Senate Rejects Extending Jobless Benefits

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&ncid=536&e=11&u=/ap/20040511/ap_on_go_co/unemployment_benefits

WASHINGTON - The Senate by a single vote rejected an election-year effort Tuesday to extend federal unemployment benefits.

Democrats tried to attach the benefit to a corporate tax bill. On a 59-40 vote in the GOP-controlled Senate, they fell just shy of the 60 votes needed to overcome objections that extending the benefits violated last year's budget agreement.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, was the only senator who missed the vote. Kerry was campaigning Tuesday in Kentucky.

The amendment would have offered emergency federal unemployment benefits for six months, temporarily giving 13 weeks of extra assistance to people who exhaust their state benefits — typically 26 weeks.

Kerry's vote would have clinched it! FUCK WHY DID HE MISS THIS VOTE!!

Missouri senators Jim Talent and Kit Bond are usually loyal republicans. If they were told to by the leadership that their vote was needed, I'm quite confident they or some other republican would have voted no. Those senators do it because it looks bad to oppose unemployment benefits but they would oppose them if they had to.

and even if Kerry would have made it, some Rep would have negated his vote!:shrug:
The people who are effected by this bill won't be swayed by this and understand the Reps screwed them, not Kerry. He is too busy out in the trenches trying to force this Rep stranglehold out of the WH.
:kick:

Bank on it. It is all rather academic anyway as the Rethugs in the House are not going to extend unemployment compensation--they're "compassionate conservatives" in name only/

If he doesn't vote he doesn't have to backpedal later.

They get the dim bulbs and other types to vote against gays, liberals, "lazy minorities" and welfare people.

They really don't give a rats ass about you if you don't have a job.. You are lazy and not blessed by GOD

In my car, 2 p.m., outside of Chicago (air america radio is off in Chicago) and I'm listening to the enemy--rush blowhard announces the latest from the a.p. wire just before he signs off--unemployment benefits not to be extended, it lost by one vote, everyone voted except JOHN KERRY!! And he laughs as he signs off. my heart sank. Kerry needed to put his vote in--even if the repugs would have altered the final tally and a couple yeas voted nay. Kerry needed to show people this was important to him and make a stand. He needed to demonstrate his commitment to the unemployed. I fear repugs will have a field day with this--afraid many of the unemployed won't understand. What a disappointment. Today he behaved like the bush who shows no compassion. Was stumping in Kentucky that important that you couldn't have flown out there after you VOTED, John?

I think it will reflect badly on him.

If he'd had been there the unemployment extension would have passed or ? ????

You are a Senator I believe and that is your job.

I will say no more. :(

Please don't buy into this. A whole bunch of Republicans, Dole, Murkowski, Bond, Talent, voted Yes on the fillibuster vote. If Kerry had shown up, they would have vote No and there'd be no story.

to end the filibuster to bring the vote to the floor so they could kill it. Had Kerry been there, I agree that the filibuster probably wouldn't have ended, but dammit, he's still my Senator and I expect him to be there for votes like this. He's made some campaign mistakes before, I just hope he doesn't try to spin this as "The Repukes voted against extending unemployment benefits". He should just let this slide quietly, though *'s minions in the press corps. probably won't let that happen.

As your Senator, you expect him to miss something else important to attend a charade? Because this was a charade and that's all it was.

It's stupid of the campaign to let this happen, it's the 2nd time it's happened. But I don't think it's any kind of dereliction as your State Senator.

Unemployment (or the economy) is supposedly going to be one of the centerpieces of his campaign, and to miss this vote, even if it didn't pass (and I agree that it wouldn't have) is a big political mistake for him. I think this would have had more political value than talking to small business leaders in KY about healthcare.

If people use their heads, they'll see it as the scam it is. Granted, not many use their heads in this country anymore.

I'm not a happy camper today, nothing personal at you.

"If" is the word. If people used their heads, they would have rose as one when Bush proposed invading Iraq and would en masse told him to shove it.

If people used their heads, they would not listen to RW radio.

Lets use our heads. Are the RW assholes being spanked daily with their own hateful words? Yup. Are they feeling a resistance they have never felt before? Yup. Are they gonna welcome this as the perfect diversion? Oh, yeah. Are they gonna barf this up every hour of every broadcast for months? Yes.

