{"id":3773,"date":"2010-02-06T15:07:33","date_gmt":"2010-02-06T23:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=3773"},"modified":"2010-02-06T15:08:07","modified_gmt":"2010-02-06T23:08:07","slug":"still-not-getting-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/still-not-getting-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Still Not Getting It"},"content":{"rendered":"

You would think that at times like these, a senior Republican would have the political savvy (not to speak of the decency) not to have done something like this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You would think.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong: bipartisanship is a much overrated virtue. Generally I think oppositions should oppose \u2013 and if that means by the use of procedural arcana,\u00a0so be it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However to do all this for pork<\/em>, well, ugh\u2026<\/p>\n

Senator Shelby is up for reelection in 2010. It strikes me that someone should start brewing up a tea party in Alabama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You would think that at times like these, a senior Republican would have the political savvy (not to speak of the decency) not to have done something like this: Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary “blanket hold” on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[458,457],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3773"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3775,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions\/3775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}