{"id":3752,"date":"2010-12-31T10:23:48","date_gmt":"2010-12-31T18:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3752"},"modified":"2010-12-31T10:23:48","modified_gmt":"2010-12-31T18:23:48","slug":"can-republicans-kill-the-lame-duck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/12\/31\/can-republicans-kill-the-lame-duck\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Republicans Kill the Lame Duck?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent lame duck session if Congress achieved many good things and one horrible one.  Nevertheless, it was so productive that Republicans are hell bent on making sure that they never again lose any portion the fruits gained over two years of extreme obstruction, because Democrats refuse to let them go home.  As a result they want to make the lame duck an extinct species.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"31lame-duck\"The lame duck session of Congress is in the books, with many touts <\/font><\/font>lauding the post-election period of congresspersons actually doing things<\/font><\/a><\/font> as the most productive lame duck ever. This sort of glosses over the fact that a lot of the sexier things that passed — the ratification of the START Treaty, health benefits for 9\/11 first responders, and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — were wildly popular with the public and should have been considered "no-brainers." Plus, everyone got a tax cut, because this is the last season of Oprah.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Of course, many in the GOP ranks hated<\/em><\/span> all that productivity, because what’s the point of months and months of pointless obstruction if the American people end up seeing what Congress is capable of doing in a few weeks?<\/strong> Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) got very sad about the lame duck session, complaining that "Harry Reid has eaten our lunch." [Faux Noise delinked] And Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) yelped that Reid and Nancy Pelosi have thrown a "<\/font><\/font>pie in the face of the American people<\/font><\/a><\/font>." Were the cafeterias not open during the lame duck session, or something?<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Credit Rep. Michele Bachmann, at least, for eschewing food metaphors in favor of all-out alarm Faux Noise delinked]:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

If you want my real opinion, the lame duck is awful. In my opinion it is unconstitutional. The 20th amendment passed in 1933 was meant to eliminate all future lame duck sessions. Congress didn’t want to see happen what is happening now<\/strong>.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Again, Congress could have prevented this by being more conscientious during the pre-Election Day legislative session. But, whatever! Naturally, now there is a movement afoot to get rid of lame duck sessions altogether. <\/font><\/font>Per Dave Weigel<\/font><\/a><\/font>:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Little-noticed over the holiday week: Rep. Lynn Jenkins <\/font><\/font>tweeting<\/font><\/a><\/font> this promise. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

"I will re-introduce the End the Lame Duck Act to prevent power grabs as we’ve seen at the end of this session<\/strong>."<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Huffington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

Batshit Bachmann was correct that the intent of the 20th Amendment was to end the lame dick, but she lied about the reasons.  The purpose was not to prevent mas legislation at all.  It was to keep members of Congress who lived in the west from having to spend days on trains returning to DC for a short session, as this was before there were airlines.  Republicans are opposing the duck with a litany of lies, as Rachel Maddow\u2019s Executive Producer, Bill Wolff, and columnist Eugene Robinson discuss.<\/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

I agree with Robinson.  This is political theatre.  Republicans love to rile their base with non-issues, so I predict with confidence that the duck will fly again.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent lame duck session if Congress achieved many good things and one horrible one.  Nevertheless, it was so productive that Republicans are hell bent on making sure that they never again lose any portion the fruits gained over two years of extreme obstruction, because Democrats refuse to let them go home.  As a result […]<\/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-3752","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\/3752","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=3752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}