http://jezebel.com/#!5790254/kyl-lies-about-planned-parenthood-on-senate-floor

Short article that discusses this. Has charts!

Unfortunately, forcing a Republican filibuster would not lead to true debate, rather Republicans would be forced to read phonebooks endlessly. Interesting news coverage it is not.

>> ^entr0py:

It's my understanding that the vast majority of modern filibusters are carried out only by the threat to filibuster, and no one actually has to get up and talks for hours on end. BUT that Democrats could force Republicans to truly filibuster through unlimited debate if they choose to.
My question is why the fuck not? Obviously most Republicans are ashamed of their party's stance on the issue, and forcing them to go on the senate floor and talk about it for hours would make it the top news story.

It's my understanding that the vast majority of modern filibusters are carried out only by the threat to filibuster, and no one actually has to get up and talks for hours on end. BUT that Democrats could force Republicans to truly filibuster through unlimited debate if they choose to.

My question is why the fuck not? Obviously most Republicans are ashamed of their party's stance on the issue, and forcing them to go on the senate floor and talk about it for hours would make it the top news story.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE CRAZY TO BE A DEMOCRAT, BUT IT HELPS
October 27, 2010

Ann Coulter


With the media sneering about the Tea Party candidates being a bunch of nuts, how about we take a look at some of the Democrats running this year?

We've got Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, who personally presided over the housing crash after getting that gay prostitution business behind him. Of course, Frank's actions are nothing compared to Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul's alleged participation in a college prank. Now, THERE'S a scandal!

California Sen. Barbara Boxer refuses to say whether a newborn baby is a human life. When Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., asked her on the Senate floor a few years ago whether she believed a baby born alive has a constitutionally protected right to live, Boxer was stuck for an answer. Her nonresponsive replies included these:

"I support the Roe v. Wade decision. ...

"I think when you bring your baby home, when your baby is born -- and the baby belongs to your family and has all the rights. ...

"Define 'separation' ...

"You mean the baby has been birthed and is now in its mother's arms? ...

"The baby is born when the baby is born. That is the answer to the question. ...

"I am not answering these questions! I am not answering these questions!"

(Also, I think she said: "Please call me 'senator.'")

That's not Patty Murray-stupid, but it's still pretty stupid. How many late-term abortions are you planning to get, Californians, that it's worth being represented by such a cretinous woman?

Even if you are under the misimpression that Boxer's Republican opponent, Carly Fiorina, is somehow going to outlaw abortion in California, Carly will cut your taxes so much that you'd be able to fly to Sweden for all your abortions and still come out ahead!

Liberals are indignant that Sarah Palin writes speech notes to herself on her hand. This week, Alex Sink, the Democratic candidate for governor in Florida, was slipped a debating point by her makeup artist, texted by a campaign aide in violation of the rules during a debate with her Republican opponent, Rick Scott.

Oh, those thick Tea Party candidates!

Last weekend, Illinois governor Pat Quinn -- Rod Blagojevich's running mate -- stood silently as his supporter, state Sen. Rickey Hendon, blasted Quinn's Republican opponent, Bill Brady, as "idiotic, racist, sexist, homophobic."

Hendon has repeatedly made headlines over the past few years for his inappropriate behavior toward female colleagues. Once -- during a Senate debate -- he asked Sen. Cheryl Axley if her hair was naturally blond and then publicly propositioned her.

Another time, Hendon tackled Rep. Robin L. Kelly, knocking her to the ground after a House-Senate softball game she had come to watch in office attire.

Of the impeccable Brady, Hendon wailed: "If you think that women have no rights whatsoever, except to have his children, vote for Bill Brady. If you think gay and lesbian people need to be locked up and shot in the head, vote for Bill Brady."

Even the Chicago press was shocked by this, calling on Quinn to apologize. Quinn has "renounced" Hendon's remarks, but refused to apologize.

But watch out for the Tea Party candidates! There are some real loose cannons in that bunch.

Also last week, Rep. Ron Klein, Democrat of Florida, hysterically claimed he had been "threatened" by one of the Vietnam Veteran bikers supporting his Republican opponent, Allen West.

The man who had allegedly "threatened" Klein is 60 years old and goes by the terrifying name of ... "Miami Mike." Mike told the Miami Herald that he had simply e-mailed Klein, saying that he deserved to be voted out of office and, in addition, he needed "a good ass-kicking, which I'd be more than happy to do even though I'm a lot older than you."

As Miami Mike said: "A threat? Give me a break. He cannot be scared of what I wrote. If he is, he is just a real baby."

Apparently so. Klein turned Mike's e-mail over to the Capitol police, where they promptly burst out laughing and then ordered framed copies of the e-mail.

Speaking of little girls in pink party dresses, Keith Olbermann has repeatedly claimed that Allen West "disgraced his uniform." Weirdly, he never gives details of how he thinks West did that. (Maybe Olbermann could check on war-zone protocol with fake-Vietnam War veteran Dick Blumenthal, who's running for the Senate from Connecticut by lying about having served in Vietnam.)

