Bill Clinton unavailable for comment. (Fox) — Firing the first volley in the White House battle to win Nevada, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid on Saturday mocked the GOP presidential contenders one by one as nearly 12,600 Democrats held caucuses across the state to support President Barack Obama’s re-election. “Those candidates are pretty interesting,” Reid said, smiling
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Reid Mocks GOP: “One Of The Candidates Believes In Free Love”…
According to Darrell Issa, SOPA is officially postponed by House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith. Issa broke the news on Twitter , which only underscores how important it is that we protect the Internet from capricious censorship, as was the risk under a SOPA-like regime. On the Senate side, Harry Reid has canceled the vote on PROTECT IP , killing momentum for the proposal in both houses of Congress. Smith’s and Reid’s decisions comes on the heels of disgraced former Senator and current MPAA head Chris Dodd calling for cross-industry discussions on property protection . It may have been the death blow for PROTECT IP and SOPA’s biggest industry supporter to start talking compromise, when in the past the Dodd MPAA had taken a hard line against any deviation from the bills. In other SOPA news, Marsha Blackburn also announced a change of heart on SOPA . I agree with Blackburn’s new position: scrap SOPA and start with something new. Issa’s and Ron Wyden’s OPEN Act is also worthy of consideration.
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Smith and Reid give in, setting aside SOPA and PROTECT IP
SOPA is dead in the House , says Majority Leader Eric Cantor, until there is consensus. Since there’s never going to be consensus on Internet censorship, Cantor seems to be saying the issue’s dead in this Congress. The President went mushy on SOPA , Harry Reid and Senate Democrats decided to push forward , but Eric Cantor, Darrell Issa, and House Republicans want to kill the bill. That’s a clear, bright line, folks. Turns out primary threats matter more than vague protests . Hey, if Rupert Murdoch wants to hold Google accountable for every search result , then let’s come after Rupert Murdoch for every classified ad ever run in any of his newspapers, eh? Have any ‘pirates’ ever advertised there? Massage parlors? Other lawbreakers? Betcha they have. And I bet Google hasn’t hacked anybody’s phones. Or committed perjury before British inquiries related to those phone hackings, like James Murdoch and British elements of the News Corp. empire have. Oops. If the FCC doesn’t like Republican efforts to constrain their freedom of action on spectrum , it’s their own fault for creating that mistrust that now exist. Nobody believes Julius Genachowski has any intent to obey the law. He thinks he’s above the law.
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Tech at Night: Eric Cantor: SOPA’s dead.
Yesterday, Roll Call published an article suggesting that Harry Reid has had quite an auspicious year as Majority Leader. They observe the fact that Reid has won a larger percentage of cloture votes this year than in 2010, even though his caucus has been diminished from 59 senators to 53: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid managed to win more than half of the filibuster-breaking votes on the Senate floor in 2011, besting his success rate from the previous year. Of the 32 cloture votes pushed by the Nevada Democrat this year, Reid won 19, or 59 percent. He lost 13 cloture votes. That comes after hitting a success rate of 54 percent in 2010, when he won 28 cloture votes and lost 24. Sixty votes are needed to cut off debate and kill a filibuster, or invoke cloture. Reid’s majority shrunk from 59 Senators in 2010 to 53 in 2011, increasing the number of Republicans needed to vote with the majority of Democrats in order to reach the 60-vote threshold. I’ll be the first person to tell you that Senate Republicans have capitulated too much this year; however, that is not the primary reason for Harry Reid’s successful cloture record. His high degree of success this year is more a symptom of a do-nothing Senate than a successful rate of filibuster-busting on the part of Reid. In fact, there have been very few actual filibusters this session, and the few that were mounted were successful. Harry Reid has made it standard operating procedure to automatically file for cloture, even when there is no actual filibuster. Most of the 19 “successful” cloture votes were not filed to break a live filibuster. They were filed for non-controversial votes, such as presidential nominations. Even those cloture votes that pertained to controversial issues were not directed towards ending a filibuster. On issues like the patent reform bill, omnibus, minibus, and other appropriations bills, McConnell already agreed to cave ahead of time, pursuant to a deal that was already worked out with Boehner. Reid only filed cloture to expedite Senate business. Some of these non-filibustered bills had two cloture votes; one on a motion to proceed and one on passage