March 17, 2016

Harry Reid, taking names and kicking a**.

In a speech Thursday morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lambasted his GOP colleagues for obstructing President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

Reid focussed on the Republican Party's "big lie," that no solution to any problem was valid if it came from Obama.

He also said out loud what everyone in Washington knows: That Republicans engaged in overt obstruction of this President on purpose and with intent to demolish from the day Obama took the oath of office. The Guardian:

[On Inauguration night, 2009], 15 Republicans were in a sombre mood as they gathered at the Caucus Room in Washington, an upscale restaurant where a New York strip steak costs $51.

Attending the dinner were House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions. From the Senate were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Others present were former House Speaker and future – and failed – presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and the Republican strategist Frank Luntz, who organised the dinner and sent out the invitations.

The dinner table was set in a square at Luntz's request so everyone could see one another and talk freely. The session lasted four hours and by the end the sombre mood had lifted: they had conceived a plan. They would take back the House in November 2010, which they did, and use it as a spear to mortally wound Obama in 2011 and take back the Senate and White House in 2012...

The Republican Party is paying a price for this now. After seven years of using the Senate for political spite rather than governance, their own voters don't even know what government is anymore, and are prepared to "vote their anger" and nominate a narcissistic loony for the GOP Presidential race. What difference does it make, if the only purpose of being a Republican office holder is to obstruct government?

CNN didn't cover the whole speech, but Talking Points Memo covers some much more juicy steak from Harry Reid's comments:

Reid said that if Republican leaders aren't willing to withdraw their support of Trump, they should wear the candidate's signature Make American Great Again hats and stand behind the frontrunner at his press conferences.

"Be a mini-Christie, I guess," Reid suggested, referring to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s stone-faced endorsement of the Manhattan businessman that led many Twitter users to joke he was being held hostage.

Reid also blamed Republican leaders' attempts to delegitimize President Barack Obama over the past seven years for Trump's rise. "If Sen. McConnell wonders where Donald Trump came (from), he should look in the mirror," Reid said.

John Amato and Scarce contributed to this report.

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