Wait A Minute Buster!

Tea Partied and 'Grovered" Republican  Congressional Senators love to filibuster any proposal the President  puts forth to help the middle class, the poor, women, children, college students, the elderly,  and the economy.  Recently, they filibustered the Buffet Bill put forth by the President and Democrat congressional members.  All the Buffet Bill does is "ensure that millionaires and billionaires pay at least the SAME tax rate paid by middle-class families.   Was the Republican filibuster of the Buffet Bill a surprise – No!   Was the filibuster ANOTHER sign of Republican Senators' REFUSAL to put in a full day's work for a full day's pay – most definitely!

The filibuster is a historical method used to delay a vote or block debate in the Senate.   According to the U.S. Senate website, "the word filibuster – derived from a Dutch word meaning "PIRATE" – was first used more than 150 years ago to describe "efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to prevent  action on a bill." In the good old days Senators, ACTUALLY, HAD TO WORK to filibuster. A senator or a series of senators  could "speak for as long as they wished and on any topic they chose, unless a super majority group of 60% of senators brought debate to a close by invoking cloture".  For example, "filibustering, for many  years, was the primary tactic by which southern senators were able to block civil rights and anti-lynching legislation from coming to the floor. Senator Strom Thurmond from South Carolina, set the still-standing record for the longest filibuster when he spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to stop a vote on the 1957 Civil Rights Act.  In 1964, southern senators filibustered the much stronger Civil Rights Act  of 1964 for fifty-seven days"!  (http://www.sourcewatch.org/ )    Now a days,  all a Republican senator has to do is "INDICATE"  that he/she wants to filibuster  WITHOUT  going through the motions of talking about anything!

Since Republican Senators persist on enacting a FREE PASS filibuster for anything the President proposes, don't you think they should WORK for it?  The amount of trivia they could talk about during a filibuster would, EASILY, break Thurmond's 24 hour plus AND southern senators' 1964 fifty-seven day filibusters COMBINED!  Here are a few filibuster topics today's Republican Senators could talk about:

1.  All of the President's proposals and nominees they have rejected, blocked or voted against since he came into office. They could find loads of talking points from The U.S. Congress Votes Database  at  http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/112/

2.  All of the lies and distortions THEIR 2012 presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, ` stated about the President Obama's leadership capabilities,  Commander in Chief capabilities, his handling of the economy  and  his interactions with international leaders from the beginning of the Republican primaries to the present.  All they would need to do is talk about  information from  http://www.factcheck.org/  and http://www.politifact.com/

3. All of the lies, misinformation, and distortions  THEIR cable news network  has stated about the President SINCE HE CAME INTO OFFICE – source of talking points at  http://www.newshounds.us/

By the way, a, recent,  abcnews.go.com  report indicated that "a total of 33 seats will be up for grabs in the 2012 election, 23 of which are held  by Democrats.  Republicans will have 23 states where the Democratic incumbent is retiring. MONTANA, MISSOURI, NEBRASKA, and NORTH DAKOTA are shaping up to be some of the closest Democrat-defended races with NEVADA and MASSACHUSETTS presenting possibilities for a switch from red to blue."  If you DON'T want another  4 years of gridlock, filibustering, legislative and intestinal blockages come November -

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