Posted on 03/04/2005 8:12:12 AM PST by Coastal
The Washington Post provides Sen. Robert Byrd yet another forum to spout off about his version of the importance of minority obstructionism in the U.S. Senate. In his usual pompous tone Byrd writes, "This nuclear option could rob a senator of the right to speak out against an overreaching executive branch or a wrongheaded policy. It could destroy the Senate's very essence -- the constitutional privilege of free speech and debate."
But it seems that in 1975, when the former Klansman was a part of the majority he was singing quite a different tune.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalledger.com ...
Typical RAT. Change the tune to suit their dance.
Didn't Mr. KKK filibuster LBJ's civil rights act???
KKK Byrd needs to answer the following questions:
1. How many lynchings did he participate in as a klansman?
2. How many cross burnings did he participate in as a klansman?
3. How many members did he recruit into the kkk?
4. How many of his kkk recruits participated in lynchings?
5. How many of his kkk recruits participated in cross burning?
It is interesting Byrd is given such no accountability options. Has anyone actually seen Byrd on any talk shows getting asked these kind of questions? I have the impression he is not up to any real question-answer type exchanges given his diminished capacities at present.
Any information on this. Does he even show up in West VA in Q and A sessions (where I assume he gets a pass as long as he can keep his eyes open and not drool too much)?
I would like to hear answers to those questions, too, but who is going to ask? Not the lilly-livered Republicans, that's for sure! Where's Jim Trafficant when you need him? LOL!
Yep.
Talked for 14 hours straight.
Filibusters were good in 1964. Bad in 1975. Good in 2005.
According to Kleagle Byrd.
The really tragic part of this whole mess, is that the Congress DOES NOT WORK FOR THE COUNTRY ANY MORE -- IT WORKS FOR ITS OWN INTERNAL POLITICS!!!
They play games -- AND AMERICA LOSES.
Thanks for clarifying that. LOL.
All the Repubs have to do is make filibusters real: when the objecting group stops for any reason - NIGHTS, BREAKS, WEEKENDS, AND OTHER BUSINESS INCLUDED - business moves on.
Consider the instance where Alphonse D'Amato filibustered for more than 24 hours (36? 54?) on his own, talking continuously the whole time. He read from the phone book, sang, babbled about irrelevant topics, and generally held up all business until he stopped - but then business carried on.
June 10, 1964
Civil Rights Filibuster Ended
At 9:51 on the morning of June 10, 1964, Senator Robert C. Byrd completed an address that he had begun fourteen hours and thirteen minutes earlier. The subject was the pending Civil Rights Act of 1964, a measure that occupied the Senate for fifty-seven working days, including six Saturdays. A day earlier, Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey, the bill's manager, concluded he had the sixty-seven votes required at that time to end the debate.
The Civil Rights Act provided protection of voting rights; banned discrimination in public facilities—including private businesses offering public services—such as lunch counters, hotels, and theaters; and established equal employment opportunity as the law of the land.
As Senator Byrd took his seat, House members, former senators, and others—150 of them—vied for limited standing space at the back of the chamber. With all gallery seats taken, hundreds waited outside in hopelessly extended lines.
Georgia Democrat Richard Russell offered the final arguments in opposition. Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, who had enlisted the Republican votes that made cloture a realistic option, spoke for the proponents with his customary eloquence. Noting that the day marked the one-hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's nomination to a second term, the Illinois Republican proclaimed, in the words of Victor Hugo, "Stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come." He continued, "The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here!"
Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only once in the thirty-seven years since 1927 had it agreed to cloture for any measure.
The clerk proceeded to call the roll. When he reached "Mr. Engle," there was no response. A brain tumor had robbed California's mortally ill Clair Engle of his ability to speak. Slowly lifting a crippled arm, he pointed to his eye, thereby signaling his affirmative vote. Few of those who witnessed this heroic gesture ever forgot it. When Delaware's John Williams provided the decisive sixty-seventh vote, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield exclaimed, "That's it!"; Richard Russell slumped; and Hubert Humphrey beamed. With six wavering senators providing a four-vote victory margin, the final tally stood at 71 to 29. Nine days later the Senate approved the act itself—producing one of the twentieth century's towering legislative achievements.
Source: http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Civil_Rights_Filibuster_Ended.htm
Apparently people in WVA don't care or those questions would have been asked 10, 20, 30, or 40 years ago.
bump
Everyone in W. Va. should see this. I hope he is gone in '06.
That must of have been during Sheets Byrd's "Nazi" phase.
Thanks--I had missed that.
And on your first day here.
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