The Watcher’s Council

Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or simply day to day living. This week’s question: What Is Your Reaction To Harry Reid’s Using the Nuclear Option To End Filibusters?

NoisyRoom.net: It showcases the lawlessness of the Obama Administration and the absolute contempt they have for the time-honored practice that judicial appointments required supermajorities. In an oft-denied soft dictatorship, there are no rules but the rules that the current political tyrant says there are. And so it goes in America’s halls of power these days. Welcome to the banana republic of Amerika.

Procedures are supposed to remain in force unless a two-thirds supermajority votes to change them. It has been that way for over 200 years, but no more. A 52–48 all-Democrat majority voted to change the rules in a Progressive frenzy and a monumental power grab and voila! Obama can now stack the courts to his Marxist content. What it means is there are no longer three branches of government. The Executive, Legislative and Judicial are now controlled by the President for all intents and purposes. All he is lacking is a House majority and he may get that. Even if Obama doesn’t steal that piece of the pie, he will force himself and his hateful desires on America despite any and all protestations.

As we have seen over and over again by Obama and his minions and sycophants, the Constitution and the Republic mean nothing to them. Obama on a whim says what is legal and what is not; what is just and what is not; who benefits and who suffers. Isn’t that what all dictators do?

What do I think of the Nuclear Option? It’s radioactive poisoning of the American government and it is to die for.

The Razor: My reaction? The Democrats are stupider than I thought. And here I thought the GOP were the ones on the short bus…

I’m all for it since I fully expect the Republicans to retake the Senate in next year’s elections. It will also make it much easier to stop the practice of “Borking” Supreme Court nominees.

The key is for the Republicans to not let their hissy fits overshadow the news of the continuing scandals and the debacle of Obamacare.

The GOP must use this to take back the Senate and when it does, the Democrats will be kicking themselves for making the minority weaker.

Like the suicide bombing attacks on Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut this week, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of *sshats.

GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD: As Frankly Unctuous spake in WaPo – It’s like a totally naked power grab.

Stymied on judicial nominees, the Donkie party is justified somewhat in their grief that rowdy GOPers and on again/off again allied Tea Party cats are queering the mix. Totally unjustified though in their brazen move to kill fillibusteringness.

Most likely, as Sen. Charles E. “Sarah Palin was right about Death Panels” Grassley LOLed before Thursday’s vote, “When we have the majority, when we have a Republican president, we put more people like Scalia on the court.”

Changing Senate rules have a long long range: The Democratic action sets a precedent that a future Republican majority will use to change procedures when it gets into a political jam, rather than negotiate with Democrats. The logical outcome is a Senate operating more like the House, with no rights for the minority, no reason for debate and no incentive to cooperate.

Now, that may not be a bad thing. Though, if cats dig that action – look how the House is currently doing for a counterargument.

As devious as ancient politicians are – Sen Reid will prob change the rules back on the last hour of the last session of any future lame duck session he may hold as Senate Majority cat.

Liberty’s Spirit: The “nuclear option” used by the Democrats turns 200 years of precedent on its head. Of course when the GOP was in power they were openly contemplating the same nuclear option due to some very similar complaints that the Democrats just voiced: “the rights of the minority party are a messy and unwieldy side-effect of our Constitution;” “gridlock, the political class complains prevents Washington DC’s business from being done.” Our modern political class seems to conveniently forget that “gridlock” was exactly the intent and purpose of the framers if the parties did not get along and learn to compromise. The DNC, as if on cue, hypocritically railed against this usurpation of power when the GOP was the party in power.

It is important to remember that there is no Constitutional requirement that judges, other than the Supreme Court, be approved by an advice and consent vote level. The only judges mentioned in the Constitution are SCOTUS. The entire federal judicial system was set up later by Congress in The Judiciary Acts (1789 and 1801). So the Senate has every right to change its procedures in electing judges to the federal bench. If it chooses to, the Senate powers that be, can rid itself of the filibuster as well. It is simply a classless and unbecoming tactic to take, but par for the course as far as the Obama administration is concerned.

The truth of the matter is that the DNC believes that in the midterms they are going to be decimated. This would mean that a Republican controlled Congress will be able to pass legislation to overturn what Obama and Reid have put into place during their control of the White House and both Houses of Congress, most notably Obamacare. By stacking the court system it is the belief of the Democrats that they will be able to forestall the destruction of the socialist-statist economy that they have been able to put into place. What they think they cannot achieve through democratic elections, and legislation, the Democrats are planning to achieve by the use of activist judges that do not adhere to the meaning and purpose of the US Constitution. It is a blantant power grab, reminiscent of fascist politicians, unbecoming of our democratic traditions.

The Independent Sentinel: Using the nuclear option for judicial nominees can’t be underestimated. The Democrats and Obama will reshape the fundamental structure of our Republic. They will bring Progressive Democrats closer to realizing their dream of almost limitless executive power.

What is happening right now, before our eyes, is that the president, with the help of his minions in the Senate, is seizing power from Congress for the Executive Branch.

An overly powerful Executive can operate lawlessly, without restraint. The purpose of Congress is to provide checks and balances.

The Senate gave Mr. Obama almost limitless power to appoint anyone he wants to the courts when they invoked the nuclear option and assigned that power to him with only 51 votes.

They employed the nuclear option only for judicial nominees so far but they will likely use it for Supreme Court justice nominees and for legislation, at a future date. There is nothing to stop them.

They can fill the courts with leftists – Progressives.

Thanks to the powers granted to Mr. Obama by the Senate, the shaping of the IPAB, the Independent Payment Advisory Board for Medicare, is now, solely the province of the king, I mean the president.

IPAB will determine what healthcare seniors receive and IPAB will ration care.

Obama, with his new powers, can put the most radical people on the board. He can put eugenicists on if he chooses. He can put an Ezekiel Emanuel on the board. Ezekiel, if you remember, wants most care directed at people ages 15 to 40 years because of their usefulness to society. There are no moral guidelines for Ezekiel, there are age guidelines.

The IPAB, or the Death Panel, will be comprised of 15 political appointees who will decide the payments to be made to doctors and hospitals for Medicare patients.

Democrats wrote into the Obamacare law that 60 votes was a critical threshold in the Senate but now they are dispensing it.

IPAB is completely unaccountable.

Another lie by Mr. Obama is that IPAB can’t ration care. IPAB can cut anything it wants as much as it wants. It is unregulated by Congress. There is no oversight. It can pass any rules it wants concerning Obamacare, in other words, it can legislate, and Congress can’t stop them. It is a rogue government within a government.

The nuclear option was one more very serious power grab.

The Glittering Eye: I think the move is imprudent. It won’t have an appreciable effect on appointments-they haven’t changed senators’ power to use “holds” to prevent nominees from coming up for votes. The most that will happen is that will aggravate an already angry and unfriendly situation.

I’m not even sure why Sen. Reid felt the need to make this move. I can only speculate that he was under tremendous pressure to do something. This is the something.

Well, there you have it.

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