Ben Nelson Opposes Elena Kagan, First Democrat To Do So

[laughingliberal]

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson says he'll vote against confirming Elena Kagan as a Supreme Court justice.

The Nebraskan's announcement in a statement posted Friday evening makes him the first Democrat to say he'll break with his party to oppose President Barack Obama's nominee.

Nelson says he's heard concerns from his constituents about Kagan, the 50-year-old solicitor general and former Harvard Law School dean. And he says her lack of judicial record makes it impossible to know whether their worries are unfounded. <snip>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/30/ben-nelson-opposes-elena-kagan_n_665919.html

Look for Ben to jump parties if the Republicans take back the Senate. Only reason I can see he still caucuses with the Democrats at all is he likes being with the majority.

[sandnsea]

1. But he will vote for cloture

And that's why you support these dumbass Dems.

[laughingliberal]

3. I don't see anything that says he'll vote for cloture. Doesn't matter. Five Republicans will.

He's disgusting. He's the reason UI extensions were held up. Two Republicans voted for cloture but Ben joined the Republicans in their filibuster.

[sandnsea]

4. It came out several days ago

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/30/nelson-to-oppose-kagan-will-vote-for-cloture/

These blue dog dems' cloture votes are more reliable than republicans. If you don't want the President to have to talk to a Republican, and the blue dogs are too disgusting to talk to, then where the hell are these votes supposed to come from?

[SunsetDreams]

5. thanks for posting that sandsea

[sandnsea]

7. Thanks for his voting history

It's better than I thought really. I know these people are pains in the ass, but people should look at who they run against. The nutball Blanche Lincoln is running against is pretty much a male version of Sarah Palin.

[laughingliberal]

8. Yes. Bill Halter was polling better against that nutball. Lincoln's going down. nt

[sandnsea]

9. Are you cheering for that?

And let me give you a clue. If Arkansas votes for a Republican for Senate, ANY Republican, that will mean they are moving further away from liberals. Arkansas would prefer to vote for Democrats. Both Senators are Democrats, 3 of 4 Congressmen are Democrats, Governor and Lt Governor (Halter) are Democrats, and the majority of the State House are Democrats. They don't think they're the problem with the Democratic Party. They think YOU are.

And if Bill Halter got elected to Lt Governor, believe me, he'd have been no different in the long run than Blanche Lincoln. Arkansas is a conservative state.

[laughingliberal]

10. Nope. Just stating a fact. She's looks like she's going down and Halter was polling better against

the Republican opponent. And there's no need to shout. I'm from Memphis and my father was from AR. I'm quite familiar with the region.

[SunsetDreams]

12. You are welcome

Also what needs to be looked at is where Conservative Dems come from. Can you really get a Progressive in over them in that location? Is it better to have them vote with you over 60% of the time? Or, get a Repuke in that votes with you none of the time?
Nebraska is typically considered a Republican state.

[laughingliberal]

11. He did vote against cloture for the extension of UI benefits twice.

Not too reliable when it comes to voting for the small people. FFS, 2 Republicans voted for cloture on the extension. This guy is vile and odious. And there are 5 Republicans voting to confirm Kagan.

[sandnsea]

13. What about the other Nebraska Senator?

How's he voting? You want more like him?

As for Arkansas, that Senate seat has been held by Democrats for 131 years. If it goes to a nutball teabagging Republican, by a landslide, what does that tell you about how those people really think? If they reject Blanche Lincoln it's because they will be rejecting Barack Obama "socialism", not because they didn't get single payer health care.

[laughingliberal]

14. I'm tired of the false dichotomy. As a Democrat, I have no reason to expect Republicans...

to vote the way I'd like. But I'm weary of those in our own party opposing our agenda.

What it tells me if AR goes to the Republican is that they aren't happy with Lincoln.

FFS, she ran ads bragging about helping to defeat the Democrats' agenda. I'd think the 'nutballs' would like that. Apparently, they didn't. And I didn't say anything about single payer health care. Perhaps this is the kitchen sink style of debate I'm seeing?

[sandnsea]

15. A Democrat who votes with you 60%, or

a Republican who votes with you 5%.

