When Senator Giuliani is sworn in as Hilldabeast's successor on January 3, 2007, you won't even have that.


ilibuster, a term found nowhere in our constitution, used to mean extended debate on a particular bill, confirmation, or other item of legislative business. One Senator after another would take the floor and talk and talk and talk until everyone else got so tired of hearing about Sheets-R-Us Byrd's loyal dog Blue and other sordid irrelevancies that they'd call for a cloture vote to stop the madness. If enough Senators—three-fifths under current rules—voted in favor of cloture, the debate would end. Then all Senators could cast their votes for or against that bill, confirmation, or other business. This is what filibuster used to mean.

Now all a Senator has to do to start a filibuster is say, "I still want to debate." "I want to obstruct the legislative process and disenfranchise every Senator from voting on something I don't like." He doesn't actually have to go to the floor and do any debating. Any Messrs. Smith going to Washington would be confused about these extended debates that involve no real debating.

Personally, I'd prefer that a Senator be required to physically and audibly hold the floor in order for any debate to continue. I'd like to see Tedboat al-Qennedy and his tag-team fellow obstructers go on endlessly about how "extreme," "ill-conceived," "dangerous," "unconscionable," etc., etc., this or that judicial nomination is. It'd be a hoot to watch the timer bug on C-SPAN2 count up "3d 17:54:03" ""3d 17:54:04" "3d 17:54:05"... during Day 4 of that filibuster. More important, the American people would get to see these Desperatic Senators in action, doing what they do best: grinding all legislative business to a halt while they try hopelessly to get their way. Such images would undoubtedly stick in virtually every voter's mind the next time he or she goes to the polls.

Until the filibuster rule is changed so that Senators are required to engage in actual debate before their votes may be delayed, the best Senate leaders can do—now that Demextremists in our Senate have summarily rejected Majority Leader Frist's compromise proposal—is call for regular debate, followed immediately by an aye-or-nay vote, on whether the Senate should consent to an appeals-court nominee's appointment. If any Senator demands more debate than that (with, of course, no intent of really debating), Senator Frist should raise a point of order that debate may not be extended on judicial nominations whenever doing so would unduly prolong critical vacancies in our judicial branch of government, not to mention (which I'm about to anyway) violate the Senate's longest-ever standing tradition of never filibustering a confirmable judicial nominee. Vice President & President of the Senate Cheney, wearing his indestructable energy suit, would sustain the leader's point and rule such extended non-debating debating out of order. Then Tedboat would rise like an about-to-explode Hindenburg and demand an appeal to the entire Senate from the chair's ruling. Another Senator would move to table (kill, mmwwhhaa hahhah) Tedboat's appeal. Since that motion to table isn't subject to any filibuster, the Senate would proceed to vote on the motion immediately. Once the appeal is tabled, the chair's ruling stands. At last, our Senate may vote yes or no on all of President Bush's judicial nominees. Yaaayy!

"But, but...er, uh, ...ahg," a Dhimmirat might sputter. "Whadda 'bout preserving the rights of the minority and stuff?" To which I would answer: "They are preserved, O brain-dead one." Before 2003, never once did any Senator violate the Filibuster Exception™ to any judicial nominee who had the votes to get confirmed. Nor did any Senator ever moonbattily complain that this centuries' long exception was undoing minority rights, destroying our constitution, opening floodgates to theocracy, or any similarly extreme exaggerations. Restoring that exception to its rightful, historic place of honor and respect in our Senate will preserve the wise commitment of all Senators throughout a hundred Congresses to enable that body to perform its solemn duty of providing a strong check and balance on the constitutional process of appointing federal judges, without any divisions in that house caused by the procedural antics of a surly, power-seeking minority self-interestedly working to weaken its ability to perform such duty as fully and as timely as we the people expect. Filibuster bills and other legislative measures all you want. When it comes to giving Senators the opportunity to vote on whether they should consent to a judicial-branch appointment, we demand that our Senate's time-honored customs and traditions be upheld.

Among Dhimmoonbat droolings on this matter is the nonsense that the filibustering Donkeyrats together represent more people than the rest of our Senators, and therefore should be considered "exercising the will of the majority" whenever they obstruct the judicial nomination process. LC Elephant Man has already written a most able response to this in his comments posted at my most favorite Imperial Web log:

[T]he Republicans are using the Constitution argument and not the "will of the people" argument.

The "will of the people" gave the Republicans the majority in the House and Senate so your claim that the minority represents the "will of the people" is a stretch.

If you come back with "the population of the districts of the democrat minority outnumbers the population of the Republican districts", I'd like to see the source of that claim out of curiosity.

If it's true, then all I can say is something annoying and flippant like, "It must suck to be a democrat."and shrug. (;))

Anyway, the point is moot.

I was curious to see that source too. I've never seen any hard numbers on how many people Senate Republicans and Senate Dingobats respectively represent. It's not hard to derive, especially if you let javascript crunch the numbers for you:



So it is true—barely. By six-tenths of one percent, to be exact. Not much to crow bray about given how America's Mayor® will have no trouble succeeding the scandal-ridden, possibly jail-inhabiting Hilldabeast come next year's election, and how that alone will boost the amount of people represented by Senate Republicans all the way up to 52.7%!

Just one more mooted moonbat meme.

	3:54 AM

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