallmart crap because its cheaper in spite of knowing kids in sweatshops are undercutting American workers. Shit with crude oil packaging that won't biodegrade so it ends up on ocean barges or taking real estate. Same as the welfare for cows with scenic views costing pennies on the dollar. Opposed to transparency and Senators actually filibustering with words and stuff, and how dare they the people expect a GOPervert to stand for something without blocking the debate anonymously. Chumps.



Government taxing disease is wrong ethically, morally and in that it drives the sick into corporate warehouses at greater expense to the tax payer, But you hypocrites never bitch about disease costs or especially war machine costs. Another 700 billion to Haliburton, Exxon and Lockheed and not a whimpering teabog ditzo to be found. Or the 6 countries we're paying for police actions (wars) going on, and no GOPerverts filibustering that government spending. Or the GOPerverts Liberal increase in the size of government. Besides the DEAth in over 80 countries. The Homeylend Insurance scam starting with the Patriot Ax, and the sequel. Then cry about Wallstreet checks and balances causing the economic recession. The corporatist NAFTA/GATT causing unemployment of Americans while you try to gut the Unions. I'm not sure what side you're on, but I know it's definitely not America's. "You" people are sick.



2.2 million Americans in for profit and federally paid by tax cages, most for some drug related non violent offense... and yet the "mavericks", "outlaws" and "rebels" say didly squat. Pussies. Stop your divisive crap and participate in constructive ideas instead of this cowardly follow the yellow brick road status weirdness. Kill your TV and pay your taxes. Be lucky your working and tell Obombo to shove that entire refund package up his Hawaiian ass. Especially the moneysluts cut hiding from their chores, while being first at the trough for handouts. Sick bastards! Cutting Neurological patient home services 3.6%? Making them decide what assistance they don't need. Yet the new GOPriority is to return to Insurance run health care and faith based soup lines. Why waste our tax dollars on foreign suicidal nutjobs terrorism when we have home grown genocidal neocon USA!QaeDEA! Peace... DdC

Requiring a filibustering senator to actually speak on the Senate floor for the duration of a filibuster would also help. So, too, would reforms that bring greater transparency — like eliminating the secret “holds” that allow senators to block debate anonymously.

SARAH PALIN - A Nobel Liar -