That's not a false dichotomy. That's the choice voters in some of these rural states face.

Lincoln isn't running in the primary anymore. And the voters in Arkansas are voting for tax cuts, deficit cuts and 68% want the health care bill repealed. They are buying into the "socialism" garbage and they hate Barack Obama, which I suspect is mostly pure racism. These are voting issues.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/arkansas/election_2010_arkansas_senate

[laughingliberal]

16. All I know is her and Halter were both polling behind the Republican but he had a narrower margin.

Stepping all over us got her nowhere. Perhaps if she had helped the Democrats pass some real legislation that would have actually helped anyone, she would be in better shape. People tend to like their incumbents when they have jobs and money in their pockets. Republicans screamed all the same shit about Clinton but, in the end, they had jobs and they had money and a lot of them voted for him. Obstructing an agenda that could have bolstered the economy was stupid.

[sandnsea]

17. She voted for the stimulus

which put money and jobs in Arkansan's pocket. But they're too stupid to get it, and unfortunately they aren't the only ones. Arkansas' unemployment rate is 7.5%, much better than a lot of the country. Their minimum unemployment benefit is $73 a week, and you don't think they appreciated that $25 weekly addition?

No, the problem in Arkansas is the same problem most of the country has this election cycle. Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them, on both ends of the political spectrum.

[laughingliberal]

18. We needed more stimulus. She could have introduced legislation for more after we had 60 votes,

perhaps? We had to pass that inadequate joke of a stimulus due to only having 58 in the Senate at that time. But once we had 60, there was nothing stopping any of them from calling for more.

What I know is if Bill Clinton's endorsement can't get you elected in AR, you've got more problems than just 'nutjobs.' Nutjobs are nothing new to that region. But, as you pointed out, Democrats have held that seat for a long time, nutjobs notwithstanding.

The people on my end of the political spectrum (liberal Democrat) are not lying liars. Our solutions work and the RW and center right solutions do not. If 30 years hasn't shown people that, then there's not jack I or anyone else can do about it. Until we change course, the workers will remain poor and the middle class will continue to shrink.

The lying liars are the ones who keep telling us we can keep passing Republican think tank style legislation and economic policies and expect any better results than we've gotten out of that for 30 years. Pragmatism is about doing what produces results for people, not just winning an election. If you produce results people can see and feel in their lives, the elections will take care of themselves. Results is what matters and most of us 'small people' down here have yet to see any or even see anything that will produce results for us down the road.

Clinton proved all of that. He passed his 1993 Recovery act without one Republican vote. The Repigs screamed bloody murder all over the airwaves about, 'the largest tax increase in history!' But he won reelection and he would have won a 3rd one, impeachment and all, if he could have run again. When our elected officials learn to stand up for us and quit pandering to their wealthy benefactors, people will do better and they will win their elections. Until then, I don't know that there's any hope for them.

[sandnsea]

36. Arkansas opposes all of that

Have you ever lived in Arkansas under Clinton? I HAVE. His economic policies get you working for food stamps and only 3 medications when you're on Medicaid. Medicaid. For adults in poverty.

Arkansas, like many other stupid people, thinks the bail outs didn't work, TARP didn't work, and the stimulus didn't work. Because they're full of hatred for Obama because he's black.

I don't know why other people can't figure out the difference between losing 750,000 jobs a month and gaining even 20,000 jobs a month.

[laughingliberal]

37. I grew up in Tennessee. Essentially, the same type policies back then.

Not much better than that here in NV, either.

As to whether TARP worked or not, I guess that depends on your definition of 'worked.' The banksters are certainly healthy, now. But handing them all that money with no strings attached was not a help for most people. People do need to be reminded Bush's SOT was behind that. But we can't really claim the moral high ground when we continued to pump out the money to them with no strings attached. HAMP was done in such a way as to assure the banks would help the fewest number of people. There were some things which could have been done to assure the banksters got some of that money back out into the real economy. Sure, 7.5% unemployment is certainly lower than the 14% we have here but I'm sure they would not have sneezed at a few more jobs.