As a colonel in Iraq, West was interrogating an Iraqi terrorist who knew about a planned ambush. Unable to get him to talk, West shot a gun near the terrorist's head, whereupon the frightened but unharmed detainee spilled the beans.

Because of that, West's men were able to capture a potential attacker and identify future ambush sites. There were no further attacks on West's men.

As West later told The New York Times, "There are rules and regulations, and there's protecting your soldiers." He said, "I just felt I'd never have to write a letter of condolence home to a 'rule and regulation.'"

When the Army considered court-martialing West, thousands of letters poured in defending West and thanking him for what he had done. Ninety-five members of Congress signed a letter to the secretary of the Army in support of West. No court-martial was ever convened.

Liberals won't say that John Phillip Walker Lindh disgraced his country. Washington Sen. Patty Murray thinks Osama bin Laden is a swell guy for building "day care centers" in Afghanistan. But they say a hero like Allen West "disgraced his uniform" by saving the lives of American soldiers.

Yeah, the Tea Party candidates are a real embarrassment.

I'm Al Franken and I'm gonna have a great speech on the senate floor today because I'm smart, I'm good enough, and, goshdarnit, people like me!

That was a comment upvote mistake-fuck the comments above, try your morality on the cornflakes box you read it from bt...jacking off on the senate floor in this day and age??.... LOSER!

Not saying I don't dig porn...saying much more than that should anyone whom i have insulted and to follow with comments should use their own, ass-smelling finger to detract from the VALUABLE dialog to follow-

This shit is what makes the sift another mediocre, flavor-of-the-weak.

>> ^demon_ix:

Was there any more "porn"? Or was that one photo of topless girls on a beach it? Because if so, it could just be him checking emails and receiving links from people.
Anyway, calling that photo "porn" is an insult to an entire industry!


Pretty sure that's all it was. Just him checking his personal e-mail (instead of doing his job and paying attention to the issue) and some links he received/clicked and then closed pretty quickly. People receive shit in their e-mail all the time, can't really fault the guy for that. The way I've seen it reported, you'd think he was jacking off on the Senate floor.

^ The point is, Inhofe is part of the crowd that will say on the Senate floor that the Stimulus was either a) a corrupt payback to liberal donors, b) a socialist plot to destroy the free market, or c) won't have any beneficial effect on the job market, even temporarily.

To then say it was "necessary" undercuts all of those things.

It's only a mild approval, but that's all it takes to be a big fat hypocrite when your normal rhetoric is so very toxic.

>> ^Rotty:
This really isn't news worthy; obammy has already demostrated that he's a diplomatic moron. What, no iPod for Akihito?
There are more relevant reasons to slam this Banker boy:
1) No immediate plans to leave Iraq. What happened to the nine month plan?
2) Additional deployments to Afghanastan; more dead Americans fighting the elite's wars.
3) Filling his admnistration with the same thugs that have consistently corrupted and looted America.
4) Other than banker bailouts, he hasn't done SHIT for the economy.
5) No changes in banking regulations that led to the last economic meltdown.
6) Other than creating a few thousnad jobs in his native state, he hasn't done SHIT in creating jobs.
As a matter of fact, other than touring the planet, he hasn't done a fucking thing.
The only CHANGE he's interested in is the change in your pocket.


If you cut out the diplomacy slam and all the childish name calling, I would have to agree with much of this fellow's post.

The bank bailout is a moot point because anyone in office would have bailed them out. Maybe not Ron Paul, but certainly McCain! After all, Bush bailed out Bear Sterns in Feb 2007 and McCain did whatever Bush did so...there you go.

I voted for Obama because he said he'd...

1) end the war,
2) go after those that committed war crimes (admittedly, Biden said this not Obama, but still)
3) not have any lobbyist on his cabinet (for the post of Deputy Secretary of Defense he nominated William J. Lynn III, the top lobbyist for Raytheon, one of the biggest companies in the military-industrial complex)
4) follow the rule of law. Meanwhile, the suspension of habeas corpus is still in effect for many "enemy combatants" and warrantless wiretaps at the NSA are still going like the energizer bunny.

He has done some good things. He at least tried to introduce a public healthcare option (it's unfortunately DOA on the Senate floor), he reversed some environmental policies, and, well, he's not Bush. But that's not really enough for me.

Downvote this comment if you like but everything I've pointed out is the truth.

Some much needed context:

(AP) WASHINGTON — Show me some civility, Republicans cried Friday after a Missouri congressman speaking on the House floor was caught on microphone apparently cussing out a fellow Missourian.

Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., had just finished addressing his Republican colleague Todd Akin Thursday.

Skelton then turned to the side and muttered "stick it up your ass."

The comment was just audible on the C-SPAN tape of the proceedings and was not included in the Congressional Record, the official record of speeches on the House and Senate floor.

Skelton's spokeswoman, Jennifer Kohl, said the comment was not intended to be broadcast and was "said out of frustration in the heat of debate." She said Skelton, a veteran lawmaker known for working well with Republicans, planned to apologize to Akin.

The dispute arose over opposition from Akin and other Republicans to inclusion in a major defense policy bill of a provision extending federal hate crimes law to include violence against gays.

