Harry Reid Has Lunch

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

By a vote of 71-26 this afternoon, the Senate ratified the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), exceeding the two-thirds majority required for passage.

The vote brings to an end a long, winding and at times hostile debate over the arms agreement, which enjoyed broad support among one-time GOP influence peddlers, but was held up for much of the lame-duck session by several Republican senators who raised a series of procedural and policy objections to the treaty.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl led the opposition, and at times appeared to have rounded up the 34 votes he would have needed to block START. Kyl made a name for himself in the GOP in 1999 when he shocked American and international diplomats and handily blocked President Clinton’s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

This time, his efforts fell well short.

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Let the Games Begin!

Washington (CNN) — President Obama took a key step in cementing his judicial legacy Monday, nominating Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court.

If confirmed, the 50-year-old Kagan will become the 112th Supreme Court justice. She would be the third woman on the nine-member bench and the fourth in the history of the court.

…snip…

She served as a law clerk for federal judge Abner Mikva and then for Justice Thurgood Marshall on the high court. Marshall affectionately called the diminutive Kagan “Shorty.”

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Harry, King of Cots

From FIREDOGLAKE (April 28, 2010 12:47 P.M.):

Roll Out The Cots – Democrats To Stage All-Night Session On FinReg

In a bit of political theater, Senate Democrats plan to hold Republicans hostage on the floor and continually reject moving to debate on the Wall Street reform bill as a means to highlight the obstructionism and hopefully break the impasse.

…snip…

A senior leadership aide described this stunt as similar to what they did when Jim Bunning would not give consent on the unemployment insurance extension. The press was very negative toward Bunning and the Republicans, and eventually they caved. Democrats are hopeful that they can force the hand of those who have wavered on the FinReg bill – George Voinovich, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and others – and “seal the deal” on moving to a floor debate on it. It is likely that Democrats would need more than one Republican to get 60 votes, as Ben Nelson “doesn’t seem like he’s budging,” the aide said.

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Let Us Be Frank. Or Maybe Just Talk Like Him!

From Robert Shrum at THE WEEK (April 15,2010):

Months of death panel promoting, senior citizen deceiving, and abortion mongering have left Republicans immune to facts. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has donned his Frank Luntz mask (maybe McConnell could borrow the pollster’s toupee too), lifting wholesale Luntz’s language designed to mislead the public about financial reform. Playing dummy to Luntz’s ventriloquist, McConnell now shamelessly characterizes the bill that would avert future bailouts on Wall Street as a license for endless bailouts on Wall Street.

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The Party of No Can’t Keep It Up For Long

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

The Louisiana Democrats released a snarky little statement today, calling out Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who has introduced a health care amendment to the try to prevent states from providing drugs like Viagra to convicted sex offenders.

Said the Dems of Coburn: “Surely he would agree that anyone who has admitted or been found guilty of involvement with prostitution should not be covered either.”

Coburn’s amendment seeks to cut off federal funds to those on Medicaid who are “convicted sex offenders, child molesters, and rapists,” because sexual enhancement drugs are covered under the program.

We reported earlier that the Republican strategy to derail the reconciliation bill is to force Democrats to vote down politically juiced-up amendments so that they can paint Dems as sympathetic to sex offenders and fraudsters in November.

Perhaps the LA Dems had Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who has been known to dally with prostitutes in the past, on their minds when crafting that statement.

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Tobac-coercion

From Washington Wire blog at THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:

Sen. Jim Bunning, the Kentucky Republican who held Senate hostage over an unemployment bill earlier this month, is now causing trouble for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Bunning is blocking the confirmation of two trade nominees because, according to an aide, the USTR hasn’t done enough to defend Bunning’s home state against a Canadian antismoking law that “unfairly discriminates against Kentucky-grown tobacco.”

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Oink, Oink

From npr:

Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Richard Shelby, the senior Republican senator from Alabama, and the rest of the Senate should be furious at him.

The reason is simple. Shelby has overstepped the usual bounds of caution and produced an act of senatorial arrogance so breathtaking that the country just might notice. And if the country actually knew that such shenanigans were possible, the country would be amazed and, one would hope, perturbed.

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Traitor Joe

From Dewayne Wickham at TRIBLIVE|Opinion:

Last year was the year of the unlikely hero. It was dominated by the ascendancy of Barack Obama, a slender black guy with a hip gait and a finely tuned political mind, into this nation’s highest office.

But 2009 has turned out to be the year of the anti-hero. It is the year in which Joe Lieberman gets my nod — cynical though it is — as “American of the Year.”

A Democrat of convenience, Lieberman has succeeded in doing what Benedict Arnold couldn’t. In a masterful act of treachery, he retains a position of trust among the very people he betrayed.

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