Fili-bluster

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Senator Bunning's mean-spirited, contentious, and highly damaging little stunt filibuster...which he should be forced to actually stand and do till he wets his tighty-whities...reached a new low today...but tomorrow still awaits.

After all, he's too-obviously being point man for the entire Republican side of the aisle. Why else would they not join with the Democrats to break his filibuster? Senator Kyl was quick to defend the cause, attacking struggling jobless Americans in the process.

There's a whole lotta tighty-whitey in Washington these days. You see it on Faux News where they try to link reconciliation with the "nucular option." Where that quaint old concept of democracy, simple majority, up-or-down vote is under siege by the very people who for eight years jumped up and down like Rumpelstiltskin demanding their right to majority—not super majority—rule.

Among all the arguments about filibuster these days, it takes a small state legislator who is the only announced candidate thus far against the presumed-for-now Republican shoo-in to replace Senator Dorgan to hit on the simple truth.

North Dakota state Senator Tracy Potter said the filibuster has made senators “too important” compared to the House and the federal executive and judicial branches.

“I have sometimes chastised my colleagues (in the North Dakota Senate) that they are overreaching,” Potter said. “We have to have limitations on our power, and recognize our appropriate roles in the system.”

Appropriate roles. What a concept.

And maybe what a condemnation. All those tighty-whiteys have been overreaching ever since, oh, Inauguration Day 2009. The spike in use—abuse—of the filibuster. The endless, mind-numbing screeching of dissonant lies out of rightwing radio and Fox "News." The Tea Party fringe element. The increasingly violence-prodding screeding out of Fox "opinion."

But maybe pointing that out is uppity. I don't know. What do you think, Cokie? Because it's out there....
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

With Headlines like These....

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Anthem Blue Cross raises rates 39%. Medicare Advantage rates going up 14%.... Can we please RECONCILE NOW...WITH THE PUBLIC OPTION???????

Sorry for the shouting.

But for all the wasted time of the past year trying to get votes out of the Republican side of the aisle when they made clear from the get-go that they would obstruct and delay and obstruct and delay right into the 2010 elections, you'd think the Democrats in Congress would at long last stop with the foot-dragging hand-wringing and let reality return.

Maybe they need to be force-fed an endless loop of that scene from Gladiator when Russell Crowe convinces the other men in the ring they must stick together to survive and they must fight back. But that would take "men"...and "leadership"...and I digress....

As NorthDecoder reminds us today in yet another local example, Republicans will not cooperate, will not admit success of the stimulus, will do their darnedest to deny their states got any stimulus funds, just those ginormous photo-op checks in their staged media events [see any recent episode of Rachel Maddow's stim-pocrisy watch]. We can only succeed if we toot our own horn...

And pass legislation worth tooting about.

Reconciliation. We've missed the early part, so let's go for often. Reconcile on health care reform. Reconcile on financial reform. Reconcile on energy. Reconcile on...

Reconcile on delivering what Americans have been voting for. It's past due.

Then shout it from the mountaintops.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal