Harry Reid’s hints to reporters about addressing filibuster reform on Thursday were accurate, and now everyone in DC is donning fallout gear because Mitch McConnell has succumbed to the siren call of drama queen hysteria, Southern style.
Nothing riles Republicans up more than the someone trying to stop them from tyrannical rule. Oh, the injustice of it, it’s enough to make them spitting mad. Mad enough for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell(R-KY) to refer to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) “tombstone” on the Senate floor, because Congress is apparently just another schoolyard for Republicans.
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Mitch McConnell whipped up some drama on Thursday as Harry Reid floated a few ideas to change the filibuster rules in order to stop the unprecedented Republican obstruction (yes, that’s a fact not an opinion), charging that changes to filibuster rules would be inscribed on Reid’s “tombstone.”
“No Majority Leader wants written on his tombstone that he presided over the end of the Senate! Well, if this Majority Leader caves to the fringes and let’s this happen, I’m afraid that’s exactly what they’ll write,” McConnell preached with stern seriousness from the Senate floor (even his drama queen moments are dripping in ineffectiveness).
Though McConnell’s Southern breeding doesn’t allow his voice to raise too much, his charged rhetoric indicates his level of hysteria. He continued, “I just hope the majority leader thinks about his legacy, the future of his party and, most importantly, the future of our country before he acts.”
Yes, because it’s in the country’s best interest to continue to allow Republicans to obstruct every thing they voted for out of sheer petty greed.
McConnell added that by removing Republicans’ ability to obstruct this President from doing what every other president has been allowed to do, Reid is telling Republicans, “Advise and consent means sit down and shut up!”
Desperate much, Mitch?
Reid sharply rebuked Republicans by reminding them that President Obama deserves to have his team in place (sometime before his second term is over, preferably), “The President deserves to have his or her team in place.”
Reid pointed out how Republicans are using the threat of filibustering in order to block qualified nominees all because they refuse to accept the law of the land (i.e., Obama won again!), “(T)hey are blocking qualified nominees to circumvent the legislative process, force wholesale changes to laws or restructure entire executive branch departments. They are blocking qualified nominees because they refuse to accept the law of the land… Yet the Republican Leader says there is no problem here. The status quo is fine.”
Reid took a fiery stand for the people’s right to put an end to the gridlock (finally), “(T)he American people are fed up the gridlock, fed up with the obstruction and fed up with these politics as usual. They want Washington to work for American families once again. I try every day to be on their side. And I will wait not wait another month, another year, another Congress to take action.”
Here’s the deal. Reid’s warning shot about filibuster reform would only be applicable to agency and Cabinet nominees, not even judges or legislation.
So what is Mitch getting so hysterical about? It’s as if he got a paper cut and is crying murder. But hysteria is sort of Mitch’s thing. When Reid broached the issue of Republicans’ violating all rules of good governance with their abuse of the filibuster in May, McConnell squeaked that he felt “intimidated” by mean old Harry Reid. As I explained Tuesday, Reid can change the rules with just 51 votes if he’s willing to use the “nuclear option” for the first time.
Mitch McConnell is your typical coward who only plays a bully when he has back up. Reid is not threatening to take away all of Mitch’s toys. Reid is only talking about taking away one of the thousands of toys McConnell and his Republicans stole from the people. Just one. And for that, we get mention of Reid’s tombstone on the Senate floor.
It’s high time Republicans allow the rule of law to proceed as the people intended, without Republicans in charge of the White House or the Senate. This is what the People voted for, and Harry Reid needs to put McConnell’s whining, hysterical dramafest (aka, McConnell’s attempt to win over the Tea Party base for 2014) into a permanent time out.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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