Akin, a member of the Armed Services Committee, had spoken before Skelton, saying the hate crimes measure was "poisonous enough in fact that we refuse to be blackmailed into voting for a piece of social agenda that has no place in this bill."

Skelton, in his on-mike reply, said he wanted "to remind my fellow Missourian" that the Senate had voted for the defense bill, with the hate crimes provision, by a vote of 87-7.

Akin's spokesman, Steve Taylor, said the remark was "shocking and not characteristic of Skelton's behavior." He said Akin, who has a son going to Afghanistan in three weeks and is normally a strong supporter of defense legislation, was "very disappointed in the personal digression."

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Tom Erickson issued a statement that "Skelton needs to apologize, not only to his colleagues in the House, but also to his constituents who shouldn't have to put up with this sort of behavior from their elected representatives."

Both parties have complained recently about the lack of civility in the House, the Democrats after Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., yelled out "you lie" during a speech by President Barack Obama on health care legislation, and Republicans after Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., said on the House floor that the GOP approach to health care reform was telling sick people to "die quickly."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/rep-skelton-to-rep-akin-s_n_315821.html

I'd say the right way to think about what happened today with the public option is that Democrats failed to score a complete Knock-out of the Senate opposition.

Had either the Rockefeller or Schumer amendments passed today, the public option would essentially be certain to be part of the reform package.

Between the House and Senate, there are 5 committees who need to vote on health care. 4 of the 5 committees voted out a bill with a public option. The 3 House committees approved a single unified bill, HR3200, which had a strong public option in it, similar to the one in the Rockefeller amendment.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (aka HELP) committee had a "level playing field" public option, similar to the one in the Schumer amendment.

The hooplah today was in the other (and final) committee, the Senate Finance Committee.

Once the Finance committee votes on a final bill (days, if not weeks away), it will need to be merged with the bill from the HELP committee on the Senate floor, and then put to a vote. Had both bills contained a public option from committee, the pre-amendment Senate bill would have contained a public option, and it would have required an amendment to strip it out (which Democrats could and would filibuster).

So this shouldn't really be looked on as a defeat for the public option -- it's just that we didn't knock out the opposition in the first couple rounds of the match.

I suspect we'll end up with a bill with a Schumer-style public option, and no Republican votes in either house when we get to the end of the process.

Whoo! Floccinaucinihilipilification!

It's a real word! It's been used on the Senate floor during filibusters!

>> ^blankfist:
Anyone else disgusted with these partisan pundits? When I turn on the news, I'd like to think everything I was hearing was unbiased and fair, but between Rachel Maddow and Bill O'Reilly news is nothing more than theater.


This is unbiased and fair. No numbers were massaged, and no one is being misquoted. There's no "if you question the war, you hate the troops" kind of propagandist leaps of logic.

It makes a concluding judgment, but only after walking through a completely open deductive argument.

What to you would be unbiased? If she spent equal time making the case that Democrats are wrong? That's your bias, I suppose.

When one party says it's raining outside, and the other says it's sunny, it's okay for the press to look out the window and report who's right, without trying to make the case that both are right and both are wrong.

That said, yes, I want an impartial press. Rachel isn't impartial in her views on things, but she does strive to objectively explore her positions, knowing that there could just be something she doesn't get. That's more than most TV reporters of any stripe do. If you want someone who's the left's Bill O'Reilly, Olbermann is a much better fit (he does those propagandist leaps, cherrypicks facts, and doesn't do any objective exploration of whether he might be wrong).

Is there anyone, in any form of media who's going to be able to report on the argument going on in the Senate floor in any detail that wouldn't come off as partisan to one of us?

For that matter, what's the objective, non-biased answer to "did the New Deal end the Great Depression?" Could you and I agree to the same yes/no answer to that question?

Is Rachel biased because she thinks it did?

This is the incident on the Senate floor I mentioned.

October 1 — As the two shared the Senate floor tonight for the first time since they won their party nominations, Obama stood chatting with Democrats on his side of the aisle, and McCain stood on the Republican side of the aisle.

So Obama crossed over into enemy territory.

He walked over to where McCain was chatting with Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida and Independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut. And he stretched out his arm and offered his hand to McCain.

McCain shook it, but with a “go away” look that no one could miss. He tried his best not to even look at Obama.

Finally, with a tight smile, McCain managed a greeting: “Good to see you.”

Obama got the message. He shook hands with Martinez and Lieberman — both of whom greeted him more warmly — and quickly beat a retreat back to the Democratic side.

>> ^rychan:
Downvoted because they did shake hands at the conclusion of the debate, this clip was McCain introducing Cindy to Obama
See the video at the bottom of http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/222684.php


So, what, he can't shake his hand again? Honestly, I think that makes it worse. Like the beginning of the debate, the very end is when he has to shake his hand. It's obviously on camera and part of the "show." Taken with McCain not being able to look at him during the first debate, his refusal to talk with him a couple of weeks ago on the Senate floor, and some of the other incidents they've had over the last few years, this refusal to shake his hand is a true indicator of McCain contempt for Obama, IMO. He really doesn't like him for some reason.