The Party of No

[thoughtone]

Republicans Party Of No

source: TPM

Report: Shelby Blocks All Obama Nominations In The Senate Over AL Earmarks

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary "blanket hold" on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

"While holds are frequent," CongressDaily's Dan Friedman and Megan Scully report (sub. req.), "Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal." The magazine reported aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were the source of the news about Shelby's blanket hold.

The Mobile Press-Register picked up the story early this afternoon. The paper confirmed Reid's account of the hold, and reported that a Shelby spokesperson "did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages seeking confirmation of the senator's action or his reason for doing so."


Shelby has been tight-lipped about the holds, offering only an unnamed spokesperson to reporters today to explain them. Aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid broke the news of the blanket hold this afternoon. Reid aides told CongressDaily the hold extends to "all executive nominations on the Senate calendar."

According to the report, Shelby is holding Obama's nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track. The two programs Shelby wants to move forward or else:

- A $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers. From CongressDaily: "Northrop/EADS team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals." Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.

- An improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. From CongressDaily: "[Shelby] is frustrated that the Obama administration won't build" the center, which Shelby earmarked $45 million for in 2008. The center is due to be based "at the Army's Redstone Arsenal."

Though a Shelby spokesperson would not confirm that these programs were behind the blanket hold, the Senator expressed his frustration about the progress on both through a spokesperson to both CongressDaily and the Federal Times.

A San Diego State University professor and Congressional expert told the Mobile paper "he knew of no previous use of a blanket hold" in recent history.

Updates From TPM Coverage Today:

- Shelby confirmed the holds, and lashed out at Obama over the Alabama programs.

- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office first doubted the story was true. Later, after Shelby confirmed it, McConnell's office refused to talk about the holds.

- White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called the Shelby holds "silliness" in this morning's gaggle with reporters.

- An interview Shelby gave to a TV station in Alabama earlier this week offers some more insight into why Shelby is holding up Obama's nominees -- he thinks the White House is biased against Alabama.

 

[QueEx]

Re: Republicans Party Of No

 

[actinanass]

Re: Republicans Party Of No

Lets see whats more politically damaging.

Dems calling republicans "the party of no".

or.

Republicans calling Dems "the party of socialism".

November will be interesting...

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Republicans Party Of No

Lets see whats more politically damaging.

Dems calling republicans "the party of no".

or.

Republicans calling Dems "the party of socialism".

November will be interesting...

Well you know ass, you can always have hope because right now you have nothing!

Old number 41 Scott Brown really did help stop things. Looser!

BTW, instead of continuing your right wing obstructionism, why not get on board to some solutions. The party of no.

 

[VegasGuy]

Gingrich: Civil Rights Laws Weren’t Worth the Political Price
By Mike Lillis 3/21/10 12:21 PM
link
Of the many reasons to oppose health care reform, this is probably the worst. From today’s Washington Post:

Former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama and the Democrats will regret their decision to push for comprehensive reform. Calling the bill “the most radical social experiment . . . in modern times,” Gingrich said:

“They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” with the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.


So by Gingrich’s logic, lawmakers should really just shy away from the toughest issues of the day because changes in the status quo might haunt their political careers. And this guy wants to be president?

Update (March 22): Gingrich has contested the Post’s characterization of his comments, claiming that he never meant to imply that the Civil Rights Act was a bad move on Johnson’s part. That claim led Post reporter Dan Balz to issue this addendum on March 22. (More about that here.) It’s worth noting that Balz did not change the original story, meaning that he stands by his characterization that Gingrich compared the health care vote directly to the civil rights votes of the 1960s.

-VG

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>
GOP hopes to go
from Party of No
to Party of Choice</font size></center>


McClatchy Newspapers
By Steven Thomma
Sunday, April 11, 2010


<font size="3">NEW ORLEANS — They know how to say no to President Barack Obama. Now, can Republicans get the rest of the country to say yes to them?</font size>

That's the question facing the Grand Old Party as activists and candidates emerge from a three-day strategy session in New Orleans and head toward the fall elections for control of Congress.

