GOP Obstruction Goes Unnoticed—and Unpunished [View All]

A very important article, I think. Democrats are being made chumps.. And we go back for more.. Non-partianship only works when the Repukes are in power.. Other wise it slash and burn and we have not the slightest clue as how to fight back...
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Normal human beings—let’s call them real Americans—cannot understand why, 10 months after President Obama’s inauguration, Congress is still tied down in a procedural torture chamber trying to pass the health care bill Obama promised in his campaign.
....Last year, the voters gave him the largest popular vote margin won by a presidential candidate in 20 years....
Is it any wonder that Congress has miserable approval ratings? Is it surprising that independents, who want their government to solve a few problems, are becoming impatient with the current majority?
...
Democrats in the Senate—the House is not the problem—need to have a long chat with themselves and decide whether they want to engage in an act of collective suicide. ...
...But it’s also time to start paying attention to how Republicans, with Machiavellian brilliance, have hit upon what might be called the Beltway-at-Rush-Hour Strategy, aimed at snarling legislative traffic to a standstill...
...Yet there was a small break in the Curtain of Obstruction this week when Republican senators unashamedly ate every word they had spoken when George W. Bush was in power about the horrors of filibustering nominees for federal judgeships. On Tuesday, a majority of Republicans tried to block a vote on the appointment of David F. Hamilton, a rather moderate jurist, to a federal appeals court.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama explained the GOP’s about-face by saying: “I think the rules have changed.”

That was actually a helpful comment, because the Republicans have changed the rules on Senate action up and down the line. Hamilton’s case is just the one instance that finally got a little play.

Thankfully, this filibuster failed because some Republicans were embarrassed by it. But Republican delaying tactics have made Obama far too wary



http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/gop_obstruction_goes_unnoticed_--_and_unpunished_20091118/?ln