Payback's a Bitch

Somebody got a spine for Christmas!

As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking.

House Democrats intend to pass a raft of popular measures as part of their well-publicized plan for the first 100 hours. They include tightening ethics rules for lawmakers, raising the minimum wage, allowing more research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans.

But instead of allowing Republicans to fully participate in deliberations, as promised after the Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Democrats now say they will use House rules to prevent the opposition from offering alternative measures, assuring speedy passage of the bills and allowing their party to trumpet early victories.

Nancy Pelosi, the Californian who will become House speaker, and Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, who will become majority leader, finalized the strategy over the holiday recess in a flurry of conference calls and meetings with other party leaders. A few Democrats, worried that the party would be criticized for reneging on an important pledge, argued unsuccessfully that they should grant the Republicans greater latitude when the Congress convenes on Thursday.

Ugh. Whiny babies with a loser mentality. And crappy media with intractable GOP-positive framing. The Democrats are now the majority. They've got bills ready to go that they've had ready for years which the GOP has been blocking for years. The Democrats are totally right not to bother wasting time during their "first 100 hours" perfunctorily entertaining the GOP's crap alternative proposals to legislation of which the Dems' 30+ seat majority guarantees passage anyway—legislation, by the way, which the GOP has ignored for years, unless it was the block Democratic proposals. Fuck the GOP. They had their chance.

I don't endorse the Democrats running Congress this way ad infinitum, but to use their "first 100 hours" to pass precisely the legislation they were elected to pass without mollycoddling the suddenly pro-bipartisanship GOP? Yeah, I've got absolutely not the slightest fucking objection to that shit. Who gives a rat's patoot about some bullshit GOP alternatives to basic legislation like raising the fucking minimum wage? Not I.

We've all got a pretty good idea about where the GOP stands on this stuff already. That's why the Dems now have the majority—and they shouldn't be afraid to use it.