PDA

View Full Version : Override Overwhelming, But Now Sanders Has Mitch And GA Senate Outcome



Kathianne
12-29-2020, 10:43 AM
where the Dems want them. It nearly seems like there is collusion between the Dems and some with (R) behind their names to give the incoming administration a super majority.

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/12/29/defense-bill-veto-override-passes-house/


Defense Bill Veto Override Passes House. Update: Filibuster?

JAZZ SHAWPosted at 8:01 am on December 29, 2020

It’s never happened during Donald Trump’s presidency, but last night it certainly looked like it might, just as 2020 is drawing to a close. The vote to override the President’s veto of the NDAA (defense spending bill) wasn’t even close in the end, coming in at 322-87. Some of the usual suspects who never support any spending on the military voted against it (from both parties) but for the most part, the measure received broad, bipartisan support. The two-thirds requirement for an override was easily surpassed with room to spare. Now the fate of the veto rests in the hands of Midnight Mitch. (Associated Press)

...

The GOP also has to remember that we’re only days away from the runoff elections in Georgia. There are a lot of military bases and facilities in the Peach State and millions of families who are directly impacted by defense spending or a lack thereof. Having the Republicans cause the spending bill to fail would be a huge, last-minute gift to Ossoff and Warnock. For that reason, as much as they have been vocal supporters of Donald Trump, you can expect to see David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler backing the move to override the veto also.


Put me in the same camp as them. Ever since this issue bubbled to the surface a couple of weeks ago, I’ve only heard President Trump citing three reasons for vetoing the NDAA in the first place. He objected to a lack of a provision to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the mandate to rename some bases honoring Confederate leaders, and he claimed that the current bill would be “a gift to China and Russia.”


Taking these complaints in order, Section 230 has absolutely nothing to do with defense spending and it has no place cluttering up this bill. As for the renaming of the bases, I’m no fan of erasing our history as regular readers know. But it’s looking increasingly like that ship has sailed and supporters of such name changes have won over a significant number of Republicans on top of overwhelming support from liberal activists. That’s a fight that will probably have to wait for another day.


How a massive spending bill to pay our troops and fund the military can be construed as “a gift to Russia and China” is a mystery as far as I’m concerned. Lacking a more detailed explanation, that sounds like it was more of a throwaway line to justify breaking out the veto stamp.


I’ll be the first to stand up and point out that Congress frequently messes up, but in this instance, I have to offer the swamp-dwellers a tip of my hat. I didn’t want to see the President’s term end in some sort of food fight between him and his own party in the legislative branch, but this bill needed to be passed and the veto had to be overridden.


UPDATE: (Jazz)


The override of the veto hit another stumbling block. Bernie Sanders is promising to filibuster the veto override unless the Senate schedules a vote on the $2,000 direct payment relief checks. (Politico)


Sen. Bernie Sanders will filibuster an override of President Donald Trump’s defense bill veto unless the Senate holds a vote on providing $2,000 direct payments to Americans.


“McConnell and the Senate want to expedite the override vote and I understand that. But I’m not going to allow that to happen unless there is a vote, no matter how long that takes, on the $2,000 direct payment,” Sanders said in an interview on Monday night. The Vermont independent can’t ultimately stop the veto override vote, but he can delay it until New Year’s Day and make things more difficult for the GOP.


Sanders is being too clever by half here and he openly admitted what he’s doing. He’s not opposed to overriding the veto at all. He’s threatening this maneuver mostly to impact the Georgia Senate runoff races. If he can keep the Senate in session through New Year’s and delay the vote, he can potentially keep both Perdue and Loeffler off the campaign trail and in Washington. Also, if he can manage to force a vote on the $2,000 checks (which are opposed by the GOP), he will allow Ossoff and Warnock to use their votes against them if they don’t vote in favor of the larger checks. Alternately, they can vote in favor, but that would likely give the measure enough votes to pass, handing a big defeat to McConnell and the Republican leadership. This is a dangerous juncture for the GOP.