What about the thinking press? Dobbs? Moyers? Think they would approve of this inaction? I don't.

Am I hip that I am writing like Rummy speaks? yup. Sorry about that.

Why give the dogs fresh meat? Dammmit! We are trying to save the country here!

Sorry.

But I am angry at such an obvious error by a pro that gives an obvious advantage to an attck machine that will lie this into a huge mess.

I wrote this (hastily) to the campaign:

Where was John Kerry today? He had work to do! Of all the votes to miss. Missing today's vote was a tactical error.

The Right Wing hate radio cadre has been on the run. Their own words have been bouncing of the backs of their heads, flung by AAR and Dobbs and Moyers and Olberman. There has NEVER been such an outcry against these haters. But now they have been given a week on the beach. Sen. Kerry's absence on this vote, no doubt MADE this close to emphasize his absence, will be used for ridicule and derision by the attack dogs of the right.

The country does not know much about Sen. Kerry, but they will get an earful now.

Maybe you guys could save some time and just announce the "draft Clark" movement now. If not, then get your butts in gear. Now! And stop giving fresh meat to the attack dogs.

You know, I would have PAID for a plane ticket from Kentucky to DC for JFK. It would have been coach, but I would have done it. Help me help you, you bums!

And it's been exposed. Kerry said he'd vote for it tomorrow if the Republicans are serious about passing it. They aren't. Don't waste your time writing to the campaign, write to Murkowski, Bond, Talent, DeWine, Dole, Smith, Voinovich and Specter and tell them to put up or shut up. If Bush and these Republicans REALLY want this to pass, get it passed. Challenge them to stand behind their partisan words.

And to any Republican who brings it up, just ask them if they want the unemployment extension passed. They don't, so it exposes their whole game on the spot.

This stuff only works if WE buy into, react like they expect us to, and enable it to work.

decree, an Executive Order.

he's not missing anything important....

I mean it's not like it's his job to vote on bills or something :eyes:


he should either do his job or resign, or we can expect to see more tricks like this. We don't control the senate anyway, so one extra (probably liberal) pug replacing Kerry won't be a big deal.

But this stuff makes him look bad.

And neither will you.

Jebus H Christ. You may know the facts. I may know the facts.

But with the idiot masses, this is a fucking huge propaganda win for the pukies. They can have 10 of their guys look good in an election year by voting to extend, and blame our guy for not bothering to vote. What a friggin mess. Democrats should've filibusted til Kerry got his ass back to Washington to vote.

He was looking on the computer for a story to see if Kerry had a response to this. At least he is witholding judgement but if Kerry's vote would have mattered, he is not going to be happy with him at all.

"Compasionate Conservatives". W said that he favored the extension but then didn't sign it. Typical W hypocrisy!

The American Middle Class, Working Poor and Poor who would vote or Bushco are seriously deluded.

THEM jobless in November?

It's going to take a lot more than just getting Kerry into office. We've got an awful lot of House cleaning to do...

The jackasses who voted against extending these benefits, or Kerry who's out campaigning non-stop to kick the King of the Jackasses out of office?

Perspective, people!

there could have made the difference...it is REASONABLE that Kerry would miss this vote..it is UNREASONABLE that 40 Republicans would STOP people from fucking EATING!

It's still sort of a shock when a Dem lets them down.

Like I said, he was suspending judgement and this will help.

Right on!
:yourock:

If Kerry would have come back and voted and the Republicans would have voted against it, this would have been a great campaign issue.

Instead, Kerry let the GOP off the hook because now they can point at him and laugh because he didn't vote.

This is a strategic fuck up. We don't have any say in what the GOP does, but we all should expect more of Kerry.

The last thing we need is another fucking Gore who is too blind or too weak to take every chance to beat the GOP at their own game.

In this case, the GOP wins because they are able to vote down the extra money for workers, while avoiding any responsibility because Kerry wasn't there to stand up to them.

Talk is cheap - Kerry needs to show action as well.

sticks.


There are 40 Republicans who acted willfully and a moron in the White House that you could direct your rage at...interesting you chose otherwise.

It's not that Kerry didn't bother to vote. It's that the traitorous Dems failed to cover for him.

control both houses and when votes come up?

