Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had what appears to be
a major victory today in the ongoing effort to blunt Rethuglican efforts to filibuster Obama administration executive branch nominees. In exchange for having to deploy the "nuclear option" of changing Senate rules to allow a 51-vote majority to invoke
cloture, a group of Rethugs led by Arizona
Sen. John "Grampypants" McCain Boehnered abandoned Senate Minority Leader and turtle impersonator
Mitch "Missy" McConnell and voted to proceed with the nomination of Richard Cordray to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Six other nominations to executive branch positions were also to get cloture votes, although there's a catch (there always is, no?):
In short, Republicans would confirm nominees to all seven positions, a
big concession for the GOP. But in a concession for Democrats, they
would replace two recess-appointed nominees to the National Labor
Relations Board - Sharon Block and Richard Griffin, pictured below -
with new nominees under the following condition: Republicans pledge to
confirm any two replacements by President Obama to the board by Aug. 27.
A victory, however small and transient, is a victory when dealing with the nihilist zombies running the Rethuglican party in Congress. But we should point out that the agreement struck today doesn't address judicial nominations or voting on pieces of legislation. It remains to be seen whether today's "agreement" will last, or if it's a one-time concession. But the fact that Reid used the threat of the "nuclear option" and it made the Rethugs blink, proved perhaps that it can work again (barring true filibuster reform).
Plus, any time that lying hypocrite Missy McConnell loses, it's a good day.
BONUS: Joan McCarter reminds us that we do have Missy McConnell and his endless filibustering to thank for something:
... we wouldn't have Senator Elizabeth Warren if Republicans
hadn't been so terrified of her and raised so much hell about opposing
her as head of the new [Consumer Financial Protection] agency. If they had hadn't fought her so hard,
she wouldn't be in the Senate. On the Banking Committee.
Thanks, Mitch McConnell!
(Image: Sen. Missy McConnell having a sad, via DonkeyHotey)
