Quote:
Originally Posted by Frequitude
He called out the bipartisanship that has gripped politics of late.
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And then voted to begin debate on.. something (who knows what) that hasn't seen one iota of partisan action, was designed in secret, chunks of it haven't been scored, and chunks of it can't pass the parliamentarian but there's no indication if those things will be stripped or if they'll just go nuclear on the parliamentarian.
The debate phase isn't to design the bill, it's supposed to be the end game where they can convince each other to vote for it or not, or to make amendments to tweak it. But big changes shouldn't happen during a debate since the consequences of those changes can't be known immediately.
The heavy lifting of creating the bill and bipartisan input and hearings and committees should have all happened before this.
What it really is is McConnell just getting into a situation where he can strong arm and coerce people more effectively, the pressure to just get something done will be greater and people may vote for things on the fly where they wouldn't if they had time to actually consider what was being proposed.
Not to mention McConnell can, at the end of the debate, basically dump everything and then swap in something else entirely and then they vote on that thing that wasn't even debated.
But they can just say "debate is good" and their base thinks it's Democrats who are against having an open debate.
Nope, McCain talks a good game, but if he really believed what he said I don't think he would have voted to proceed, since the whole process to that point was against what McCain was promoting. Just like he votes with Trump pretty much all the time, his actions speak louder than his words.