The stimulus has not worked as well as it would have if it had been the $1.2 trillion and targeted the way economists were advising-the non-Goldman Sachs economists, that is. If this economy were humming along and people had money in their pockets, incumbents would be sitting pretty.

Good policy that works is pragmatic. When you pass policies that work and people feel secure, ideology goes out the window except for the few 'nutjobs.' When people are suffering, anyone incumbents are held to account, right or wrong. Passing the RW appeasing, half measures we got results in weak solutions the average person can't feel and it backfires. Now, we get to run, once again, on 'we're slightly better than the Republicans.' Progressive, liberal policies do not play well in explanation. It is necessary to PASS them and let people see them work. We squandered the best opportunity we're likely to ever see again to rid the country of the Reaganomics scam. Lincoln may have lost, anyway. At least she could have lost knowing she did something worthwhile, not that I think she really gives a tinkers' dam as long as she's moving on to something lucrative. Then again, she might have won if the Democrats had gone to work passing good policy and made people's lives better. There is always value in doing the right thing and taking a courageous stand. After all, as you said, Democrats held that seat for a century and, for many of those years, Democrats were passing some pretty progressive legislation in Washington.

[sandnsea]

38. Even Krugman says TARP worked

I get it now. You agree with the teabaggers who wanted to let the banks fail. Well there's no reasoning with that kind of thinking. They worked, 95% of economists agree TARP pulled us back from the brink of economic collapse, along with the changes Obama made to it, expanding it to the auto industry, and implementing the massive stimulus and it was massive.

The stimulus did exactly what it needed to do, which is provide increased aid to the unemployed, moneys to states to keep civil servants employed, increased Pell Grants for college, and investment money into alternative energy, hybrid cars, a green economy. That's exactly what Bill Clinton did in the 90s, by the way, when he got it right. That's progressive legislation. That Arkansas opposed.

In Arkansas in the 80s though, the "Arkansas Miracle", he played on the expense of union wages in Michigan and started the drain of industry to the south and then out of the country altogether. And no, working for food stamps was not common at the time and thank goodness, still isn't as far as I know. That was most certainly unheard of anywhere in the west.

And Arkansans voted Dem because Abe Lincoln was a Republican and the post-civil war policies came from Republicans. It took a black man in the White House to shake that tradition. And if you were raised in Tennessee, then you know that's the plain truth of it.

[laughingliberal]

40. I'm tired of you calling everyone who disagrees with you a teabagger.

That mean spirited name calling seems to emerge if anyone disagrees with you and I see no admission on your part that anyone who disagrees with you might know what they are talking about. The next slur from you is usually to accuse Democrats of really being Greens. So, you can spare me that.

Yes, TARP worked great for the banks and probably did avert a worse catastrophe. BUT there was a solution between what we did which was hand all the money over with no strings and letting the banks fail. That kind of black and white thinking is part of the developmental stage people pass through in their pre-teenage years. There could have been some conditions put on the money we gave them to save themselves. Perhaps a little condition on freeing up the money for the rest of us who aren't in the top 1% would have been good. At least, the $75 billion given over for the HAMP program could have required the banks to actually HELP homeowners and not just game the system for the money.

As long as we're quoting Krugman, he also was clear that the stimulus was too small and diverted too much to tax cuts which is the least stimulative effect on the economy. Every honest economist right now knows we need more stimulus and we need it now. Even Bernanke's deficit hawk butt is panicking at the idea of Congress cutting spending right now and telling them they need to be spending right now.

Clinton inherited a very mild recession compared to what we are in now. The amount he put out there was sufficient. Not sufficient to turn things around for 1992 in a way that would have saved Congress but it did get things humming along in time for his election. We were in much worse shape when Obama came in and we needed much bolder action.

What I said was common was for that region. I did grow up in Tennessee and we had a history of electing Democrats there until Gore was elected VP & a Republican took his seat. Public assistance amounts there are draconian as they are in AR. And here in NV, Medicaid only allows 3 Rx's per month but they can get more with a lot of hoop jumping and paperwork from the doctor who the state then takes 15 forevers to pay meaning few doctors here will see Medicaid patients.

