Yeah, him again.
Chuck Grassley has some competition for the
whiner-of-the-week award, coming from none other than his
caucus leader in the Senate.
On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) argued there was another problem with moving Obama's nominees: a "culture of intimidation" being fueled by Democrats.
"There's a culture of intimidation throughout the executive branch of the federal government," McConnell told reporters in response to a question about nominations and listed a number of agencies. "There's also a culture of intimidation here in the Senate."
McConnell accused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) of planning to break a promise he made in January about not messing with Senate filibuster rules. Reid has been hinting for weeks that he may be ready for a filibuster fight this summer if Republicans don't ease off their blocking of Obama's nominees. Plenty of Democrats support changing the rules so that nominees would require only a simple majority to be confirmed, versus the current 60-vote threshold.
Well boo-fucking-hoo,
Sen. Unprecedented Obstruction. That agreement in January involved just that, an agreement, and your part of it was that frivolous filibusters would end. That only extraordinary circumstances would merit a filibuster. And mere days after that agreement was reached, what did we get? The
unprecedented (yes, there's that word again) filibuster of Chuck Hagel, President Obama's defense secretary nominee.
President Obama is doing his job in nominating people to fill vacancies. If McConnell suddenly finds that intimidating, it's only because he is not doing his own job, and maybe, just maybe, Democrats are finally ready to do something about it.
Let's give McConnell something real to whine about. Use this link to send an email to your Democratic senators telling them to re-open filibuster reform and make the Senate function again.