The Senate is approving the stimulus bill this evening (the House approved it earlier). Currently there are 59 votes for and 38 against (97 total). (The measure requires 60 votes for passage because it is deficit spending — some Senate rule.)
We still don’t have a second senator from Minnesota and Senator Kennedy cannot be there to vote because of his brain cancer. So, only 98 votes total will be cast.
The 98th vote is Senator Sherrod Brown, who is in Ohio attending his mother’s wake. The funeral is tomorrow. He is flying back to Washington to cast the necessary 60th yea. His affirmative is a given; the bill will pass.
Any one of 38 Republican Senators could have cast their vote in favor of the bill and made a statement that they were opposed, but wanted to make it possible for Senator Brown to miss the vote and stay with his family at his mother’s wake.
None did. What a bunch of shits.
(There are 41 Republican senators in all. Republicans Specter, Snowe and Collins voted in favor of the bill.)
“None did. What a bunch of shits.” Hmmm, a 1000+ page bill that no one had a chance to read, and you call them shits. Who you should be calling shits are the people who voted for this thing without reading it. 1000 fucking pages, and who knows what is in there.
I am going to come back on this “blog” in one year, and I am going to rub it in your face that the stimulus didn’t work. Actually, no I am not. I don’t give a damn about some redneck blogger from New Mexico who thinks he knows something about anything. I’ll simply leave you to wallow in your stupidity in your trailer park in that shithole state.
I have no problem with any senator or representative voting against the bill. We send them there to make those decisions. The point I was making is that, once the bill’s passage was assured in the Senate, why force a colleague to leave his mother’s wake to vote. Any one of 38 senators could have done the charitable thing, and probably earned some credit with his constituency for being a class act.
But no, it’s always about them.
The Neo-cons (ie most Republicans) are on the wrong side of history; they just don’t know it yet.
As for that damn’ Yankee Carpetbagger (The Man) I have just one thing to say him:
Sticks and stones will break our bones but names will never hurt us!!!!!
We hire these guys as senators and give them just one job. That job is to vote.
I think that if a senator is no longer able to vote he should quit his job since he can’t do it. Senator Byrd and senator Kennedy come to mind. I’m sure there are more.
If a senator is temporarily unable to do the job, the senate and the country loses.
A senator voting for some other senator is never allowed in the real world because its not very ethical. Voting for an absent senator is like punching in at work for someone else. Besides that, how would they know how the absent senator would vote?
Ah, Ephraim, having you back is even more fun than the 30 minutes I just spent rolling on the floor, laughing, at someone calling my Dad a “redneck.” Awesome.
Paragraph 1: Saying the only job senators have is to vote is so cute. It’s like how one would describe the job to a five year old.
Paragraph 2: Byrd voted “aye” yesterday. Kennedy was there earlier in the week, but not yesterday as he was out of town receiving treatment for brain cancer. A little law called the Americans with Disabilities Act protects you from stripping him of his job because he dared to get cancer.
Paragraph 3: OK. And this is certainly the first time any Senator has ever missed a vote, right?
Paragraph 4: Reading comprehension, Ephraim! Do we have to go over this again? Make sure you understand the original post before you write something that makes no sense, arguing against something that no one suggested in the first place.
Happy Valentine’s Day to me.
What other job does a senator have other than voting? Perfect attendance? Constituent services? Camera chasing? Money grubbing?
Kennedy wasn’t there because he only has half a brain. I don’t think that brain cancer is considered a disability under the act you reference. Byrd has been senile for many years. Senility is also not considered a disability under that act.
If you watch c-span you know that most senators are absent when votes are taken. Only “important” votes are cast. Missing a vote is common, not unusual. Senators and congressmen routinely “amend the congressional record” to include votes that they didn’t cast.
I prefer to think of “Dad” and Jill as ‘pinko-necks’ rather than rednecks. 🙂
Just for the record:
Efrain please don’t refrain! You keep me coming back to this site just to read your comments. Way to think outside the brain… oops I mean the box.
What bothered me most out of all these posts was the [off-point] original statement by “The Man” that he’d come back in a year to rub it in that he stimulus package didn’t work. He’s not alone in his twisted sentiment. It’s as though there is an entire constituency out there that WANTS it to fail just so they can say, “I told you so!” Not to mention the hopes of the opposing party that it fails so they’ll have a better chance in future elections.
As long as it’s a done deal anyway, shouldn’t we all be hoping and praying (if you pray) that it DOES work? We are all in this together, folks. It’s high time we come together and do what we can to fix what’s wrong, and to hell with who’s fault it is. (Even though we all know whose fault it it–some are just in denial about that part.)
It’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Jill, I’m with you and laughed heartily at the “redneck” comment. Truely a hoot. So dear Uncle, since I’m come from a long and distinguished line of rednecks on the paternal side, I say, “Welcome. Happy to have you here. Come on in, the potato salad’s great.”