Let's HAVE That Filibuster!
Currently the US Senate is considering a range of different possible reactions to El Presidente Bush's plan for a troop surge in Iraq. Most of these are in the nature of non-binding resolutions, which the White House has promised to ignore. Even so, senators are writhing thru the agonies of the damned trying to craft language that isn't unduly critical of the Administration's policies so far, lest they inadvertently wound the tender sensibilities of the arrogant, megalomaniacal butchers responsible for said policies.
Another class of proposals are those that would actually accomplish something, like cutting off the funding for the war. The chances for these are dismissed out of hand because, it is pointed out, Republicans have 49 seats in the Senate, and they need only 41 to be able to forestall a cloture attempt.
(For those of you who never had the benefit of a civics course -- something which, alas, has gone the way of the passenger pigeon in most of today's high schools -- "cloture" is when the Senate votes to close off debate. This is viewed as unsporting and therefore requires a super-majority of 3/5 of the 100 senators to adopt. Otherwise, any given senator can just go on talking as long as he or she wants about something. And if that "something" involves a bill the senator is trying to keep from coming to a vote, the prolonged debate is called a "filibuster", from the Spanish word for "freebooter" or pirate.)
OK, fine, say I. HAVE that filibuster.
It's damn well about time we had an open national debate on this war, and what better place than the floor of the United States Senate?
Advance a motion to cut off funding for the war in Iraq as of, say, the 4th of July, then see who can possibly find something to say against it. Take down their names and use videos of their comments during their next bids for re-election.
Meanwhile, senators on the rational, compassionate, fiscally responsible side of the issue can lay out all of the many, many, many reasons why we should bail out of the black hole that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld lied us into.
And don't let up. Don't let the Senate take up any other business at all until this issue is resolved. Let the government grind to a halt, if need be, while the filibusterers rail on in their defense of the First Moron. Let's see how long they're willing to keep it up.
People are dying in Iraq, the federal treasury is being looted by the kleptocrats in charge of the Executive Branch, the Bill of Rights is being shredded, and the poor, wussy members of the US Senate are afraid that they're going to have to listen to each other TALK for a while. Awwww, poor BAbies!
= = = = = =
Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.
-- Winston Churchill
Another class of proposals are those that would actually accomplish something, like cutting off the funding for the war. The chances for these are dismissed out of hand because, it is pointed out, Republicans have 49 seats in the Senate, and they need only 41 to be able to forestall a cloture attempt.
(For those of you who never had the benefit of a civics course -- something which, alas, has gone the way of the passenger pigeon in most of today's high schools -- "cloture" is when the Senate votes to close off debate. This is viewed as unsporting and therefore requires a super-majority of 3/5 of the 100 senators to adopt. Otherwise, any given senator can just go on talking as long as he or she wants about something. And if that "something" involves a bill the senator is trying to keep from coming to a vote, the prolonged debate is called a "filibuster", from the Spanish word for "freebooter" or pirate.)
OK, fine, say I. HAVE that filibuster.
It's damn well about time we had an open national debate on this war, and what better place than the floor of the United States Senate?
Advance a motion to cut off funding for the war in Iraq as of, say, the 4th of July, then see who can possibly find something to say against it. Take down their names and use videos of their comments during their next bids for re-election.
Meanwhile, senators on the rational, compassionate, fiscally responsible side of the issue can lay out all of the many, many, many reasons why we should bail out of the black hole that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld lied us into.
And don't let up. Don't let the Senate take up any other business at all until this issue is resolved. Let the government grind to a halt, if need be, while the filibusterers rail on in their defense of the First Moron. Let's see how long they're willing to keep it up.
People are dying in Iraq, the federal treasury is being looted by the kleptocrats in charge of the Executive Branch, the Bill of Rights is being shredded, and the poor, wussy members of the US Senate are afraid that they're going to have to listen to each other TALK for a while. Awwww, poor BAbies!
= = = = = =
Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.
-- Winston Churchill
posted by Richard S. Russell | 12:11 PM
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