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 Jim DeMint Ping! |
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Posted on 07/15/2011 7:36:52 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Right now, Senate caucus leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell are putting their heads together to flesh out the specifics of the Plan Z proposal McConnell floated at the beginning of the week. Reid’s involvement has actually improved the idea, National Review’s Rich Lowry concedes, but that doesn’t give conservative firebrand Senator Jim DeMint any warm fuzzies. On Twitter a few minutes ago, DeMint announced that he would block the McConnell plan if presented to the Senate with “every tool” at his disposal:
JimDeMint: I’ll use every tool in Senate to stop passage of “Plan B” blank check debt limit increase.
JimDeMint: No Republican was elected to give President Obama more power and that’s what this plan does.
Every tool means three in particular: the hold, the filibuster, and withholding unanimous consent. The hold is not a permanent block on consideration, however. Senate rules allow for holds to be overridden, although it takes days of floor votes to do so. It’s actually similar to the filibuster, as the remedy is the cloture vote to end debate as in filibusters. If McConnell and Reid united on a plan, one would presume that they could carry enough votes to reach 60, especially since Democrats in the Senate would probably follow the White House lead on this plan.
Unanimous consent is another matter entirely. One Senator can force a near-stoppage of Senate business by withholding unanimous consent simply by objecting to every time-saving order of business on the floor. Bills would have to be read aloud in their entirety as an example, or roll call votes conducted to bypass those requirements. It’s the tedium option, and in this case DeMint has a big advantage: the calendar. A solution to the debt-ceiling issue is now pressing, and the longer DeMint can stall the Senate on all of its business, the more distant the prospects for this proposal becomes.
DeMint is right that this gives the President more power on the debt ceiling, although it’s not entirely unchecked power, and it is for a limited time only. It comes with a price — the responsibility for unpopular increases and further spending. But politically, DeMint is right that handing more power to Obama is not the kind of action that convinced voters to send more Republicans to Congress.
The better bet would be to have the House pass a short-term debt-ceiling increase with balancing spending cuts, and dare the Senate and the President to kill it. Is Boehner moving on that front yet?
forget plan B! no debt increase, no default! govt will “wither on the vine”! this is our last chance!
1. Put McConnel into a toilet.
2. Use the toilet in every possible manner.
3. Flush it.
4. Flush it again.
5. If he still appears, get a bat and bash him back down.
He is slime.
He is scum.
He (almost) as without merit or brain is the Obama-clod.
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Jim DeMint Ping! |
Follow Sen. DeMint on Twitter.
Good. Block it.
Fishlips surrenders. Again.
demanding a new Senate minority leader might be a good start
McConnell must have been severely compromised by something
The democrats must have pictures of McConnell doing the nasty with somebody or something
Jim DeMint and Marco Rubio are the two best Senators we have.
I wonder if this will even go anywhere if the House rejects it.
excellent, except turtles have backbones
well, OK, exoskeletons.... but they are not made of gelatin
McConnell is an old school professional politician.
Everything he does is based on political calculus, and input from lobbyists and other big money donors. Everything.
That means, what’s good for America isn’t even part of his thought process. What’s good for Mitch is #1 and the only thing on his list.
It must be something really bad like smoking a cigarette or screwing in an incandescent light bulb or grilling steaks on a gas grill.
Don’t forget Rand Paul.
They have backbones, AND a shell. turtle skeleton - Google Search
Mitchie the Kid McConnell is nuts. Thank God for Jim Demint.
The conservatives in the house should as a group declare that if this travesty is passed with rino + dem votes that they will switch parties immediately.
(Tea Party maybe ?)
Boner would not remain speaker.
Rinos would be universally despised going forward.
Here’s my turning lemons into lemonade scenario:
1. this awful McConnell plan passes;
2. In protest, DeMint resigns from the Senate, and Paul Ryan from the house, and jointly announce a DeMint/Ryan President/VP candidacy for 2012 under a newly formed political party-the Tea Party
This may be delusion or fantasy on my part, but McConnell disgusted me as much as I was in 2004 when Bush and Santorum helped Specter beat Toomey in the PA primary.
I always believed that the best strategy was to reform the GOP, rather than secede; but if the establishment embraces the McConnell plan secession may be in order.
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