Right Wing Ob$truction of Everything from Firedoglake

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/38495

by Lucy Nieto (flickr)

While the wingers in the Senate keep the government from functioning and accuse the administration of dysfunctional neglect, anyone who watches CSPAN coverage of Congress can see that the Right will sink to anything to hold up the proceedings. The same representatives who insist that they're doing the people's will are sitting on appointments to the extent that departments intended to serve those people are unable to do their jobs. Appointments are not the only blockage by the Right that takes away taxpayers' right to a functional government.

A telling tactic appears in the pages of the Congressional Record. Standard practice for any official meeting involving rules is the approval of the record of proceedings for the previous meeting. In the U.S. Senate, right wing practice now has become requiring a taking of the yeas and nays even to approve those minutes.

On Sunday, March 21, 2010, the Senate met to enact health care reform legislation. First, they had to get over the hurdle of pure obstructionism.

Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the Speaker's approval of the Journal.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.

So time was wasted in order that a member of Congress could vent his displeasure with the elected majority of the Senate.

The outright childishness of the Right has been their major feature for some time. Finding that they can use the rules of order to deny the public any effort on their behalf, they have leapt into the fray to make everything as hard as it can be in getting any business done. As the price of conducting a Congress rises daily, the obstruction is more than annoying. It is wasteful and very expensive.

These clowns need to be voted out. Their refusal to do their jobs is actionable, and their constituents should act out their own anger about wasting public funds on pure, unalloyed obstruction of this country's government.