A Familiar Stench Wafts Up from Alabama
The people have already judged Roy Moore, and found him wanting, as they should have.
Tagged: Senate
Congressional Kabuki: Non-Electric Boogaloo Edition
As he promised, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brought the Green New Deal up for a vote in the Senate. No one voted for it, with 57 against and 43 voting “present” out of protest.
Senator McSally: “I also am a military sexual assault survivor.”
The retired Air Force fighter pilot would surely have a perspective to bring to the proceedings from her 27 years of service. The hearing got a lot more personal than that.
Linky Friday: Those Folks on the Hill
Linky Friday, Ordinary Times’ end-of-week tradition of bringing you links to stories from around the world and across the web. This week: The Folks on the Hill, looking at the newly sworn in Congress, with music to read, share, and discuss
Mitt Romney Writes a Thing, People React
What we now have in this latest version of Trump v Romney is two men in whom it’s been established who and what they are. In Romney we have a throwback vestige to the Republican party of the time before Trump the disruptor came, in many ways, as the reaction to that type of politics.
Linky Friday: For the 116th Time…
Linky Friday is Ordinary Times’ end of week tradition of bringing you linked stories from around the world and across the web. This week, “For the 116th Time…” a look at the many stories of the incoming US Congress, plus remembering the music of Roy Clark.
Legitimacy and the So-Called House Popular Vote
Much ink has been spilt since Donald Trump’s election regarding the legitimacy of the U.S. government system, the fortitude of the rule of law, and the viability of American democracy. What do the 2018 election results tell us about those big, scary issues?
The Losing Game – Why Majority Rule Needs Constraint
Each side is predictable in one respect – they overreach.
A Safer Response to Garland-Gorsuch
A suggestion for a better way to handle the upcoming filibuster of Neil Gorsuch than discarding the consensus-building filibuster rule.
Ohio: The Fulcrum
Imagine a world where the leadership of the free world rests in the hands of one man from Ohio.
A man named… Rob Portman.
Lawlessness, Without Purpose Or Effect
A brief summary of the “executive summary” of the Senate’s report on the CIA detention and interrogation program.
ENDA’s Game
In which the necessity of a law is politically dismissed because of a massive public misunderstanding by a man with an eerily orange face.
Too Steep A Path
Yesterday I read the Senate Gang of Eight’s proposal on immigration reform. (Since when was Marco Rubio in this group, which first formed before he was elected to the Senate?) It promises a “tough but...
World’s Greatest Deliberative Body
Fantastic article on the modern Senate by George Packer – it’s a long one, but well worth the full read for those who have the time. For the totally inadequate, bullet-point version, Packer blames...
Pork and Deliberation
After the news of Senator Robert Byrd’s death broke this morning, I exchanged a couple of text messages with my brother. In one of them, he wrote that Byrd’s “style of governance has been...
Separation of Powers and the Filibuster
I go back and forth on what I think about the propriety of the filibuster for legislative purposes, although I’m inclined towards the view that the filibuster is on the whole a good thing...
Health Care and Ping Pong
By Wyeth Ruthven Forget conference committees, any observer of health care reform needs to add the term “ping-pong” to their legislative vocabulary. Ping-pong is a little known but increasingly used procedural device to pass...
Eight Steps Towards A Less Dysfunctional Congress
by Kyle Mathews If there’s one thing that most political commentators and Americans can agree upon, it’s that Congress is bad at its job. Presidential approval ratings go up and down, Congressional approval ratings...
In which Jamelle complains about the Senate, again
In an otherwise decent piece about Harry Reid’s continuing attempt to corral support for the public option, this paragraph sticks out like a sore thumb: Just six weeks ago the public option appeared to...
Point of Order
An unanticipated side-effect of Joe Wilson’s outburst has been a pretty interesting discussion of parliamentary procedure, both at home and abroad. Congress Matters explains the relevant Senate rules and Andrew Sullivan compares Wilson’s interjection...
