UNPRECEDENTED: Sen Shelby is placing a hold on ALL Nominees FOR WHAT? TO GET PORK!

[PatekPhilippe]

Crap, earmarks and pork nothing...Airbus/Northrop/Grumman won the bid to produce something to serve in one of the few actually legitimate functions of the federal gubmint.

You're going to get this when the previously agreed upon rules of the process are thrown out by fiat.

There is going to be some fight over this.

You can bet though that its more then just the contract, the goP had to suck on it while Barry passed a number of questionable apointees into the gov, now they have a say again.

For a minute. You do know Obama can make them recess appointments? Obstruction solved.

and if he did that I would not have a problem with it....Bush did it too....

 

[Dr Grump]

This thread sums up nicely why the US political system sucks..

...."free" indeed....

 

[paperview]

As posted earlier in the thread:

Full Statement From Shelby's Office On The Blanket Hold



Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) spokesperson Jonathan Graffeo sent TPM the following statement this morning on Shelby's decision to place holds on a number of Obama's nominees Thursday:

"Sen. Shelby has placed holds on several pending nominees due to unaddressed national security concerns. Among his concerns is that nearly 10 years after the U.S. Air Force announced plans to replace the aging tanker fleet, we still do not have a transparent and fair acquisition process to move forward. The Department of Defense must recognize that the draft Request for Proposal needs to be significantly and substantively changed.

Sen. Shelby is also deeply concerned that the Administration will not release the funds already appropriated to the FBI to build the Terrorist Explosives Devices Analytical Center."

Full Statement From Shelby's Office On The Blanket Hold | TPM LiveWire

 

[RetiredGySgt]

This HAS NEVER BEEN DONE IN RECENT HISTORY what this skunk is doing.

Ever.

Holding up judicial nominees with cloture votes wasn't SOP until recently, but you had no problem with that when the holder-uppers had (D)s by their names.

When has a dem senator ever placed a blanket hold on ALL nominees?

Under Bush with the Judges . Or don't you recall that far back? You seem to remember everything else involving Bush.

 

[paperview]

The Next Generation Of Senate Dysfunction

Republican Senator Richard Shelby has put a “hold” on 70 of President Obama’s nominees, meaning none of them can proceed without securing 60 votes to break a filibuster. I believe this is a seminal moment in the history of Congress.


Many of the changes in American politics over the past three decades have involved the two parties slowly doing away with social norms that preventing them from using every tool at their disposal. The Senate minority could filibuster every single bill the majority proposed, but you just didn’t do that, until you did. You could use a House-Senate conference to introduce completely new provisions into a bill, but you just didn’t do that, until you did. (The topic became common in the Bush administration.) The possibility was always there to use endless amendments to filibuster a reconciliation bill. But nobody thought to do that until Republicans floated the tactic this week.


More: The Next Generation Of Senate Dysfunction | The New Republic

 

[paperview]

Holding up judicial nominees with cloture votes wasn't SOP until recently, but you had no problem with that when the holder-uppers had (D)s by their names.

When has a dem senator ever placed a blanket hold on ALL nominees?

Under Bush with the Judges . Or don't you recall that far back? You seem to remember everything else involving Bush.

A blanket hold?

No.

There was never a blanket hold under Bush. Try again.

 

[paperview]

"A so-called "blanket hold" is exceedingly rare and perhaps unprecedented."

Richard Shelby Holds Up Senate for Home State Pork - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

"Citing a congressional scholar, Jonathan Chait says a blanket hold has never been used before."

 

[paperview]

 

[paperview]

 

[logical4u]

The safety of the American people is worth those jobs?

If the "American people" were concerned about their "safety" (and not about having the gov babysit them), they would have never elected the current gov.

 

[paperview]

A 2005 press release on Richard Shelby's official Senate Web site:

As a U.S. Senator, I believe that the review of judicial nominations is one of the most important responsibilities of the Senate, and I firmly believe that each of the President's nominees should be afforded a straight up-or-down vote.

I do not think that any of us want to operate in an environment where federal judicial nominees must receive 60 votes in order to be confirmed. To that end I firmly support changing the Senate rules to require that a simple majority be necessary to confirm all judicial nominees, thus ending the continuous filibuster of them."


.: United States Senator Richard Shelby :: Issue Statements :.


Fucking hypocrite.

​

 

[logical4u]

These are critical positions needed to be filled, some for our national security, and that asshole Shelby is holding them all up for his fat piggy porky FEED-ME-ME-ME fest.

He was low before. I didn't think this rat fuck of a senator could get any lower.

But the snake has proven yet again there are simply no limits to his level of putrid level of lowness.

"National Security", when has "this gov" shown its "serious side" when it comes to national security? This president has gone to nations that have little respect for this country and apologized for its very existence. Please tell us who this man has appointed to demonstrate his saavy when it comes to national security (besides using some of Bush's guys to appease the military).
This president has "implied" the world would be better off with a much weaker United States. Maybe the senator from Alabama is waiting for some appointees that have paid their taxes and care about this country as it is (and don't want to change it into a country where the gov has all the power and the people have none).

 

[paperview]

From The American Conservative:

"What I find most irritating about Shelby’s tactic is that he pretends that his home-state projects are vital to national security.



His spokesman even refers to the projects as “unaddressed national security concerns.” He does not try to defend his move as an attempt to secure money and jobs for his state, which is clearly what it is.



Shelby’s move may be parochial and self-interested, but one could at least offer some minimal defense of his reasons, albeit not his methods, if he were willing to acknowledge that this is nothing more than an effort to get some federal money back home during an election year. Many of Shelby’s critics are attacking him for his parochialism, but he could at least make the case that he is trying to serve the interests of his constituents. Instead he feels compelled to pretend that this is some high-minded fight over principle and national security. This is cynical nonsense, and it makes his cause an entirely unsympathetic one.



Update: Just to drive home this last point, I refer you to this article in Federal Times that explains that Shelby’s maneuver is aimed at helping Northrop Grumman and Airbus win the bid for the tanker contract. They had already won the bid last year, but following Boeing’s protest the deal was scrapped.


If Boeing wins the contract, the tankers will still be built and there will be no harm to national security.

Shelby cares who wins because Northrop’s part of the contract would have been based in Mobile, but as far as the general public is concerned it doesn’t matter where these tankers are built.



Second Update: James has an update in which he backs off from his original argument:

If John Cole and Marci Wheeler are correct, and the 2008 bid was awarded in error and thereafter rescinded by the Air Force, then most of the above is moot and Shelby is unjustified in this action even by the low standards of hardball politics.
​

Eunomia The Big Hold-Up

 

[logical4u]

That was NOT a blanket hold on ALL the presidents appointments.

And the GOP shrieked 24 / 7 on the few the dems did block with screams of Up or down vote Up or Down VOte!

There was a whole logjam of nominees being held up over the seven or so "extremist" (i.e. not down-the-line liberal hack) judges. That's the fact.

BTW...If we were talking about a grant to the Montgomery Boll Weevil Museum here, I'd be on your side. But it's not.

The bid won by Airbus/Northrop/Grumman was thrown out for pure politics and nothing more. Crap like this is going to happen.

The nominees held up, rightly or wrongly, were held up for reasons of idealogy differences and the conflicting views they held.

In this case - it is a BLANKET fucking hold on SEVENTY nominees. SEVENTY.

That's holding them as ransom for EARMARKS for his own state.

It's EXTORTION. No more no less.

Your point is valid, but it rings hollow when the left made no complaints when bribery was used during the "health care bill" that violates Constitutional amendments (it is not equitable to all citizens). It is hard to critizise this "reaction" from one side when the other side has used it to their advantage. It has de-sensitized the nation to blatant unethical behavior. To the taxpayer this is, now, business as usual. How is the president doing on "bringing the country together" as "promised"?

 

[logical4u]

I tell ya, it's pretty fucked when we are almost 18 months since Obama's election we STILL don't have an NSA director confirmed yet.

Let's see. Sen. Shelby put a hold on nominees yesterday. So what's Barry's reason for not getting an NSA director in the 17 mos and 29 days prior to yesterday? Could it be he was busy failing to capture the Olympics and picking up his Nobel Prize instead of focusing on the job he was hired to do? It's not as if he hasn't had a filibuster proof Congress for most of the last year.

The president was using the same method he used when "deciding" (it is really hard for him to come to a decision, when he can't blame someone else for the outcome) the response to the military for more troops. He was "considering".

He was too busy trying to push a bill that would take over the US economy and give the gov a way to effectively eliminate social security recipients (the health care bill).

He was too busy getting stimulus bills and signing pork bills to care about national security.

He doesn't care about national security.

He wants the public distracted so when the "tax cuts" expire, the middle class won't notice "the middle class tax hikes".

He was too busy pushing "green jobs" (which eliminate two legitimate jobs for each green job).

He was too busy planning how to remove energy from the United States thru cap n trade (which will further weaken national security).

He was too busy showing his family his future "realm" (the entire world, in his own mind).

He was too busy showing the sports people he knows their business better than they do.

He was too busy using his office to "court" celebrities and throw parties ("let them eat cake"), while the rest of the country is preparing for an economical disaster.

He was too busy printing money, and then telling citizens: it is not like Monopoly money.

Take your pick.

 

[logical4u]

I tell ya, it's pretty fucked when we are almost 18 months since Obama's election we STILL don't have an NSA director confirmed yet.

Let's see. Sen. Shelby put a hold on nominees yesterday. So what's Barry's reason for not getting an NSA director in the 17 mos and 29 days prior to yesterday? Could it be he was busy failing to capture the Olympics and picking up his Nobel Prize instead of focusing on the job he was hired to do? It's not as if he hasn't had a filibuster proof Congress for most of the last year.

A single senator can place an anonymous hold on any appointee.

At this point right now, there are something like 170 unconfirmed nominees that are being held up.

Tell me you didn't know this.

I think that pretty well clarifies the "dems" priorities. They have had a year.

 

[paperview]

Let's see. Sen. Shelby put a hold on nominees yesterday. So what's Barry's reason for not getting an NSA director in the 17 mos and 29 days prior to yesterday? Could it be he was busy failing to capture the Olympics and picking up his Nobel Prize instead of focusing on the job he was hired to do? It's not as if he hasn't had a filibuster proof Congress for most of the last year.

A single senator can place an anonymous hold on any appointee.

At this point right now, there are something like 170 unconfirmed nominees that are being held up.

Tell me you didn't know this.

I think that pretty well clarifies the "dems" priorities. They have had a year.

In your opinion, how should they have handled it?

 

[PatekPhilippe]

As posted earlier in the thread:

Full Statement From Shelby's Office On The Blanket Hold



Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) spokesperson Jonathan Graffeo sent TPM the following statement this morning on Shelby's decision to place holds on a number of Obama's nominees Thursday:

"Sen. Shelby has placed holds on several pending nominees due to unaddressed national security concerns. Among his concerns is that nearly 10 years after the U.S. Air Force announced plans to replace the aging tanker fleet, we still do not have a transparent and fair acquisition process to move forward. The Department of Defense must recognize that the draft Request for Proposal needs to be significantly and substantively changed.

Sen. Shelby is also deeply concerned that the Administration will not release the funds already appropriated to the FBI to build the Terrorist Explosives Devices Analytical Center."

Full Statement From Shelby's Office On The Blanket Hold | TPM LiveWire

and the part paperview insists on leaving out...from the same link....

Though a Shelby spokesperson would not confirm that these programs were behind the blanket hold

 

[Wry Catcher]

This one is way deeper than merely an issue of pork.

Please explain.

Sure.

About a year ago, a consortium of Airbus and Northrop/Grumman won the bid process to build the Air Force's new aerial tanker. Boeing, a bunch of their lobbyists and a slew of ignoramus economic populists cried foul. So, in direct violation of the bid process, the winning bid was thrown out and Boeing was given another shot at it.

That Shelby is mad over jobs in his state at Northrop/Grumman being put on hold, if not lost altogether, is quite understandable.

Even if what dude wrote were true, the tactic being used by Shelby is inapproprate and, if the quote above from Shelby is true on up or down votes, Shelby is a hypocrite at best; an extortionist seems to be a correct descripton of his behavior.
The Senate needs to censor him, but, but the Senate has become an impotent body under the control of a few impotent old men.

 

[PatekPhilippe]

Please explain.

Sure.

About a year ago, a consortium of Airbus and Northrop/Grumman won the bid process to build the Air Force's new aerial tanker. Boeing, a bunch of their lobbyists and a slew of ignoramus economic populists cried foul. So, in direct violation of the bid process, the winning bid was thrown out and Boeing was given another shot at it.

That Shelby is mad over jobs in his state at Northrop/Grumman being put on hold, if not lost altogether, is quite understandable.

Even if what dude wrote were true, the tactic being used by Shelby is inapproprate and, if the quote above from Shelby is true on up or down votes, Shelby is a hypocrite at best; an extortionist seems to be a correct descripton of his behavior.
The Senate needs to censor him, but, but the Senate has become an impotent body under the control of a few impotent old men.

Censure him for what? He's within the Senate rules and laws governing the Body.