Kathianne
12-29-2020, 10:50 AM
More perspective:

https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2020/12/29/sanders-mcconnell-give-real-floor-vote-expanded-covid-19-relief-else/


Sanders To McConnell: Give Me A Real Floor Vote On Expanded COVID-19 Relief — Or ElseED MORRISSEYPosted at 9:01 am on December 29, 2020

Or else what? Let’s just say that House passage of the expanded COVID-19 relief bill and the override of Donald Trump’s veto of the defense bill has given Mitch McConnell not one but two big headaches. And they’re both named Bernie Sanders, as Jazz mentioned in his quick update to the previous post:


Sen. Bernie Sanders will filibuster an override of President Donald Trump’s defense bill veto unless the Senate holds a vote on providing $2,000 direct payments to Americans.


“McConnell and the Senate want to expedite the override vote and I understand that. But I’m not going to allow that to happen unless there is a vote, no matter how long that takes, on the $2,000 direct payment,” Sanders said in an interview on Monday night. The Vermont independent can’t ultimately stop the veto override vote, but he can delay it until New Year’s Day and make things more difficult for the GOP.


That’s the first headache, but at least it’s manageable. McConnell needs to get the Senate to override Trump’s veto of the NDAA before the end of this session of Congress, which will come no later than early on January 4, when the next session formally begins at noon ET. If not, the bill dies in the old session and must be passed from scratch by the incoming Congress. Sanders can’t postpone a final floor vote that long, at least not all by himself, but his objections can push it off long enough to force the other 99 senators to work over the weekend.

Which is Mitch McConnell’s second headache:


Under Senate rules, Sanders has the ability to keep the chamber in during the holiday week and likely mess with the campaign schedules of Sens. David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.). Those two face Jan. 5 runoff races for control of the Senate against Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who are both campaigning on the $2,000 checks.


A source close to Sanders said the Senate races were a factor in his decision — part of a bid to keep Perdue and Loeffler in D.C. and focus the campaign on their position regarding the $2,000 checks. Sanders also threatened to shut down the government earlier this month if the coronavirus relief bill did not include direct payments; ultimately it included checks of up to $600 and the government stayed open, though now Trump wants to go much higher.


This makes for a much tougher decision for McConnell. The runoffs in Georgia appear to still be excruciatingly close, which means the GOP needs all hands on deck until voting end on January 5th. It’s tough enough that they’re still drafting Donald Trump to make a final pitch at a rally on January 4th. If Sanders can sideline Perdue and Loeffler even for a couple of days — and especially if he can tie them to Republicans’ opposition to more relief aid — Sanders could conceivably tip the election enough to give Chuck Schumer control of the Senate next week.

Ironically, McConnell probably doesn’t need Perdue or Loeffler for the veto override anyway. That should pass easily, with only a handful opposed to the NDAA. McConnell will need both Perdue and Loeffler around to oppose the relief bill more than he needs them to override Trump’s veto on the NDAA — but both of those positions put Loeffler and Perdue in opposition to the president who’ll host a rally for them, too.


In fact, that might be a third headache for McConnell. His first plan was to offer a quick unanimous-consent floor action on the House relief bonus bill, sure in the knowledge that any number of Senate Republicans would object and derail the bill. If Sanders forces McConnell into having a floor vote on HR 9051, suddenly that puts Purdue and Loeffler on the spot just days ahead of the election. The two of them will get roasted by Democrats and the media if they vote against the House’s expanded COVID-19 relief, a point on which Sanders is counting. If they flip to support it — and Marco Rubio’s already announced his support — suddenly Democrats have at least 50 votes for the bill, and Republicans might have to filibuster it to stop the spending if one more Republican flips. That’ll be an embarrassment for McConnell.