Again..help it stick why don't you?

So he chose to let hundreds of thousands of unemployed go hungry rather than miss a day's campaigning. Think the unemployed will notice?

want..propaganda that if Kerry were there this wouldn't have happened when in fact if he were there, ONE of them would have voted differently and the result would be the same.

Thanks for being the tool they always wanted.

Had the esteemed Senator only bothered to show up.

It's all his fault...nevermind the 40 Repubs who were there..it only took one of them. You are right...that's what you want to hear...you are right and only Howard Dean could have avoided this...that's what you're grabbing at.

This was a strategic error on Kerry's part. No matter how much I support him, this just seems like a fuck up.

:-( I noticed and I'm not unemployed. Still, I was shocked, angry and coulda cried. How disappointing...I'm so disappointed in him today.

He sided with the evil ones, surprise.

This is a fucking idiotic move!

They would not have voted to let it pass if Kerry had showed up. Set up pure and simple, people sould be outraged that it did not pass regardless of the fact Kerry was on the campaign trail and the fact the the asshole could have come out in favor of it and demand that it pass.

Maria Cantwell, democrat of Washington, proposed the amendment. So, the purpose of the amendment was really to get republicans to vote against it so that they will look bad. So, the republicans screwed the democrats back over by making Kerry the deciding vote. Both sides are playing politics on this amendment. But, I think the democrats win politically since the republicans aren't going to attack Kerry for missing the vote since they don't want this issue to get anymore attention than it must.

He isn't Howard Dean..that's what this is all about.

I am the first one to jump on Dean supporters when they try to undermine Kerry, but this is so fucking obvious that everyone should be able to see it was a mistake.

Kerry needs to get his act together.

isn't perfect either... this isn't about Dean. This is about a senator not doing his job.

Yes, it would have failed anyway, one of them would have changed their vote, but it means something for him to be there to add his voice. The same thing with IWR, yes it would have passed without his "yes" vote but it means something if he is voting against it. It means he is standing up for those whom he represents, and that is significant to us.

Kerry is handicapped with a political tin ear. He doesn't "get" things that affect ordinary people. This is one of the reasons why Kerry is hard to like, and one reason Bush is still in contention to win in November. At this point, Bush should be so out of it that he should be making phone calls for his next job. Instead, Kerry is keeping Bush in the race.

At least he didn't miss the IWR vote.

Wouldn't want to be accountable to the old folks, doncha know.

What do you think his actual opponents will do with it?

not made this an issue by extending benefits for chronically unemployed Americans but chose not to.

Is there an unwritten rule that the left must efface themselves before the right does?

Especially when he hands the Pukes a loaded gun and begs them to shoot him with it. I have always thought that those who believed that the Dems wanted to lose in November, for Hillary's sake or whatever reason, were nuts. But I'm starting to wonder.

were present who could have voted differently...why on earth would they say "John Kerry didn't vote for your benefits that we all voted against but for a handful?"

I'm starting to wonder about a lot of things including the judgement of people who would blame John Kerry for what rightly lies at the feet of the Republican White House, congress and senate.

Good Lord, look around you. You can't really think the vote had a chance.

Sen. McCarthy...

I think it more important Kerry be on the trail giving hope, helping give Senate and House races a boost.If we get both houses, we can frog march the whole lot out of the WH and Pentagon

To me, all it says is that Repukes don't give a crap about working people.

Now why can't other people in this country see this???

How's this look to the folks who don't see through the cut-throat politics? They see a guy who single-handedly prevented them from receiving some sorely needed help.

How is John Kerry going to convince the highly sought after pool of normally non-voters, that every vote matters and to make a positive change in this nation all they need to do is show up and vote?

Score a big one to the GOP. Kerry should have seen it coming...

This is the way they operate. The media reports the vote-- the Bush campaign exults--"Mission Accomplished."

He is a presidential hopeful, or nominee. Comes second.

...with this amendment. JOBS act is good. It passed 92-5 with 3 not voting (McCain, Edwards, Kerry)...

Edwards has been missing a lot of votes lately. Suspicious.

Kerry's case about it.

First let me say that I'm UE again and only have a little benifits before they run out again. Yes the extension would have been dandy, but I am under no illusion that the House (Tom "the unemployed are just lazy" DeLay) or chimpy would have let an extension get through.

Come on folks, can't you see the set up here. The God damn assholes have been doing the same shit for 3-1/2 fookin years. What makes any of you who are slammin Kerry think there was a hairs chance of an extension getting passed when the UE numbers are better now (I think these current UE numbers are a crock), then they were 6 months ago and the fookin pubs would not pass an extension then.

This is just the new tone in DC that chimpy, rove, deLay and the rest have brought us too.

It was a lost cause from the beginning, we haven't lost anything we were going to win anyways and it is definitely more important for Kerry to continue campaigning to insure that chimpy and crew get their asses handed to them in 6 months.

On another note was this vote scheduled in advance (like yesterday or something) to give him a chance to get back or was it just announced today with the fookin puks knowing full well Kerry could not have made it back in time.

Come on folks this has Rove all over it!!!!!!!

close, imho.

Someone on Kerry's staff should have spotted the set up and Kerry should have made a point to vote. The vote may not have mattered to pass the legislation, but it would have negated a puke talking point. Surely the Kerry camp knows the dirty tricks these bastards are capable of playing. This was a big campaign blunder.

One more day and one more reason not to give you my vote.

Jesus christ people, you apologize for Kerry hurting thousands of Americans that NEED overtime!

Make all of the excuses you want. It will not change the fact that Kerry did not do the job he is paid for and cost thousands of citizens their direly needed funds.

Un-fucking-real!

if he had voted and the bill had lost 49-51?

If not, then you don't sound like you are worried about this issue as much as you are looking for reasons to bash Kerry.

Congressmen and Senators will often wait until a vote is decided and then vote in a way that makes their record look good, not the way that they actually want the result to come out. It happened as far back as the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

And you know it.

At first glance, it looks bad. But, as has been explained several times on this thread, if Kerry had been in DC, one of the Republicans would have switched his vote.

they should reintroduce the measure for a vote, get Kerry in town, and make one or more of the Repubs who tried to look like "compassionate conservatives" change their vote.

I would love to see how they spin the fact that they change their vote when the measure actually looks like it might pass.

to the average person whose vote he is counting on, it looks bad. They may not have the desire to ferret out more info on it. They will likely make an assumption, based on what they hear on the news. Guess what that will be?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1133678/posts

To: 11th Earl of Mar
Realistically, this was probably a Republican trap for Kerry. I suspect that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had one or two Republican Senators in his pocket who he could have pressured into switching their votes to prevent cloture if it had been necessary.
If Kerry had returned to Washington, D.C. to vote on the measure, some Republican would have switched and Kerry's vote wouldn't have mattered. But in that case Kerry would have wasted a day (at least) of campaigning and disrupted his schedule for what would have turned out to be a pointless vote.

Instead Kerry stayed on the campaign trail and the Republicans made him look bad for missing a "decisive" vote. Frist probably deliberately encouraged some Republican Senators to vote for cloture just so that the absent Kerry would be the difference. And it also helped those Senators in close re-election races if they could say they supported more unemployment benefits.

If my analysis is correct, the neat thing is that the Republicans can play this game over and over. The amendment to extend unemployment benefits can be attached to other measures, forcing Kerry to again have to choose between interrupting his campaign or being blamed for the loss. If he comes back for a vote, one Republican Senator who previously voted for cloture will switch on the grounds that the amendment isn't "germane", but then say that he'll consider voting for it as an amendment to a more pertinent measure. And thus the game can continue.


38 posted on 05/11/2004 6:32:04 PM PDT by dpwiener

ENOUGH SAID!!!!!

Of course the repukes would have found a way to defeat this. That's not the point. Kerry needed to be there. When an important vote comes up, his current job as a US Senator has to come first. His first obligation is still to the people of MA to do the job he was elected to do.

It was a lose-lose situation for Kerry and I believe he did the right thing by not playing the Rove/Frist game of cat and mouse.

This is hard core politics.

Bottom line is that the House (under DeLay the shithead) will/would never allow an extension of UE to pass. They have stopped all attempts for over a year now.

This attempt to extend beenies by the Dem's was like pissing in the wind and to be truthful was a political move to make the repubs look like they don't care for us UE and but they knew it never was going to pass in the first place.

JMHO

on this.