Oh, the arm-twisting that must have happened: “Senate leaders, after personal intercessions by President Obama, reached an agreement Wednesday on a path to grant the president accelerated power to complete a sweeping trade accord ringing the Pacific Ocean — just a day after fellow Democrats had blocked him.” And then there’s this bit:
A long White House meeting with 10 Democrats considered pro trade helped force the Senate to compromise. In the end, the Democrats withdrew their demand that trade enforcement measures be integrated into trade promotion authority before the Senate began considering the measure.
Translation: this was not a compromise. Senate Democrats backed off, and got nothing but a pointless vote in the process*. Guess somebody in their caucus finally realized that they couldn’t count to 51 anymore.
Moe Lane
*Even if the bill they want passes the Senate and the House – which it won’t – Barack Obama would simply veto it anyway. Funny, I’m getting the most profound sense of deja vu right now…
And, thanks to the perverse incompetence of Reid, they can’t even Filibuster, really. I mean, the rule is there, but push on it, and what stops the Republicans from getting rid of it? So easy to get rid of Tradition. So hard to find out why it was there, and how hard it is to codify what Tradition did without a word…..
“you could get hurt in a workout accident too. be careful.”
Sounds like the FBI pulled out their Reptile File