Thread: McConnell: Reid filibuster ban a ‘naked power grab’

McConnell: Reid filibuster ban a ‘naked power grab’

Nicholas Ballasy
Senior Video Reporter



Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plan to end filibusters on motions to proceed a “naked power grab” and an “affront to the American people” Monday. He encouraged members “on both sides” to oppose Reid’s proposal “strenuously and loudly.”

“What even Senate Democrats have discovered over the past few years is a very different place, a place where committees no longer matter, where members of both parties are shut out of debate, and where bills are drafted behind closed doors. Where politicians trade favors in secret instead of exchanging ideas in public, just to get legislation across the finish line,” McConnell said on Monday, according to the prepared remarks of his Senate floor speech.

“You know, when I come to the Senate every day I know I work in a body of people who have very different views than I do about the role of government and the best solutions to the problems we face. But I know that the price of belonging to this place is having to hear them out and vote on their ideas, and that the price of their belonging here is they have to do the same.”

McConnell said the “American people need to know what’s going on” in the Senate.

“That’s why I hope that Republicans, and hopefully many Democrats who care more about this institution than some temporary exercise of raw partisan political power, will come forward over the next few weeks and speak out against this naked power grab. And when they do, I hope they’ll be guided by the words of another former Democratic senator, who said the following about the Senate and its uniqueness,” McConnell said before reading the following quote from former Democratic Senator Barack Obama in 2005.

“The American people sent us here to be their voice. They understand that those voices can at times become loud and argumentative, but they also hope we can disagree without being disagreeable. At the end of the day, they expect both parties to work together to get the people’s business done. What they do not expect is for one party, be it Republican or Democrat, to change the rules in the middle of the game so they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet. The American people want less partisanship in this town, but everyone in this chamber knows that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster, if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting, the bitterness, and the gridlock will only get worse.”

Read more: McConnell: Reid filibuster ban a 'naked power grab' | The Daily Caller

Apparently the Dems see a window of opportunity and historical weakness in their opponents that doesn't come around that often.

Historically, ANY power grab within a government throws democracy off-balance and impregnates itself with the seeds of socialism which when then births political revolution and violent government overthrows and civil war.

We'll have to wait and see if the powers shift so far left to genuine socialism that such a scenario materializes into real life.

But we've been living under a 2-Party system that through compromise has been a 1-Party system for at least two decades and just now people are beginning to stand up and take notice when it is finally being made official.

Wow! From the language Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell used in this aritcle, he sounds like he is almost responding directly to all of the ALIPAC activists that called yesterday....

http://www.alipac.us/f8/stop-harry-reid-changing-senate-rules-pass-amnesty-illegals-267730/


W

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