And there are certainly policies Clinton advocated both in AR and the country that I vehemently disagreed with as I do with all the 'centrists' who keep propagating the philosophies and economic policies of Reagan. Not sure how they think continuing to do the same thing that got us here will produce any different results but, then again, they aren't out here wondering where their next meal will come from, either.

What I know is Tennesee had some very liberal enclaves and some very right wing. A black man was my Congressional rep for many of my voting years, often running unopposed. My father was a civil rights' activist and was from AR.

Regardless, passing legislation which produces ineffective results helps no one. Wimping out and appeasing the right certainly didn't save Lincoln's seat for her. I'm not sure anything would have in this climate. But, at least, she could have used her time to vote for policies that would have helped average Americans and let history vindicate her. There was a time, in my lifetime, when we had legislators who would vote their conscience, at times, and not always be worrying about their own neck.

[Dinger]

43. Excellent (nt)

[nashville_brook]

41. it's really not helpful to call everyone you disagree with a "teabagger" -- not helpful to you.

not helpful to electing Dems. not helpful to fostering an environment where ideas are shared. etc etc.

what i see in this exchange is the opposite of pragmatism, as a pragmatic approach would include finding the same common ground with the democratic wing of the democratic party that you so easily find with the RW of the Dems and Centrist GOPers. this looks a lot more like ideology than pragmatism.

[nashville_brook]

42. dupe

[SunsetDreams]

2. K&R A good look at his voting history

If anyone is interested

http://www.opencongress.org/people/voting_history/300077_Ben_Nelson

[SusanaMontana41]

6. He's an embarrassment to his party and to the people he's supposed to represent.

Of course, it's Big Insurance money that gets him elected by padding his pockets. Why else would he turn his back on Nebraskans — hell, Americans — in need?

Despicable. Unconscionable. Unforgivable.

Nebraska tea baggers don't like him, and progressive Nebraskans don't like him. He alienates everybody except Big Money.

[Radical Activist]

19. With Democrats like this and Lincoln

why do you still blame Obama for killing the public option?

[laughingliberal]

20. Because we could have done the public option under reconciliation and we had 50 votes.

That 60 vote dog don't hunt since we passed the 'fix' between the House and Senate bill under reconciliation. And we still can. Woolsley has introduced it in the House and I'm pressuring Reid to fulfill his promise to Sanders.

[Radical Activist]

21. But even the reconciliation vote

took 60 votes. Facts matter.

[laughingliberal]

22. I believe you're tripping. Reconciliation does not take 60 votes.

Facts do matter and we all saw the bill that reconciled the House and Senate bill pass with less than 60. There was much discussion in the last days. Sanders was set to offer an amendment on it into the reconciliation bill and Reid asked him not to and promised he would get it to the floor in the future under reconciliation. You need to check your facts.



http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_03/023052.php


SENATE APPROVES RECONCILIATION PACKAGE, HOUSE UP NEXT.... Right on schedule for a change, the Senate completed its work on health care reform this afternoon, voting 56 to 43 to approve the pending reconciliation package.

I'll post the roll call once it's up, but three Democrats -- Nebraska's Ben Nelson, Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln, and Arkansas' Mark Pryor -- voted with Republicans in the up-or-down vote. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) is in the hospital and did not vote. (Remember, the GOP couldn't filibuster the reconciliation measure, so 60 votes were not needed.)

[Radical Activist]

25. And that happened

after the Senate passed their version of the bill, which took 60 votes. Otherwise, the opportunity to take a reconciliation vote would not have occurred. No 60 votes earlier in the process = no reconciliation vote.

People have posted longer explanations of this several times before. If you want to believe Obama is the devil and hates the public option then I guess you'll believe it no matter what you read.

[laughingliberal]

27. 100% wrong.

The Senate passed their bill with 60 votes. The House had a bill. The House had to pass the Senate bill exactly as written or a new bill would be subject to filibuster if any changes were made.

The fix was made by including only those items that would have budgetary impact and passing it under reconciliation which requires only 51 votes. It was a totally separate bill.

You can keep arguing this but you're absolutely wrong.

