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Saturday, January 24, 2015

Senate Republicans Cancel Friday Legislation, Fly Out To California To Meet Up With Koch Brothers


 January 23, 2015  

For years, Republicans in the Senate have been talking about the “do-nothing” Democrats who block all legislation and refuse to let a bipartisan agenda come to vote. With promises of changing the way business is done in the Senate, they fooled the populace and took the majority. Their first few acts of business have been nothing less than telling. In many cases, they’ve amounted to “I told you so’s” coming from members of the public who have been paying close attention to what the Republicans were trying to do before they overtook both houses of Congress.

Some of their first acts as the majority included challenging math in the Congressional Budget Office in an attempt to lie about how good tax cuts for the rich are, refusing to put money in the Social Security Disability Fund, destroying consumer protections so the banks can have leverage over people again, and officially voting that climate change isn’t real despite 99 percent of scientific consensus stating otherwise.

Since Republicans are finally getting their way and have no Democrats to stop them, they have stated it is now time for compromise. The Democrats agreed and have begun attempting to put forward amendment votes to Republican bills that are being put forward on the floor. In fact, this is the most productive year for amendment votes in a long time!
But that hasn’t stopped Republican obstructionism. The new Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, has led an effort to put forward legislation allowing for the Keystone Pipeline to become active. Members from both parties have put forward amendments to the bill, but somehow only Republican amendments are making it to the floor for debate.

Democrats have put forward a number of amendments for the bill, but to McConnell it’s just not moving fast enough. In the spirit of cronyism, McConnell has decided to table any and all amendments by Democrats because apparently one minute of time spent on Democrats is just too much time. Many Democrats in the Senate are furious as they aren’t even given 60 seconds to argue the merits of their amendments.

All this is going to be okay, though, because McConnell has promised that the Senate will continue to work on Fridays this year in order to assist with a bipartisanship with the Democrats. Well, that is, unless he is called like a lapdog by his master. In keeping with his track record of integrity as the Senate Majority Leader, McConnell cancelled the Friday work schedule so that he could fly all the Senate Republicans out to California to have a closed door meeting with the Koch Brothers.
Ah. What a breath of fresh air this bipartisan agenda McConnell has set is. I can’t wait to see all the accomplishments we can achieve over the next two years.

I wonder if people will get out and vote next time…

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