Reid to Coburn: Hold this, buddy.

[Coexist]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/26/15250/4196/633/542455

Lots of people have wondered how it is that Coburn is able to hold up so many bills, many of them extremely popular on both sides of the aisle. Well, the truth is that a hold by itself doesn't actually stop legislation. A lot of other factors have to come together to make it work, but that's a subject for another day.

Today, let's just enjoy the anticipation of seeing what happens when those other factors begin to unravel:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0608/Coburn_Omnibus_planned_for_July.html

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is planning a "Coburn Omnibus" for July that would wrap most if not all of the bills held by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) into one large measure to be voted on by the Senate, according to a Coburn aide and two Democratic leadership staffers.

Coburn is blocking roughly a hundred bills that are generally non-controversial or have broad support. By placing a hold, Coburn prevents the bills from passing quickly through the Senate under a unanimous consent request. With floor time at such a premium, Reid would have trouble bringing up each bill for an individual debate and vote.

But in a stroke of legislative creativity that may have no precedent, Reid could lump all of the bills into one package and bring up the Coburn Omnibus for a single vote. Coburn can still object, but the broad popularity of the bills means that there would likely be more than enough support for veto-proof passage.

Ha-ha!

This would really be a terrific play by Reid. Individually, these bills -- though they enjoy popular, bipartisan support -- aren't by themselves a high enough priority for the use of Senate floor time to justify jumping through the hoops of Coburn's objections, motions to proceed, cloture votes, etc. But lumped together, they can all be moved at once, and lean on one another for the support of a large majority of Senators, many of whom have had e-friggin'-nuff of Coburn's shenanigans.

Kudos to Reid for the idea, and a backhanded thanks to Crossword Tommy for illustrating for us why, once upon a time at least, Senators didn't just put holds on everything under the sun.

Sweet!

[spanone]

1. why isn't the media all over this coburn horseshit.remember when they hammered dems obstructionists

[Coexist]

2. I don't know - strangely this is the first I have heard of multiple holds

by Coburn.

[ColbertWatcher]

11. Allowing Coburn to make all these holds...

...is a legislative equivalence to giving him enough rope to hang himself.

He must have thought it would be okay to pull this crap with impunity.

Do you know if he's up for re-election in November?

[Indenturedebtor]

15. Do you really need to ask?

The MSM is the left hand of the Puke party.


WTG Reid if you actually do this. I won't be surprised if you don't. We still have a few troublesome rights under that "piece of paper" that some call the Constitution. I understand that you might be too busy working with your military industrial handlers on ways to get rid of them.

[RoyGBiv]

3. Gawd I hate him ...

Election day 2004, the first and most profound sinking feeling I had occurred when driving to work that morning and seeing the sudden emergence of hundreds upon hundreds of Coburn for Senate signs.

"Oh, shit ..." was my only thought.

[Coexist]

4. it would be nice if this passed.

[ColbertWatcher]

5. And THAT is why Reid is majority leader. n/t

[warren pease]

9. Oh... THAT's why...

I was wondering how that all came about. I figured it was something about his eagerness to work hand in hand with Ms. Nancy and the Bushies to make sure that, by next January, the bill of rights and any stray clause in the body of the Constitution that supports people over governments would be extinct.

Like that damned inconvenient habeas corpus nonsense the ACLU's always yammering about. Or the outdated idea that your private correspondence is in fact private and shall not be subject to federal snooping without a very specifically worded warrant.

Or maybe because he's so good at writing "strongly worded letters" and so bad and doing anything else.

He didn't even vote against cloture on the FISA bill, despite his usual blathering about how he'd do anything possible to keep it from passing. I guess he hadn't realized that he could guarantee that very result if he'd just stuck the damn thing in Conyers' file cabinet where all the impeachment resolutions are gathering mold and dust.

Nah... This guy's an absolute failure in his current position. As long as "compromise" and "bipartisanship" mean a complete cave-in by both house and senate Vichy democrats -- even to the point that the fucking white house cackles about getting more than they asked for or expected to get -- I'd say he and Ms. Nancy are ineffectual frauds who must go if this party is ever going to stand for something besides accommodation and appeasement.

Looks from here that the compromise is getting to use K-Y jelly. No compromise, no lubricants.

And that's just not a good enough reason to give away 221 years of Constitutional law.


wp

[ColbertWatcher]

10. Has this FISA bill been passed yet? n/t

[warren pease]

13. It will pass because...

... Reid hasn't shown the slightest inclination to use one of the most powerful tools a senate majority has: just keep the goddamned bill off the floor and tell the Bushies to go fuck themselves -- paraphrasing the vice president who claims he's not the vice president at all but just another member of congress.

That's all he has to do. No more shit eating grin; no more of those ridiculous strongly worded letters full of weasel words like "disappointing" and "inappropriate" and "partisan;" no more collaborating in the demise of separation of powers; no more screaming from the back benchers (all 15 of them).