of the bill. When these factors are accounted for, there are very few instances in which Reid successfully killed off a filibuster backed by the Republican conference. The reality is that Harry Reid has led the biggest do-nothing Senate ever. He has spent the majority of time on quorum calls and presidential nominations. When there are few legislative issues brought to the floor, there are few filibusters; when there are few filibusters there are few unsuccessful cloture votes. On average, there have been 50-55 cloture votes in recent years. In 2010, there were only 39 because Reid enjoyed a filibuster-proof majority for much of the time, thereby precluding the need for a cloture vote. Therefore, 32 cloture votes is actually remarkably low given the fact that Reid had nothing near a filibuster-proof majority this past year. Then again, there wasn’t much to filibuster in the first place. Democrats enjoyed many legislative victories this year, but they were not a result of Harry Reid’s parliamentarian tenacity or successful cloture votes. They were the result of gratuitous capitulations on the part of GOP leaders, most notably, on budget bills. The worst offense was McConnell’s unilateral surrender on the payroll tax/UI bill, which undercut the superior leverage of House Republicans. That capitulation was accomplished without a single cloture vote, as there was no filibuster in place. Jim DeMint was left out in the cold – without 40 fellow travelers. No filibuster; no cloture votes. Harry Reid is not a political juggernaut; he is a paper tiger – one who could be vanquished by a principled opposition. Follow @RMConservative //
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Is Harry Reid Really the Most Successful Majority Leader?
Here’s the background: the current hot topic of conversation in domestic politics right now is whether or not to extend a temporary payroll tax cut. It’s currently an object of some controversy on the GOP side, largely because it would involve effectively another 180 billion in spending; Democrats were in fact kind of gleeful about that, given that it promised to give Republicans a bit of a problem between specifically choosing between less spending and lower taxes (two things that have been long-term fiscal conservative goals). Unfortunately for the Democrats, they aren’t the only ones that can give their opponents uncomfortable choices: Speaker John Boehner made a deal where the tax cuts would be bundled up with provisions towards hastening the development of the ethical oil Keystone Pipeline. This reportedly will ensure that the tax cuts will pass the House . The problem here is that the White House has decided that it would rather pander to homophobic, racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic conflict oil regimes abroad – and those regimes’ radical progressive allies at home – than to produce jobs for working class Americans (even the ones that work for private sector unions). The White House has thus announced that it will veto the bill (via @ davidhauptmann ) if it passes the Keystone jobs program language. Speaker Boehner has already made it clear that he’s aware of the threat, and is not allowing it to affect House business . This now makes it the Senate’s problem. Specifically, it makes it Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s problem – because there are likely at least three Democratic Senators – possibly as many as five – who will vote for the pipeline, and House Republicans worked with Senate Republicans to ensure that the latter’s opinions on the precise language and provisions are respected. Put another way: Harry Reid lets this get put to a vote, Harry Reid will likely lose the vote. But if he doesn’t let it get put to a vote, then the Democrats end up being responsible for ending the payroll tax… which will not really hurt President Obama, but will hurt more the already slim chances that Democrats have to keep the Senate in 2012. And if he lets the bill pass, he breaks with the President. Apparently, it’s that that last scenario that deeply worries him – and the rest of the Democratic congressional leadership. I am not entirely certain why. After all, it’s not as if the Democrats’ absolute – and pitifully one-sided – loyalty to Obama saved them from the consequences of passing Obamacare (and thus keeping the President from looking more like a fool); in fact, it’s the reason why Nancy Pelosi is now the House Minority Leader and Harry Reid is probably going to be the Senate Minority Leader in January 2013. As it is now, Democratic intransigence in passing a budget is going to be disastrous enough for that party in the next election; if I was counseling my former party’s leadership cadre, I’d be telling them to cut loose from this administration right now and try to save themselves from the wreck – and that this is as good a place to start as any. So I wonder what Harry Reid is planning to do. In fact, I wonder if even he knows. Moe Lane ( crosspost )
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Keystone showdown looms: is Harry Reid a Senator, or Barack Obama’s Lap Dog?
