Democrats, beset by mounting scandals, the implosion of Obamacare, plummeting poll numbers for The Lyin’ King and an impending Senate election in which Democrats may lose, or at least pare down, their majority, have done what Democrats typically do. If much is good, more is better: Shameless and destructive to the last, Harry Reid forced through a rule change pertaining to the “nuclear option” in the Senate, designed to defang Republican opposition to political appointments and judicial nominees.
USA Today reported Thursday: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pushed through a controversial change to Senate rules Thursday that will make it easier to approve President Obama’s nominees … to weaken the power of the filibuster.” FOX News added: “Senate Democrats (obtained) … a highly controversial rule change which would limit the GOP’s ability to block nominees … the change weakens the power of the minority to stall nominations for top positions. Instead of needing 60 votes to break a filibuster, the change means Democrats will now need just 51. ”
67 votes to change Senate rules is the norm but, as CNN stated: “…Democrats – who control the chamber with a 55-45 majority – changed those rules with a simple majority vote.”
It is supposed to be of some consolation that this change does not apply to nominees for the Supreme Court. The problem is that all other presidential nominees and judicial appointments are subject to the full-blown power grab. As long as Democrats have 51 votes in the Senate there is no longer any bar to The Lyin’ King packing the lower courts and getting approval for political appointments.
The Lyin’ King’s puppet, Harry Reid, did not enact this usurpation of power without The Imperial president’s wholehearted approval. The Lyin’ King enthusiastically applauded the Democrat Senate’s hijacking on Thursday afternoon. CNN quoted The Lyin’ King who referred to “an unprecedented pattern of obstruction in Congress.” This eye-watering fabrication was, as always, passed off as truth to support his despotic power seizure. CNN continued the quote: “A deliberate and determined effort to obstruct everything, no matter what the merits, just to re-fight the results of an election is not normal, and for the sake of future generations, it cannot become normal…”
As mind boggling as The Lyin’ King’s self-serving falsehoods are, Thursday they were dwarfed by the appalling rationalization of a power-mad Reid. USA Today quoted Reid from the Senate floor: “The American people believe Congress is broken. The American people believe the Senate is broken. And I believe they are right … The need for change is so very, very obvious.” CNN concluded Reid’s delusional statement: “It’s time to get the Senate working again … Not for the good of the current Democratic majority or some future Republican majority, but for the good of the United States of America. It’s time to change. It’s time to change the Senate before this institution becomes obsolete.”
Reid’s mendacity is the opposite of what is true; he’s just wrestled the Senate, already on shaky ground, to the dirt. We aren’t supposed to notice that it is the likes of Reid that has alienated the voting public. Reid’s rewrites are making “this institution becom[e] obsolete.”
The Lyin’ King claims that Senatorial opposition “is not normal.” Political opposition has been the norm for 237 years. The system of checks and balances, all but worn away, has been further withered by rewriting, wholesale, rules within the branches of government.
Contrary to The Lyin’ King’s opinion, the sad reality is that what is not “normal” is a president who can only function as a dictator.
Image: Courtesy of: http://opinion-forum.com/index/2010/01/should-harry-reid-resign/
