Pelosi's office broken into and trashed by Right Wingers

[CmdrWilkens]

Honestly the only question on the Senate side is whether it will go filibuster or not. Reid certainly has 50 votes (which means Biden puts him over the top at 51) so the only question is the procedural vote on cloture. I think its entirely possibly Reid has the muscle to get his wavering Dems to vote for cloture if they are allowed to go off the reservation on the main bill. The alternative is he forces an actual filibuster which could hurt the Republicans even more now that the house has passed a bill (it would simply make them look even more blatantly obstructionist).

Agreed. Everyone acts like they need 60 votes to stop a Republican fillibuster, but no one asks what a fillibuster would do to the image of the Republicans. I'm not so sure a Republican fillibuster wouldn't blow up in their faces (especially Lieberman's face) and end up strengthening the chance for a stronger health bill.

The problem is (and RR got it in one) that Reid is unlikely to do so. In the two Congress' he has been Majority Leader there have been more motions for cloture than at any previous time in the history of the Senate. In other words he has been unable to line up sufficient weight to prevent a filibuster simply by show of force nor has he been willing to have his opponents actually take to the floor for a filibuster. He basically has folded every hand regardless of whether the opposition was bluffing or not.

[SirNitram]

Uh, a motion for cloture has jack and shit to do with Reid. It has to do with those putting it forward, IE, Republicans. When it succeeds, blame Reid. But GOPers have moved to doing it just for phoning it in, as it still uses up more time.

[CmdrWilkens]

Uh, a motion for cloture has jack and shit to do with Reid. It has to do with those putting it forward, IE, Republicans. When it succeeds, blame Reid. But GOPers have moved to doing it just for phoning it in, as it still uses up more time.

Filing for Cloture moves to limit debate to within the period following the day after the vote takes place, it is almost always done by the party moving the bill forward which usually means the Majority Leader. Reid has done so more often than any other previous Majority Leader.

Check out this link and perhaps you can count how many cloture motions were made by folks other than Reid. As a hint a one-handed man could pull it off for the whole of 2008. You'll also note that McConnell filed for Cloture 12 of the 139 times mentioned.


Once again Cloture is what the party moving a bill forward uses to avoid filibuster, since the minority party isn't concerned about filibuster (they have to be worried about the vote itself) there isn't usually any point in filing for cloture and it has been a tool almost exclusively for the majority party.

[Simon_Jester]

With people parading around rifles in Obama's public appearances to "send a message", and I wonder how your President feels about this, and the impression that the Republicans or at least the fringe far-right nuts, are getting even fringer and far-righter and nuttier... is the fear of another Timothy McVeigh-style bombing justified?

Probably. Every aspect of the situation is more extreme than it was in the mid-90s; the crazies are crazier, the president is blacker, the universal health care plan is more likely to succeed... you get the idea.

I almost think the country would be better off if the craziest people on the right actually did get violent, for the reasons given above: if they get violent, they will make at least a significant fraction of people think twice about associating with them. The number of people willing to support a cause that is backed by high-profile terrorism* isn't enough to actually win elections in this country.

*The kind with bomb craters and gutted buildings.

[The Grim Squeaker]

With people parading around rifles in Obama's public appearances to "send a message", and I wonder how your President feels about this, and the impression that the Republicans or at least the fringe far-right nuts, are getting even fringer and far-righter and nuttier... is the fear of another Timothy McVeigh-style bombing justified?

Probably. Every aspect of the situation is more extreme than it was in the mid-90s; the crazies are crazier, the president is blacker, the universal health care plan is more likely to succeed... you get the idea.

I almost think the country would be better off if the craziest people on the right actually did get violent, for the reasons given above: if they get violent, they will make at least a significant fraction of people think twice about associating with them. The number of people willing to support a cause that is backed by high-profile terrorism* isn't enough to actually win elections in this country.

*The kind with bomb craters and gutted buildings.

Not really, that would only help if there was a strong police action against them. If it's a large percentage/popular movement (not just fringes) then that won't happen, and violent right wingers vs a mindless middle and inneffectual left, well, let's just say that my money would be on the brownshirts.
So don't be a fucking moron.

[Simon_Jester]

I suppose I was implicitly expecting that there would be a strong police reaction to a major outbreak of domestic terrorism. I'd expect one, especially if the profile of the terror campaign reached the point of full national awareness (as it did with the Oklahoma City bombing).

I don't think "popular mass movement" would be the right word for the kind of terrorism we could plausibly expect in this situation. I could easily be proven wrong by events, but I don't think the proportion of the population fanatic enough to embrace violence would actually be that large or that distributed.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Especially since despite what glenn beck says, the majority want health care relief, though we appear to not be getting any.