Just kill the thing or it will certainly multiply, as has every other Bushie outrage since the first count of grand theft election. Once you concede anything, you're screwed. They'll take the rest. That's the pattern and if Reid and Pelosi still think they're dealing with honorable men, or with anything but sub-human scum, they're delusional.

Or maybe their personal fortunes insulate them from the effects of their actions. What's the 4th amendment when you can buy all the technology you need to scramble, encode and reroute your communications and keep them from prying federal eyes.

In other words, they no longer have to give a shit about anything at all except their personal investment accounts. Clearly they're not too concerned about preserving the last traces of their dignity or self-respect.


wp

[ColbertWatcher]

14. It hasn't passed yet, in fact, the Senate delayed it until after the break. n/t

[warren pease]

16. Yeah, I know all that. That's not the point...

The point is that his track record indicates that he'll cave yet again. That's his MO; talk tough before the bill gets introduced -- introduced by HIM, mind you, even though he has the authority as majority leader to put the damn thing through a shredder.

Then that look he has signifying how difficult this all is, like he's enduring the labors of fucking Hercules, followed by that painful look of inevitability and resignation as he acknowledges that he's up against powers that are simply impossible to overcome.

I'm not exactly sure when the strongly worded letter goes out -- before or after the vote -- but I'm pretty sure that those letters are carefully placed in their own leather-bound scrapbook with gloved hands, which is kept in a hermetically sealed cabinet to protect against the elements.

As the top dogs gather in the oval office, all warm and content and basking in the afterglow of a long but satisfying day in which they were able to nullify another of those pesky civil liberties formerly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and then winning a tough fight to remove another nearly extinct mammal from the endangered species list...

It really doesn't get much better than this if you're a Bushie; the only improvement would be launching another round of shock and awe, and watching a few thousand Iranian civilians getting blown apart in real time -- mostly women and kids, too, which makes it exceptionally cool.

But that's for another day. This time, they're going to take out the scrapbook and read through a few of Harry's strongly worded letters.

Maybe it's the single malt, maybe it's the giddy aftermath of a tough but productive day. Maybe it's the simpering, self-pitying content of the letters themselves.

No matter. They get Bolton to do the honors. He reads about half way through the first one and just collapses onto the couch, chortling too hard to continue. Cheney picks it up and, humorless bastard that he is, everybody expects him to rip right through it. But even he can't handle Reid's sniveling and whining and playing the victim.

He too goes down in a heap, which could be medically serious in his case. But he's OK, just fine, just giggling too hard to talk at the moment.

They go on this way for another few minutes, but it's no use. Harry's just too much of a dork to take seriously.

Which should be on his tombstone:

"Here lies Harry Reid. He really, really tried, but he was just too much of a dork to be taken seriously."

RIP.


wp

[ColbertWatcher]

17. Nothing has happened yet.

Plus, Reid is not the only senator.

Don't you think it will be--at the very least--interesting to see how Admiral McCombover will vote?

[warren pease]

18. Interesting isn't what I want out of these alleged representatives

I want them to act as if they're the majority party. I want them to assert themselves on behalf of everybody who doesn't happen to agree with the insane idea that privacy is an anachronism and irrelevant in the TIA society.

I want to write an email commending Harry and Pelosi and the rest because they did the jobs they were elected to do instead of continuously calling or emailing them to tell them what sacks of incompetent shit they are.

I actually think Pelosi has been considerably worse than Reid, particularly in terms of creating the perception that she thinks she's actually dealing with normal human beings driven by normal human motives.

Clearly, that's very wrong; she's dealing with sociopaths who have absolutely no problem using any and every means at their disposal -- which is an unfortunately long list, thanks in large part to Congress' inability to assert its checks and balances mandate -- to achieve their goals.

And those goals are horrible, deadly, bloody, immoral and threatening to the continued presence of life on earth. Consider... Who but the Bushies would think of using nuclear winter to counteract global warming? Fucking geniuses.

So it would be nice if Harry would occasionally try to see beyond keeping the corporate bribes rolling in and do a little goddamn something that might at least delay the end of the great democratic experiment. And I suggest that shredding this bill, along with every single piece of legislative shit these swine introduce, would be a great start.

Conversely, claiming his hands are tied when everybody know that's absolute bullshit -- when he has the power to make a significant impact on what this country becomes over the next few years -- is dishonest, dishonorable and a complete abrogation of his basic fucking job.

Plus, it insults peoples' intelligence. Who the hell does he think he's conning anyway? You? Me? Hardly.


wp

[depakid]

6. Interesting that Democrats couldn't "hold" bills the way Republicans do

Something else to think about before lauding the likes of Harry Reid.

[MiniMe]

12. Interestingly, I think the OP explains that

The bills that the dems try to put a hold on are bills that could get out of cloture easily, and they think that it is worth the floor time.

[annabanana]

7. I hope some alert DUer lets us know if & when this bill gets to the floor.

I would watch just for a quick glimpse of this guy cramping up a little.

[Coexist]

8. wanna get pissed? Read this:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7310.html