Speaker after speaker at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference rallied the faithful with stinging denunciations of Obama and the Democratic majorities controlling the Senate and House of Representatives.

"Secular socialist machine," cried Newt Gingrich.

"Dangerous power play," said Liz Cheney of Obama's health care law. "Appease our enemies," she said of his foreign policy.

Indeed, rather than dispute Obama's criticism of them as an obstructionist "party of no," most Republicans reveled in it as a badge of honor.

"There is no shame in being the party of no," Sarah Palin said. "When they're proposing an idea that violates our values, violates our Constitution, what's wrong with being the party of no? We're the party of hell no!" she added to cheers.

Is it enough? Perhaps.

Obama's approval ratings remain near or below 50 percent, a dangerous position for the party in power.

Also, Americans may be souring on the Democratic brand little more than a year after electing a Democratic president and adding to the Democratic majorities in Congress.

A new USA Today-Gallup Poll shows that just 41 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, the lowest in the nearly two decades Gallup's asked the question. By contrast, 42 percent had a favorable opinion of Republicans.

So, a throw-the-bums out approach might be enough. "It is easier to get people to vote against something than for something," said Judy Smith, a Republican activist from Montgomery, Texas.

Few of the top speakers at the New Orleans conference stressed alternatives. Palin, for example, repeated her call for oil and gas drilling off U.S. coasts, but mainly stressed opposition to Obama.

Yet some prominent Republicans insist their party must move beyond the party of no label by highlighting their alternatives on such major issues as health care and taxes, wrapped into a tight package much like the Contract with America that the Republicans rolled out in 1994 before they won control of the House for the first time in four decades.

"We should decide we're going to be the party of yes," Gingrich said, urging Republicans to talk up an agenda for cutting spending and taxes, creating jobs, and reforming health care.

"There are many things that we can say yes to," said Gingrich, one of the architects of the 1994 Contract with America. "Our first answer should be let me tell you what I'm for.

Vance Martin, a Republican volunteer from Oklahoma City, applauded the approach, saying Republicans could have avoided some of the Obama policies they loathe today had they acted themselves.

"Newt is right, there are a lot of things to say yes to," Martin said.

"I'm the first to say to Republicans, where were you years ago when you had the numbers and could have done something on health care ourselves. We could have owned it. I'm a little bit frustrated that Republicans, by sitting on their hands, allowed the Democrats to own that issue."

Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, who was chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1994, also thinks the party should spell out a positive agenda much as it did then.

"We got criticized for doing it because it was very unusual. Normally the out party tries to make the midterm election a negative referendum on the in party," he said.

But the 1994 contract was entirely positive, he said, promising that the House would vote on 10 things to reform the way government worked without any mentions of then-President Bill Clinton or the Democrats.

"It is useful to give voters something to vote FOR. I still believe that. I think it is the right thing to give people something to vote for and for them to know what you would try to do if you were in," Barbour said.

While the party has rolled out proposals on issues such as health care, its minority status prevents it from holding hearings in Congress. And the news media pays little attention.

Some Congressional Republicans have pressed for a Contract-like platform now, with an advertising campaign to get the word out. But some veterans of the '94 campaign have urged patience, noting that the 1994 Contract with America wasn't unveiled until Sept. 27, just weeks before election day.

"It's fresh then. Barbour said. "Six weeks out is long enough for people to learn what's in it."

Moreover, he argued, why get in the way while people are unhappy with Obama and the Democrats.

"When there's a horse out on the track that's an ugly horse and people don't like that horse, why do you want to put another horse out there to distract from it?" he said. "So timing's very important."




http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/11/91943/gop-hopes-to-go-from-party-of.html

 

[thoughtone]

Lets see whats more politically damaging.

Dems calling republicans "the party of no".

Democrats didn't call Republicans the party of no the Republicans call the Republicans the party of no. Once again your facts are ignorant, but what would you expect,


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[QueEx]

 

[thoughtone]

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[QueEx]