{"id":3625,"date":"2010-12-15T14:39:44","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T22:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3625"},"modified":"2010-12-15T14:39:44","modified_gmt":"2010-12-15T22:39:44","slug":"the-senate-is-more-broken-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/12\/15\/the-senate-is-more-broken-than-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"The Senate Is More Broken Than Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican obstruction has been the order of the day since Democrats took the Senate in 2006.  Last night, Rachel Maddow interviewed Sen. Tom Udall in her piece explaining how things are finally getting done, only because Democrats can keep the Senate in session until the day before the next session opens, and Republicans want to go home for the holidays.  She and Udall discusses the need for filibuster reform.  However, if one Republican has his way, it could turn Rachel\u2019s premise on its ear and demonstrate the need for Senate rules reform going far beyond the filibuster problem.<\/font><\/p>\n

First, here\u2019s Rachel.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

To prevent the Senate from functioning, the Republicans have put Jim DeMint forward to be their Luddite of the week.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"15start\"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate would vote on Wednesday afternoon on beginning debate on the treaty. He indicated debate would run several days, with a final vote possible on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Republican Senator Jim DeMint, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has threatened to use delaying tactics to try to block passage of the accord until the new year, indicated on Wednesday he might demand a full reading of the pact when it is introduced<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The treaty itself is only 17 pages but an accompanying protocol runs to 165 pages and three additional annexes add another 174. Democrats estimated it could take 12 to 15 hours to read the documents into the Senate record<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

"This is a new low in putting political stunts ahead of our national security, and it is exactly the kind of Washington game-playing that the American people are sick of," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Reuters<\/a>><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not often that I agree with Gibbs, these days.  If DeMint follows through with this act of political terrorism, I hope that Reid and the Senate Democrats have the spine to keep the Senate in session until the work is done, but I\u2019m not holding my breath.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican obstruction has been the order of the day since Democrats took the Senate in 2006.  Last night, Rachel Maddow interviewed Sen. Tom Udall in her piece explaining how things are finally getting done, only because Democrats can keep the Senate in session until the day before the next session opens, and Republicans want to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}