The man's an established liar, a bizarre obsessive, a remorseless slanderer -- but you already knew that. He's also, unsurprisingly, an exquisite hack. Ever since voters demoted Prince Harry in November, his views on various Senate protocols and precedents have undergone a remarkable and dramatic evolution. He who grinningly nuked filibuster rules in 2013 has suddenly mustered strange new respect for the practice:
Sen. Reid yesterday: "The filibuster is an indispensable tool of the minority"
— STEW (@StewSays) January 8, 2015Reid's more egregious shamelessness comes in the form of his recent attacks on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whom he accuses of strong-arming the legislative process by limiting amendment votes on the Keystone Pipeline bill:
I've never seen debate shut down as aggressively as when Sen. McConnell refused to allow Dems to debate their own amendments for just 1 min.
— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) January 26, 2015This is rich. Richer, in fact, than Reid himself has become during his tenure as a supposed "public servant." The minority leader hopes Americans will forget that until very recently, he held McConnell's title. For the full duration of calendar year 2014, Harry Reid permitted precisely 15 amendment votes* on all legislation taken up by the United States Senate. Total. Prior to Reid's tweet above, the new Republican-controlled Senate had already surpassed that number in one week, and had held 24 votes on amendments to the Keystone bill alone. Democrats (who've been praising the more functional system under McConnell) have taken to griping that the Republican majority is betraying its pledge to respect an "open amendment process" by trying to place some limits on endless offerings.... KEEP READING
