GOP senator breaks with McConnell strategy

[geek tragedy]

Source: Politico

Mitch McConnell should have taken Harry Reid’s deal on Iran, GOP Sen. Jeff Flake said in an interview Thursday.

The Arizonan said that it “does not make sense” to hold repeated procedural votes on Iran that are sure to fail, as the Senate is doing on Thursday with amendments that would require Iran to recognize Israel and release Americans held in Iran.


Instead, Flake said Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) and his lieutenants should have reached an agreement with Minority Leader Reid (D-Nev.) to have a final vote on a resolution disapproving of the Iran nuclear deal at a 60-vote threshold. That would have failed as well, but would not have technically been a filibuster.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/jeff-flake-iran-deal-no-mitch-mcconnell-procedural-votes-213777

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Flake apparently has had enough of the turtleman's 'Failure Theater.'

Schumer, Cardin and Menendez are all also voting against this--though Menendez is doing so because he hates the deal so much he worries the McConnell amendment is too pro-deal.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Just wondering

What does it cost taxpayers per hour to run the US Senate for all this GOP Theater?

[Action_Patrol]

8. I know you're just being facetious,

But a House Member (wish I remembered his name) did a Special Order speech on the floor (these are speeches that are time scheduled after debate is done for the day. There are unlimited 5 minute speeches that members can sign up for and then each party can sign up for 1 hour speeches to go back and forth with the time concluding at midnight.)
A Democratic member of Congress signed up for a one hour speech then proceeded to break down how wasteful keeping the House open was since all the staff was on overtime at that point. He broke down everything step by step and then said something to the tune of 'I won't waste any more time or money so I yield back my time' this was roughly 40 minutes early and the Republican that had the next hour speech wasn't on the floor to take over. Since there was nobody there to stall, he motioned to adjourn the house and that was it for the day.
It was pretty funny.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. So

he called the Republican's bluff ... pretty good.

But seriously, it all costs money. Add up all the Representatives salaries,
office costs, pension and health care, aides and limos, all those costs
and divide it by how long the Congress is open in session averaged
over several years.

That yields a per hour cost. It costs all this to debate for an hour.

That's what the GOP did when GWB was in office. Any time the Dems
wanted to investigate we were told is would cost $8 million or something
and it was a waste of taxpayers money.

Well, 55 votes to end Obamacare cost something! What is that number?

[Action_Patrol]

10. Doing any of that math

Is going to be 1) counterproductive and 2) so self defeating and upsetting that you'll create a wormhole that will kill all of us.
I'm going to go crack a beer to kill the brain cells that are contemplating calculating those numbers myself.
In conclusion, republicans are hypocritical cretins.

[bucolic_frolic]

11. Others Have Wondered Too

http://theimpolitic.blogspot.com/2011/11/real-cost-of-congress.html

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/10172/does-us-congress-cost-30m-per-day-to-run

[malthaussen]

2. A GOP senator wanting to "make sense?"

What is the world coming to?

-- Mal

[wolfie001]

7. Don't worry

Even their "moderates" are lunatics.......

[deancr]

3. I take

some small comfort when sanity breaks out from this republican party. First Graham at the kid's debate asserting that Hispanics are Americans and now Flake suggesting that they consider actual governance as an option. It's almost as if they believe the United States of America is worth the effort.

A small comfort, anyway.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. They need to start working on a damn continuing resolution

to keep the government from ceasing operation less than 2 weeks from now.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

5. Schumer, Cardin and Menendez need to be primaried next time they are up for re-election

[lsewpershad]

12. AGREED

[BlueMTexpat]

13. Schumer and Cardin do need to be

Primaried. Menendez should probably go to jail because he is an outright crook.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

6. He's still a flake. Just flaking on GOP for a change.