Are democrats Putin’s puppets now?

That the filibuster is an inherently racist tool, a relic of Jim Crow, is an odd position for Democrats to take given that just yesterday, they used the filibuster to block legislation proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Indeed, Sen. Cruz’s bill not only attracted the votes of forty-nine out of fifty Republican Senators (the only exception was Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)), but also six Democratic Senators who face close races in 2022 and/or are from purple states: Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-NV), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), , Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA).

That meant that Cruz had 55 votes for his bill — a clear majority. So why did it not pass? Because Senate Democrats invoked the racist Jim Crow relic in order to refuse to allow a vote on that bill unless it first attained 60 votes to close the debate. In other words, Democrats — on Thursday— used the filibuster to block Cruz's bill despite its having the support of the majority of the Senate.

What makes the Democrats’ conduct here even more notable is the substance of Cruz's bill that they blocked with the filibuster. Cruz sought to impose sanctions on the Russian pipeline company Nord Stream 2, which is constructing the pipeline that will allow Moscow to sell large amounts of cheap natural gas to Germany and to Europe more broadly

There are few more pressing priorities for the Kremlin, if there are any, than construction of this pipeline. So by blocking Cruz's bill, Democrats not only used a racist filibuster, but they did so in order to protect Vladimir Putin and a vital Russian company from sanctions.

Indeed, few episodes have revealed what utter propagandists and unhinged conspiracy theorists the corporate media are more than the controversy over Nord Stream 2. At exactly the same time these media outlets were insisting that Trump was little more than a treasonous, subservient tool of Putin — controlled through Moscow's blackmail — Trump was doing everything possible to sabotage this pipeline, arguably the most vital interest of Russia (it competes for that title only with Ukraine, which Trump, infuriating the Russians, swamped with lethal arms after Obama largely refused to do so). Trump was threatening, cajoling, and trying to coerce Germany into buying U.S. natural gas rather than from the Russians, arguing that U.S. expenditures on NATO and on Germany's military protection obligated Berlin to buy from the U.S. instead. The Trump administration used sanctions regimes and other tools to prevent completion of that pipeline — an extremely odd act for a Russian-controlled asset, to put it mildly.

Besides being hypocrites and Putin’s puppets now, they are also liars for putting the country through hell with 4 years of Russia Gate because they blamed Russia for Hillary’s epic loss instead of looking in a mirror and finding Obama’s worthless presidency in it.

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The crux of the article is that democrats are hypocrites when it comes to using the filibuster that they say is from the Jim Crow era.

Speaking at the funeral of Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) in May, 2020, former President Barack Obama called for the elimination of the Senate filibuster, which he maligned as “another Jim Crow relic.” During his four years in the Senate, Obama himself used that Jim Crow relic on two dozen occasions to block the Republican majority from bringing various bills to a floor vote.

In 2005, Obama's second year in the Senate, Republicans — furious that Senate Democrats were using the filibuster to block President Bush's judicial appointments — proposed the "nuclear option” to eliminate the 60-vote requirement for judicial appointments. In response, the junior Senator from Illinois took to the floor of the Senate and delivered one of his trademarked impassioned speeches in defense of this Jim Crow relic, railing against the unfairness of “one party, be it Republican or Democrat … chang[ing] the rules in the middle of the game so they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet.” He also heralded the importance of the 6o-vote requirement in the Senate for protecting the rights of the minority party: “If the right of free and open debate is taken away from the minority party and the millions of Americans who ask us to be their voice, I fear the partisan atmosphere in Washington will be poisoned to the point where no one will be able to agree on anything.”

Filibuster hypocrisy of this sort is the norm in Washington. In 2017, when Senate Democrats were in the minority under President Trump, 32 of them signed a letter urging that the filibuster be maintained on the ground that it is necessary to safeguard “the existing rights and prerogatives of Senators to engage in full, robust, and extended debate as we consider legislation before this body in the future." Fast forward four years, when the Democrats have a 50-50 majority in the Senate with the tie-breaking vote of the Vice President, and now that very same filibuster has been transformed by them from a sacred guardian of minoritarian rights into the tell-tale sign of white nationalism and fascist contempt for democratic values.

Thus have Democrats, being Democrats, made this about so much more than hypocrisy. They have somehow managed to infuse a racial component into this long-standing and pedestrian parliamentary tactic, and converted the routine side-switching each party has done for years based on whether they are in the majority or the minority into some overarching test of moral character. Under the rubric Democrats have now created, using a filibuster is not merely an unfair and obstructionist weapon used by the minority — the standard claim invoked by each party whenever they are in the majority and their will is thwarted by it — but instead it has now become proof that whoever uses it is a racist.

But all of these events should immediately cause any employee of corporate media outlets to recognize and acknowledge the utter absurdity of the deranged conspiracy theory they fed Americans for four years: that Trump, as he did everything he could to sabotage Russian vital interests, was a treasonous puppet of the Kremlin.

That corporate media outlets will instead continue to propagate both of these DNC-sponsored fairy tales — Trump was an asset of Putin and the filibuster is only used by white nationalists for racist ends — tells you all you need to know about them and their Democratic allies.

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Cruz's bill would have required sanctions against Russia within 15 days of bills passage (regardless of Russia invading Ukraine). Obviously a gigantic red flag.

What is more concerning is that it had support of 6 democrats.

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snoopydawg's picture

@humphrey

But that’s not the point of his essay. It’s the hypocrisy of the democrats. Republicans are just as hypocritical too when it suits them. It’s how democrats play the racist card when it suits them. And how what they put the country through with their stupid Russia Russia Russia.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg

For the most part I agree with Greenwald but this is a bit much. It is all political kabuki since the only way that Cruz got a chance to table the bill is a deal he made with Schumer to stop blocking Brandon's nominees.

Cruz is as slimy as a politician can be.

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In the first place, this vote has nothing whatsoever to do with Russia or the pipeline. The US government may or may not be serious about stopping that pipeline somehow. But whatever weird shit drives the permanent government's PR campaign against Russia (and/or China and/or Iran), it does not include opening the details of foreign policy to political debate in Congress. If stupidly serious about it, which I doubt, the permanent government is not going to let Ted Cruz rally the Senate into doing anything at all.

The inconsistency of the Dems position bothers a few politics junkies -- maybe 20 million people --, but the public as a whole does not pay attention to this kind of shit. Polling showed that Russia Gate never had more than 2 percent of the country considering it important -- most polls showed zero interest in the Theft of Our Democracy. The tiny audiences for cable news constitute rival powerless factions who are motivated mainly by contempt for the opposite tribe.

The filibuster came in handy. Sleepy Joe could have vetoed it if necessary.

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And yeah, count me in as disgusted by the staggering hypocrisy of the Democratic politicians who only pull shit like this on behalf of the Empire. But this is not surprising.

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I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.

zed2's picture

Did the Dem polutician go wee wee in Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala's house?

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