If so, let’s just remember that it’s his embarrassment. McConnell wouldn’t have been in this position if he’d allowed for a simple repeat of April’s $1200/person direct stimulus payments in Phase 4, as the Problem Solvers Caucus proposed in August and people on both sides of the aisle demanded. There wouldn’t have been any demand for the larger amount, or at least not enough to result in this standoff. Trump deserves some blame for waiting until almost the 13th hour to make his demand rather than get more involved in those negotiations, but Trump had made it known for months that he wanted bigger direct payments. Trump seems to be one of only a few Republicans in Washington to grasp the optics of shorting taxpayers while dumping cash into businesses and corporations, no matter how well-tailored and effective those aid programs are. McConnell doesn’t miss much on Capitol Hill, but he and his advisers put themselves in this position for not seeing past the Beltway.


Now McConnell is left with a choice over whether he wants to make a belated stand for fiscal discipline immediately after passing the bloated porkfest that was the omnibus spending bill, or wants to be Majority Leader after January 6th. He might get both, but Bernie Sanders is making it tough for McConnell to eat his pork and have it, too.

tailfins
12-29-2020, 11:13 AM
where the Dems want them. It nearly seems like there is collusion between the Dems and some with (R) behind their names to give the incoming administration a super majority.

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/12/29/defense-bill-veto-override-passes-house/

Don't underestimate the power of unintended consequences. A vote from a very conservative Republican is worth as much as a vote from Sanders. Repeal of Section 230 could garner more votes than accommodating Sanders. Bernie Sanders and his followers are not the only game in town to garner additional votes.

jimnyc
12-29-2020, 03:57 PM
We're already in for a shitty 4 years coming our way. It 'can' be softened a tad by taking the house back in 2020. The best way to soften things is to keep the senate, which is in major danger right now. And if they do get that super majority, then the things that will be shitty for 4 years will be compounded by things shoved down the throats of Americans with little way to stop it.

The main threats thus far are:

Increasing the SC number of justices beyond the 9 in there now
Make Washington DC and Puerto Rico into states
Revoke all kinds of gun laws
put in the green crap deal
making illegals - legal on day one
shred border security and the wall
new taxes galore
re-entering climate deal
eliminate Trump tax cuts

Kathianne
12-29-2020, 04:05 PM
We're already in for a shitty 4 years coming our way. It 'can' be softened a tad by taking the house back in 2020. The best way to soften things is to keep the senate, which is in major danger right now. And if they do get that super majority, then the things that will be shitty for 4 years will be compounded by things shoved down the throats of Americans with little way to stop it.

The main threats thus far are:

Increasing the SC number of justices beyond the 9 in there now
Make Washington DC and Puerto Rico into states
Revoke all kinds of gun laws
put in the green crap deal
making illegals - legal on day one
shred border security and the wall
new taxes galore
re-entering climate deal
eliminate Trump tax cuts

House in 2022! ;) All the above true, being on Dem wish list-which most likely would come true if they get the Senate. Obviously why the Dems want Senate. Why would supposed Rs seemingly want the same? Old saying, 'actions speak louder than words.'

Kathianne
12-29-2020, 04:17 PM
I doubt anyone will trust polling again, if ever, for many, many years. sst confirms what I've been feeling for more than a few weeks now and just keeps growing. (I'm sort of hoping that feeling so doomsdayish that the opposit will happen).

https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2020/12/29/hoo-boy-trafalgar-poll-shows-loeffler-perdue-now-trailing-georgia-senate-runoffs/


Hoo Boy: Trafalgar Poll Shows Loeffler, Perdue Now Trailing In Georgia Senate RunoffsALLAHPUNDITPosted at 4:01 pm on December 29, 2020

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Trafalgar’s final poll of the presidential race in Georgia was way off so there’s no need to take this one too seriously.


SEE ALSO: Today’s hot topics on #TEMS: Georgia update, Iranians irate, relief debate, Hilaria’s deflate, and more!


