{"id":5399,"date":"2010-02-05T10:24:23","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T17:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=5399"},"modified":"2010-02-05T12:24:07","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T19:24:07","slug":"the-holds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2010\/02\/05\/the-holds\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kent Conrad, Democratic Senator of North Dakota: <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748704194504575030990986093742.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_PoliticsNCampaign_2\">Deficit Hawk, Pork Hound<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>See also, <a href=\"http:\/\/fcw.com\/Articles\/2010\/02\/04\/Martha-Johnson-confirmed-GSA.aspx\">Kit Bond, Republican Senator of Missouri<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe Bond isn&#8217;t.\u00c2\u00a0 But there always exists that thing, the bi-partisan Deficit Hawk Pork Hound Caucus.<\/p>\n<p><em>Bond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hold was meant to apply pressure on the government to approve a proposed federal office building in downtown Kansas City, Mo. In the end, Bond voted for Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nomination.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As for the politics of &#8220;The Holds&#8221; &#8212; I suppose you can say that Bond had his rather paroachial and tedious reasons.\u00c2\u00a0 The obnoxious politics of the moment brings us <a href=\"http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/news\/politics\/AP\/story\/1463527.html\">one final beating of the hold and\/or filibuster of a conventional appointee<\/a> in the form of a 60 to 40 Labor nominee.<\/p>\n<p>So Richard Shelby announces the new holding of <a href=\"http:\/\/tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2010\/02\/report-shelby-blocks-all-obama-nominations-in-the-senate-over-al-earmarks.php\">everyone<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 And he is a member of the bi-partisan <a href=\"http:\/\/emptywheel.firedoglake.com\/2010\/02\/05\/shelby-tries-to-shut-down-us-senate-to-benefit-foreign-company\/\">deficit hawk pork hound cacus<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, yes, it&#8217;s not too hard to <a href=\"http:\/\/shelby.senate.gov\/public\/index.cfm?FuseAction=IssueStatements.View&amp;Issue_id=cefb8163-93eb-e6e5-8d01-d9611f759afa&amp;CFID=36883617&amp;CFTOKEN=19350484\">look back to the Bush administration<\/a> and see him bluster about the Hold ups of a bunch fewer Bush appointees.\u00c2\u00a0 Up and Down Vote, and all that.<\/p>\n<p>The one thing I can say is that there is a satisfactory item of small d democracy in Harry Reid&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2010\/02\/reid-to-obama-on-nominees-little-help-here-buddy.php\">throw over to Obama to push up a mass of recess appointments<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 As you may or may not recall, Bush recess appointed a few holds.\u00c2\u00a0 And therein it is worthwhile to point the name of one of the major figures the Democrats were holding up: John Bolton for the U.N. &#8212; whose history is one of not believing in the U.N.\u00c2\u00a0 Compare that with the Labor nominee just held up and I suppose we see the ideological fissures of the matter.<br \/>\nSo it was there that the 51 to 49 Democratic Senate held very brief Christmas break Senate sessions presided over by Jim Webb, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.groundreport.com\/US\/Senate-Democrats-Hold-Pro-Forma-Sessions-Over-Chri\/2851369\">Freshman duty from nearest state<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s where this item of small d democracy comes in.\u00c2\u00a0 The Republican Party can&#8217;t break the recess appointees, because they are in the Senate minority.\u00c2\u00a0 Never mind the Village Voice headline after Brown&#8217;s victory and the ensuing free for all of news sources stating the Democrats lost the majority.\u00c2\u00a0 (<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.villagevoice.com\/runninscared\/archives\/2010\/01\/scott_brown_win.php\">This headline was only slightly tongue in cheek as a parody<\/a>, as some news sites actually did say the majority was lost.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kent Conrad, Democratic Senator of North Dakota: Deficit Hawk, Pork Hound. See also, Kit Bond, Republican Senator of Missouri. Or maybe Bond isn&#8217;t.\u00c2\u00a0 But there always exists that thing, the bi-partisan Deficit Hawk Pork Hound Caucus. Bond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hold was meant to apply pressure on the government to approve a proposed federal office building in downtown [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5399"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5401,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5399\/revisions\/5401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}