Here's an example of another bill which passed under reconciliation and could not be filibustered:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/mar/04/alan-grayson/bush-tax-cuts-were-passed-reconciliations-50-votes/

Reconciliation was used "for tax cuts for the rich twice under Bush."
Alan Grayson on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 in an interview on CNN's Larry King Live

Bush tax cuts were passed with reconciliation's 50 votes


Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., has a reputation for using political rhetoric that pushes the envelope. On March 3, 2010, he appeared on CNN's Larry King Live along with Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who's also known for her outspokenness from the opposite ideological perspective.

Bachmann started the exchange by saying the Senate should not finalize health care reform by using reconciliation, a parliamentary maneuver that requires only 50 votes, instead of the 60 needed to stop filibusters. Bachmann said the Senate would have to "break their own rules in order to pass the bill."

Grayson disagreed, naturally.

"My esteemed colleague from Minnesota is entirely wrong," Grayson replied. "There's nothing in Senate rules that prevents reconciliation. It's been used 22 times overall and 14 times by Republicans. If it's good enough for tax cuts for the rich twice under Bush, it's good enough to provide health care for all Americans."

We'll have to wait for events to play out before we learn if health care reform meets the parliamentary rules for reconciliation. The final call on the matter will likely depend on how the legislation is written and determinations made by the Senate parliamentarian and the Senate president, a role fulfilled by the vice president. We know from our previous reporting that Grayson is also correct that reconciliation was used 22 times overall and 14 times by Republicans.

Here, we wanted to check Grayson's statement that reconciliation was used "for tax cuts for the rich twice under Bush."

We checked with Grayson's staff, and they said he was referring to the large tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003. We checked the votes, and both were passed by reconciliation.

The 2001 tax cuts passed 58-33. All the Republican senators (with the exception of John McCain, R-Ariz.) were joined by 12 Democrats to pass the measure.

More

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_fifty_vote_senate

<snip> That's the beauty of the reconciliation process: It restores the primacy of the up-or-down vote. In the "regular order" -- which is to say, the Senate's customary procedure -- the time for debate is unlimited, and if a minority of 40 senators refuses to stop talking, then you need 60 of them to invoke the rule that shuts the others up and allows the bill to come to vote. If you don't have 60 votes to break the filibuster, it doesn't matter if you have 50 votes to pass the bill.

The reconciliation process, by contrast, limits debate to 20 hours and bypasses the filibuster altogether. It was instituted to ensure that minority obstruction couldn't block important business like passing a budget or reducing the deficit. But it was misused. At least, Robert Byrd thought so. He saw all manner of "extraneous" amendments and legislation sneaking beneath the radar of the reconciliation process. Rather than being used to reconcile the budget or reduce the deficit, it was being used to short-circuit the filibuster (much, one might say, like the filibuster itself, which was being used not to lengthen debate on legislation but kill that legislation altogether).

Imagine you want to run health reform through the reconciliation process. Here's how it works: Congress includes reconciliation instructions in the budget. Those instructions direct certain committees -- say, the Finance Committee and the Health, Energy, Labor, and Pensions Committee -- to produce health-reform legislation hitting certain spending targets by a certain deadline. Once finished, the legislation is tossed back to the Budget Committee, which staples it together into an omnibus bill and sends it to the floor of the Senate for 20 hours of debate followed by an up-or-down vote. <snip.

Do you need more? You are way wrong on this and I think most people reading on this site know you are wrong.

[Radical Activist]

29. "The Senate passed their bill with 60 votes."

Yeah, that's what I wrote. That version didn't include the public option because it didn't have 60 votes, therefore it wasn't part of the final reconciliation bill that was voted on later.

[laughingliberal]

31. Just aren't going to give it up. There was an entirely separate bill passed after the House...

passed the Senate's bill. The House did not want the Senate's bill as written. They refused to pass it as written unless the Senate assured them they would make certain changes. The House and Senate passed an entirely separate bill which made the changes. Entirely separate bill done under reconciliation and NOT subject to filibuster. Were you paying attention to anything outside press releases during all that?