The bad news is that their presidential poll was way off *in Trump’s direction.* Trafalgar saw him beating Biden by more than four points. If they’re overestimating GOP support in Georgia by that much, it means Loeffler and Perdue may be in even more trouble than we think.

...

FiveThirtyEight goes on to note that of course we shouldn’t read too much into early turnout since it could be that Republican voters are preparing to turn out en masse in person on Election Day. But the wrinkle in that theory is that the president has spent the better part of two months telling his fans there that Georgia’s in-person voting machines can’t be trusted. Lin Wood, the right’s new populist hero, has done him one better by insisting that Republicans can prove that the machines were rigged against Trump on November 3 by boycotting the Senate runoffs on January 5. Righty populists have special reason not to turn out and use Dominion’s machines next Tuesday, in other words. The big red Election Day wave may not show this time.


In fact, there’s already some evidence of that. Read this thread for two surprises from the early voting data in Georgia. One is that Republicans in some deep-red districts are making greater use of mail ballots this time than they did in the general election. The other is that early voting *in person* in some Republican districts is down. That is, it may be that the conspiracy theories about Dominion have convinced some meaningful number of Georgia Republicans that absentee voting is the more trustworthy option when the only alternative is Dominion voting machines — which, if so, would augur poorly for turnout next Tuesday.


Or it could be that Wood has successfully persuaded a number of Republicans not to bother voting at all this time. Not great either way.


The other X factor besides the “stop the steal” nonsense that may be depressing GOP turnout is the ongoing stimulus saga. Republicans in Washington are at war with each other, with the nationalist faction led by Trump demanding $2,000 COVID relief checks and the fiscally conservative faction led by McConnell looking to stick with $600. Loeffler and Perdue have now each sided with Trump on that issue, believing that they have more to fear from angering Trump’s fans in Georgia than they do from angering whatever small contingent of “small government” righties remains in the state. But maybe the damage is done: Ossoff and Warnock spent the past week hammering them for not supporting $2,000 checks and it’s unclear right now whether McConnell will allow a floor vote on the House bill. What happens if Cocaine Mitch manages to snuff the push for big checks right before the Georgia election, with Trump tweeting stuff like this?

...

jimnyc
12-29-2020, 04:18 PM
House in 2022! ;) All the above true, being on Dem wish list-which most likely would come true if they get the Senate. Obviously why the Dems want Senate. Why would supposed Rs seemingly want the same? Old saying, 'actions speak louder than words.'

That's why I said earlier they need to set priorities and don't ruin Georgia on the unattainable by Trump. 2nd priority is preservation of the things I spoke of fraud wise. Then 2022 and work on fixes between now and then. They blow Georgia and even preserving and/or fixing things that MUST be fixed may not happen before then. :(

jimnyc
12-29-2020, 04:20 PM
I doubt anyone will trust polling again, if ever, for many, many years. sst confirms what I've been feeling for more than a few weeks now and just keeps growing. (I'm sort of hoping that feeling so doomsdayish that the opposit will happen).

https://hotair.com/archives/allahpundit/2020/12/29/hoo-boy-trafalgar-poll-shows-loeffler-perdue-now-trailing-georgia-senate-runoffs/

I just kinda posted that in another thread. And nope, I don't trust ANY of them from EITHER side anymore!! Don't care if it came from CNN or Fox, Rasmussen or Gallup or asking everyone myself! LOL

Kathianne
12-29-2020, 04:24 PM
I just kinda posted that in another thread. And nope, I don't trust ANY of them from EITHER side anymore!! Don't care if it came from CNN or Fox, Rasmussen or Gallup or asking everyone myself! LOL
Which is why the actions of those not accepting the inevitable are more than problematic. They need to suck it up and get their 'revenge' later. Problem is, they are fighting with those they need to cooperate with, short term at least.

What Lin Wood did the other day? Unforgiveable.