Jay Weber Show transcript 3-12-21 7:10am
Last segment I talked about Pelosi’s house passing two new gun control bills yesterday-and we talked about the bills themselves...and how they aren’t going to pass in the senate thanks to the filibuster, so ,there’s no immediate alarm here for pro-second amendment types.
Now i want to talk about the reasons that-knowing they will not pass the senate-Pelosi and her team are making them a priority and passing them, anyway.
There are two main reasons: the first is the normal political reason you do this-
It’s a signal to your base that you-are- trying to move the agenda they sent you to Washington to move, but darn it, the other party won’t let us get it done.
Both parties do this: you pass the grassroots agenda that you can-even if it’s only in the house- so that your supporters know that, if it weren’t for the other party, you’d be getting this done.
Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy did the same thing in the trump era: before Ryan left as speaker-
Just in the short time he had the role- I believe he and that GOP caucus passed about 500 bills and sent them to McConnell’s desk, where they died because of the filibuster rule.
And this is the single most important thing to remember as the democrats and their putrid accomplices in the media start a campaign to insist that this is unique. Historical. That republicans in the senate refuse to let anything pass.
No. That’s been the norm for decades now. These very democrats blocked every piece of legislation that Ryan and McConnell wanted to get passed in the early trump era....and did the same thing in the bush era...etc.
Intransigence in the senate-unless you can get 60 votes for something-is the norm, and it is only a slight exaggeration to say that this is as the founders intended.
The founders, obviously, expected that there would be more action and have fewer bills hitting a wall and dying...
But they -absolutely- let us know- in no uncertain terms-that the senate was supposed to be the slower, more deliberative body that held bills to a higher standard and ensured that whatever passed had the true support of most of the country.
The filibuster rule of getting 60 votes to end debate on something...serves that purpose.
But- we have a new, bullying left in America now, and so they are going to pretend that the fact that they can’t get their radical agenda thru the senate is new, and unique, and outrageous.
This is the narrative they need-in order to force their own ‘hold out members’ and president Joe Biden to agree to end the filibuster and just -ram home with 50 votes-any radical new laws or rules that they want.
But we’ve talked about the problem at the very least, senators Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema oppose ending the filibuster rule.
As does President Joe Biden, and if Chuck Schumer’s team wants to end the filibuster, they could do it on a simple majority vote, but what does that mean right now?
Right now- it means every single one of the 50 democrat senators would have to vote yes, and then Kammy Harris would have to come over from the white house and break the senate tie.
Right?
And so-normally, senate leaders could change their rules without the white house, but in this instance, they’d also have to agree to get Joe Biden to relent-and agree to kill off the filibuster-
So there at least three of their own powerful party members that Schumer and Pelosi and the socialist activist horde would need to convince to kill off the filibuster...maybe more.
And so a plan has been hatched, and yesterday’s anti-gun bills were part of it.
They were just the start of what Pelosi hopes to make a flood of items off of the left’s long-time wish list...passing thru the house.
She has the numbers. She can hammer just about any bill thru. More gun laws. A flurry of climate change bills. A minimum wage hike, government run health care, stack the courts...
Whatever you can dream up-as a priority for activist democrats over the last 30 years- Pelosi can certainly pass thru the house, right?
Only to have them be stopped dead in the senate.
So the strategy is to crash wave after wave after wave of ‘big, important, democrat legislation’...up against the filibuster wall...
So that, as it happens, Manchin and Sinema’s fellow Dem senators are getting angrier and angrier at them for not ending the filibuster...
And the shrieking activist groups are getting angrier and angrier at them for not ending the filibuster...
And the big labor unions are getting angrier and angrier at them for not ending the filibuster.
And so maybe the activists start camping out at Manchin and Sinema’s homes, protesting and threatening their families....
Building pressure, building pressure, until Manchin, Sinema, and any other Dem senator who won’t end the filibuster caves.
This is the plan.
And it could work. My worry is- it could well work, to wear down their fellow senators.
But it could also backfire.
And this is what I’m hoping for.
This bullying of their own party members could end up backfiring, big time, my friends.
This sort of bullying could backfire and cause those democrats, themselves, to dig in and refuse to budge...blowing their plans...
And it could also cause the left wing activists to get so cranked up into a frenzied and angry state- that the scheme splinters the party...and widens this rift between the more traditional, old school, liberal democrats...and the shrieking socialist activists.
Pelosi and Schumer had better be careful about what they wish for and how they go about angering and activating that shrieking socialist base, folks...
As for potential backfire number one, Joe Manchin said again yesterday he won’t vote to end the filibuster
Now -that!-is good to hear. Because he did two Sunday talk shows that had him suggesting he’d be open to moving back to the talking filibuster, which would be a de-facto way to end the 60 vote threshold. And still claim he honored the filibuster.
Those interviews had reporters chasing him thru the hallways on Monday and Tuesday and got Manchin’s blood boiling again...until he dug in on this 60 vote threshold.
Good.
And he doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who will let activists bully him. Any attempt is more likely to backfire and cause him to dig in and take the position that-by god-you are not going to bully me!
Most of us older, grown men, who know our own minds, hate to be told what to do, in general. And Manchin clearly does. He snapped at Kamala Harris when she and the white house did interviews with local media in his home state, in an attempt to bully him on something.
So he’s already on edge.
But he’s not the personality type to cave to bullying, if you ask me.
I also-still believe-there are other old-school democrats in that caucus who are not speaking up, but if push came to shove, would not support ending the filibuster.
How would Dems like the GOP to ram home a nationwide abortion ban? Or slash entitlement and welfare funding with only 51 votes? Ram that home?
Let’s take this country back to FDR levels of welfare...on a simple majority vote.
As the democrat’s precious welfare cases were lining up to get their loaf of bread and their government cheese, again, they might regret getting rid of the senate filibuster.
But the very gambit that Pelosi and Schumer are trying here- could backfire, big time.
If they get the activist hordes all fired up and trashing their fellow democrats next fall-that’d be fantastic.
If the mission of AOC’s shrieking socialist squad...and the justice democrats. And the anti-gun lobby...and the pro-illegal lobby....
If the mission of the democrat’s army of political warriors is to take out democrat senators who stood in their way this year....instead of focusing their venom on republicans?
Fantastic.
I’d love to see it.
photo credit: Getty Images