The bill that passed under reconciliation was not the same bill the Senate passed in December before Brown took MA. It made several changes the House insisted on and it would have been subject to a new filibuster if it had not been done under reconciliation. It was NOT the same bill that had previously gotten 60 votes. Do you not remember any of that? The House refused to take the Senate bill as is and they no longer had 60 votes in the Senate. So they had to pass a seperate bill under reconciliation in order to make changes? Anything ringing a bell here? Firing a neuron? It was a BIG Deal. Surely some of it's coming back to you.

Here's another story from the time:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/25/reid-pushing-through-the_n_512546.html


UPDATE 3/25 2:23PM

Senate Democrats passed the final health care reconciliation package on Thursday afternoon by a vote of 56-43, moving the measure to the House where it will face a last vote before heading to the White House. A vote is expected later Thursday in the lower chamber.

Three Democratic senators voted against the legislation, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

An ailing Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) missed the vote.

The Senate action today comes after Beltway pundits said for months that using reconciliation to finish the health care bill was simply impossible. To have been proven wrong so quickly seems to undermine the ability of the punditocracy to continue to play referee to American politics.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews flat-out declared it was not possible, based on his former time as a staffer on Capitol Hill. "They cannot get passed the filibuster rule," Matthews declared, asking a member of Congress who was floating the idea of reconciliation what he was talking about. "What do you mean reconciliation? You can't create a program through reconciliation... This is Netroots talk."

On the night in January that Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election, the network's Lawrence O'Donnell went on the air to shoot down speculation that reconciliation might be used.

"What everyone has to remember about reconciliation -- there'll be a huge demand for it -- reconciliation requires 60 votes every single day on several procedural parliamentary motions that come up during a reconciliation bill, and if you don't win those parliamentary motions your bill gets ripped apart. And even then, within the rules of reconciliation, it's impossible to do some of the elements of health care reform because of the rules of reconciliation," said O'Donnell. "So I'm sitting here saying I don't see how you go forward from here. I don't know what the play is."

Matthews' and O'Donnell's pessimistic analysis created a political hurdle for Democrats in Congress, but leadership concluded reconciliation was the only path forward. To O'Donnell's credit, he didn't express absolute certainty, as Matthews did.

"Surprise me again," O'Donnell said to Pelosi and Reid.

[SunsetDreams]

23. Actually replying to both of you :)

This is a great article that explains what reconciliation is:

http://keithhennessey.com/2009/08/05/what-is-reconciliation/

I hope it helps both of you. I found it to be an excellent read.

I must say, IMO irregardless, of whether it is 50 or 60, I don't think we have that many who will go for a Public Option, do we?

[laughingliberal]

24. I believe we do have 50. When we were doing it without reconciliation, it looked like 54-57 for it.

The spin about not having 50 was coming from those who didn't want it.

[SunsetDreams]

26. Who are the ones that are for it, do you know?

I would love to have a Public Option.

[laughingliberal]

28. I would have to go back to the whip count PCC was keeping at the time. The most they ever felt

were opposing was 6. Reid always felt he had at least 50. In fact, he generally felt he had 58. For the Medicare expansion, he was certain he had 60 until Lieberman pulled his stunt. Reid promised Sanders he would get a bill creating a public option to the floor under reconciliation in this Congress if he would refrain from offering his amendment. The reason for this was that allowing amendments to the reconciliation bill then opened the door for the Republicans to offer endless amendments which they were threatening to do. We will see if Reid follows through. Woolsley has introduced it in the House, now.

[SunsetDreams]

30. Thanks if you do find it,

I would be interested in seeing it. If it's at 54, that doesn't leave hardly any room to spare. Does PCC actually have them on record saying they would vote for a Public Option, or is it just a feeling? Let's hope that Reid follows through with his promise.

[laughingliberal]

32. I'll look for it tomorrow. nt

[SunsetDreams]

33. Thank you very much :)

[laughingliberal]

34. YW. :)

[OZark Dem]

35. What a hell of a surprise !!!!!!!!

[FlyByNight]

39. Is this guy good for ANYTHING?

Nelson's a political weathervane, a corporate whore and he's entirely unprincipled.

:thumbsdown: