Sen. Sanders (I-VT) Slamming Tax Deal in Senate Live

[SirNitram]

I would say that a good measure of how successful this speech-a-thon was will be to look at how much exposure he gets the next few days in the media. He has pretty much thrust himself into the forefront of liberal criticism of Obama's tax deal. He already got a lot of exposure today (he increased the amount of Twitter followers by 10.000 - doubling it, for example). Now it just remains to be seen if that exposure holds.

It's the weekend, so we can safely say he won't have any. Saturday has virtually nothing. Sunday has political shows, but the Sunday shows have this wierd habit of putting McCain up whenever physically possible and reducing the presense of liberals to a minimum.

[Bakustra]

This long speech doesn't do anything. Spend the energy on collecting people for amendments. Or place a hold on the deal. But no, you think they should stand there and gab for no point.

So, jackass, do you want to say that this does not indicate that you disagree with his decision to make this speech, and that you think that he should not have done so? Or are you continuing to take out your deep personal issues on other people?

[Simon_Jester]

Okay, Simon, I'll amend it for you:
Ha ha! It's funny because between a third and a half of the country votes for sociopaths!

Come to think of it, since when is "heartless" a word for "can be diagnosed with the mental illness sociopathy?" There are a lot of ways for someone to be "heartless" when it comes to a profound inability to act ethically towards strangers that don't involve actual sociopathy. It's a colloquial term, and should be treated as such.

This isn't drawing a huge amount of flak, but it's not drawing much attention either- even Fox only had some weaksauce where the only slur they could muster was "socialist", which Senator Sanders self-identifies as. But maybe it will draw some more later on. His speech was amazing. He had an immense amount of material prepared, and he spoke for nine-and-a-half hours. Did anybody else hear him ask what the other Senators were smoking?

What bugged me was the flak it drew here: that when for years we've had congressional Dems condemned as spineless, suddenly people are saying "oh well it won't change anything" when one of them stands up and does something brave- at least compared to their normal behavior.

No, wait. Thinking back it's only Nitram who's doing that. Never mind.

[SirNitram]

This long speech doesn't do anything. Spend the energy on collecting people for amendments. Or place a hold on the deal. But no, you think they should stand there and gab for no point.

So, jackass, do you want to say that this does not indicate that you disagree with his decision to make this speech, and that you think that he should not have done so? Or are you continuing to take out your deep personal issues on other people?

See, that looks like me stating an opinion that it's a waste, not, as you termed it,

You seem to be uneasy with admitting that you said that he should shut up. Well, your cognitive dissonance doesn't matter, though it's healthier to acknowledge than to repress.

I said it was a waste when better things could be done, and he should have done otherwise. You just want to conflate the two. Because, at the core, while you are cheerleading him speaking his opinion, you hate the idea I give my opinion. Go away, you sad trolling dipshit.

[StarshipTitanic]

I said it was a waste when better things could be done, and he should have done otherwise.

Like what? Follow your suggestions? Let's look at your suggestions:

Spend the energy on collecting people for amendments.

Reid used a tactic that prevents any amendments. You shouldn't ignorantly tell Sanders what's best when you don't even know what is possible for him to do.

Or place a hold on the deal.

I don't think you understood what wins when it's hold vs. cloture because then you said these two things:

[In one post:] If he was doing this on Monday, and shutting down the vote on the tax deal, this might be more than stupid C-SPAN tricks.

[In another post:] He can simply place a hold on it, and declare a filibuster if it isn't honored.

He could not "shut down the vote" or "declare a filibuster" do if the Democrats and Republicans wanted a cloture vote. But then you seemed to figure it out and you say something about "dissent."

If it passes. Did you look over the dissent on both sides, since I brought it up?

Can you tell me who the 41 Democratic and Republican senators that have pledged to vote against cloture? Because if you don't have 41 votes, who cares if there's dissent?

You are frankly out of your depth here and should have at least made a cursory effort to research Senate procedure.

[ShadowOfMadness]

What he is doing is calling attention to what he's "jabbering" about.

Its on News websites, #1 on twitter, he'll be on cable news, etc.

It doesn't directly change what is happening, but by maybe getting more people to call their Representatives or Senators and tell them to work against the deal, it can indirectly change it.

Exactly.

An independent like him, this really is the limit of his power at this point.

[Akkleptos]

What he is doing is calling attention to what he's "jabbering" about.

Its on News websites, #1 on twitter, he'll be on cable news, etc.

It doesn't directly change what is happening, but by maybe getting more people to call their Representatives or Senators and tell them to work against the deal, it can indirectly change it.

Exactly.

An independent like him, this really is the limit of his power at this point.

Exactly. It seems to me -after reading the whole thread, which is amazing since I don't usually care for US politics unless when they conspicuously affect the rest of the world- that this is the man's last stand. As an independent, he can't count on convincing a significant amount of fellow party-member representatives to take his side.

Call it a futile effort, if you will, but if he has all of us talking and debating about what he is doing, I can only figure many other people (people who could actually do something) are doing the same. That itself has more potential than a hold or the other resources that would do next to nothing in the face of a cloture.

Now, I'm not saying it would change anything, just that it's just as much as the man can possibly do. I have to respect that.

@Sir Nitram: Sir, you call this useless theatrics. Really, you haven't seen what "theatrics" are like (useless or otherwise) until you've seen what stunts they pull in other countries Congresses and Parliaments, such as invading the Presidium, fist fighting, chair-throwing, nude sit-ins (I'm thinking Mexico, Korea, Italy and a few others).

[StarshipTitanic]

Surprise, the cloture vote was successful 85-15 and there was nothing Sanders could do.

Those voting no were:

Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Kay Hagan (D-NC)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
Russ Feingold (D-WI)
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
Tom Udall (D-CO)

Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Jim DeMint (R-SC)
Tom Cobun (R-OK)
George Voinovich (R-OH)
Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)

Progressives and tea partiers united, but few others joined them.