Posted on 10/05/2015 10:30:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Kill the filibuster. Kill it now.
Traditions are nice and institutional prerogatives can be important, but right now on Capitol Hill, the tails are wagging the dog. The filibuster is already dead Harry Reid killed it when he chose to disregard it to pack the District of Columbia Circuit and pretending it isnt is not only ridiculous but it is ripping the GOP apart. Its like a legislative Weekend at Bernies starring pouty Mitch McConnell and fussy little Lamar Alexander.
The filibuster, a mere Senate tradition and not a constitutional mandate, is not just an obstacle to enacting our conservative agenda. It is driving the destruction of the separation of powers. It has turned the legislative branch into Obamas personal love slave, and this guy is into some sick, freaky stuff.
Obama uses the filibuster, with the aid of his Senate minority minions, as a way to prevent accountability. By refusing to allow a vote on any issue Obama disapproves of, the Democrats are able to leverage the slobbering assistance of their mainstream media friends into placing the blame for a dysfunctional Congress onto the GOP despite the fact that the only people preventing the Congress from passing anything are the Democrats. Obama never has to take a real stand. He never has to veto popular legislation. He never has to explain why he is refusing to sign a bill, or why he is shutting down the government.
Instead, you GOP sad-sacks find yourselves selling out the people who sent you to Washington time and time again because Obama can use the filibuster to ensure that the blame for everything lands squarely on you. And you just take it. Its like an abusive relationship. Gee, maybe if I was nicer to him hed let me govern, you whimper just before he pushes another half-grapefruit in your collective faces.
Obama is Lucy with the football, and you arent even Charlie Brown botching the kick. Charlie Brown at least deserved sympathy. You tools are Charlie Browns even stupider cousin Myron Brown, who Lucy literally tells, Come try to kick the football, but when you do Im totally pulling it away and laughing at you when you fall on your butt. And then he does it anyway.
This probably makes Ted Cruz Snoopy, the one character who sees clearly whats happening and who you therefore blame instead of Lucy Obama.
This clusterfark needs to stop. Sure, McConnell and the rest of Team Failure want to retain the illusion that the Senate is some collegial cooling saucer of democracy, but their 1962 high school civics class fantasies about how politics works today must give way to reality. Our opponents are not well-meaning fellow Americans who merely want the best for our country just like us. They are dedicated progressives who want to ratchet this country to the left, disregarding the voice of the majority of Americans and systematically violating our rights. Their poisonous ideology must be ruthlessly and completely defeated.
Fight, you gutless wimps! You cant even pass laws addressing the IRS campaign against our political allies or stopping the Dems from giving $500 million a year in our money to fund baby dismemberment factories. Why? Because of some tradition thats not even going to be a tradition anymore once the Dems retake the Senate which they will next year, thanks to you, unless you pry your collective heads out.
Obama is beating your brains in and he is liberating the executive branch from any kind of accountability or checks by other branches. If the legislature cant legislate and it cant because it wont it is no longer a co-equal branch of government. Its just the political catamite of the guy down the street in the White house.
The Republican traditionalists would literally destroy the entire branch in order to save one extra-constitutional, obsolete custom in one of the houses. No wonder people call the GOP The Stupid Party.
Whats worse is that we all know that the filibuster is a dead tradition walking. The Democrats arent going to be so fussy next time they get a majority. They are going to kill it dead the second it becomes useful to do so and not pause to mourn. You GOP weasels are simply setting yourselves up for a royal shafting when your enemies choose the time and place to drive a stake through its flailing heart.
We keep hearing how McConnell is some sort of legislative genius. Maybe he should start proving it. Without the filibuster, he can send piecemeal bills to Obamas desk and force him to veto or sign each painful, embarrassing one. He can start doing what the GOP promised to do in 2010 and 2014.
The rise of Donald Trump can be traced directly back to the stubborn, cowardly refusal of the Senate GOP to adapt to modern realities. We voted these guys into office with a mandate, and they promised to act. Their sorry procedural and institutional excuses are just not going to cut it. The GOP can end the filibuster tomorrow. It is choosing choosing not to. Which means it is choosing not to do what it promised to do.
Astonishingly, the GOP elite is stunned that Donald Trump is mopping the floor with the establishment candidates. You have not kept your word, Congressional GOP. Boehner was only the first to pay the price. If you dont end the tyranny of the filibuster and start doing what you promised us you would do, and but quick, you are next.
Kill the filibuster. Kill it now.
I hasten to remind everyone that had we not have the filibuster in place, we would have had Hillarycare in 1993.
There are no longer any REAL filibusters - there is only a limp-wristed vote on “Cloture” which is essentially a shut-down on debate.
A tradition which has lived on far beyond its usefulness, especially since the Senate is elected by popular vote rather than by the respective state legislatures, as per the Seventeenth Amendment.
be honest. they want to destroy the fillibuster because that would advantage the democrats. just like they want to eliminate the electoral college, amongst other things
If they want to filibuster, make them actually filibuster. Make then give nonstop speeches.
There is an argument to be made for forcing them to take an up-or-down vote on EVERYTHING and then holding them accountable for their votes.
Would eliminate much of this dog-and-pony show where they propose legislation that they know is never going to pass in order to fundraise and gain brownie points.
It should be part of a package of reforms, which would also include Term Limits for Congress and the SCOTUS.
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