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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
William Weld, the VP nominee for the Libertarian Party, urged voters to reject Donald Trump and stopped just short of endorsing Clinton/conceding the election.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.Interesting thought about filibusters: today you can get real-time feedback of the public reaction to them. When Wendy Davis filibustered for abortion rights a year or two ago she was well-lauded and likewise the democratic sit-in over gun control; have any recent Republican efforts received such support?
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A Republican Mayor actually had a good idea to help the homeless
edited 27th Oct '16 7:11:07 AM by NoName999
I wouldn't mind if the filibuster were returned to its original role of someone actually standing on the floor and reading from Dr. Seuss books or something. The problem with the modern filibuster is that the mere threat of one is enough to stall action because the side in favor of whatever is being discussed lacks enough votes to force cloture, and so doesn't bother trying. That, more than the fact of the filibuster itself, is the problem. All you have to do is say you'll filibuster something and it dies unless it has 60+ votes.
edited 27th Oct '16 7:28:56 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"This just brought to my attention that I had Wendy Davis and Elizabeth Warren confused.
But yeah, the former's filibuster in Texas was held to high standards, and it would do good for the US that senate filibusters be held to the same standards, rather than allowing some idiot to read Dr. Seuss while completely missing its point (or even merely threaten to do so!).
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."It'd be enough if they actually stood up and read Dr. Seuss. As I said, the problem now is that they don't even have to do that; they merely need to threaten to, such that all meaningful actions by the Senate effectively require 60 votes rather than 50 or 51.
Here's a link
to a common graph of cloture motions by year (since 1917, when the process was formalized), which doesn't even cover all the cases where a bill isn't even brought up because they don't want to go to the effort of holding a cloture vote
Notably, there is some question as to whether the filibuster is Constitutional.
edited 27th Oct '16 7:39:11 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The highest profile Republican filibusters in recent years were the two Ted Cruz did. IIRC, one of them wasn't even filibustering a vote, and the other one was filibustering the budget bill. Those filibusters are in part the reason why most of the Senate really doesn't like Cruz, because he used the filibuster incorrectly, and when no one else actually wanted them to happen.
Right. Ain't No Rule works both ways here. There's nothing saying they can't. Hell, a Congress could pass a rule saying "we will vote on no legislation until the current president resigns" and that would be that for the session. They might suffer electorally for it, but nothing could actually stop them. Likewise none of these supposed institutions are mandated by the Constitution.
The Constitution does specifically mandate that Congress vote on a budget, and so there's an argument to be made that choosing not to hold any votes on anything forever would be unconstitutional by definition. Most Congressmen are not that self-destructive, even Republicans.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Why would birth certificates list bathrooms? You're not even potty trained yet!
On the lighter side:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/michael-moore-mocks-donald-trump-jr-for-thinking-trumpland-documentary-is-pro-trump/
Milo Yiannapolous released a partial clip of Michael Moore's Michael Moore in Trumpland that made it look like Moore was endorsing Trump. It apparently even got Trump Jr tweeting out the clip. Of course, while the clip has Moore explaining how Trump supporters would be motivated to vote Trump, it leaves out a scathing indictment of using the ballot box as an answer management tool.
edited 27th Oct '16 9:40:56 AM by sgamer82
backhanded.
It's downright insidious tbh
Trump's basically a political PUA. His campaign revolves around negging America; lowering our national self-esteem so that we'll be more compliant to going home with him.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I've come to seriously hate the false equivalency I see everywhere on the Internet now (and in real life)
Saying "they're both equally bad!" is a good way to sound like you're a smart critical thinker without actually doing the research.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas EdisonA black coworker is talking about how he plans to vote for Trump and we all should, but he seems to be at least half-joking. He's saying things like, "He says 'Make America Great Again' on his hat! It's right there on his hat!" and in response to people pointing to Trump's past behavior, "Maybe he'll have a change of heart." It sounds like he's joking, and there's a lot of laughing going on.
At the same time, he says he's genuinely tired of business as usual and believes Trump will shake things up. I told him dropping a bomb would shake things up, but not in a good way. He laughed and said that he doesn't want to influence anyone's opinions, so please vote straight-ticket Republican.

Yeah, once it took endurance to filibuster.
One dude, I forget his name, took the stage for 10 hours, and talked about topics including his grandmother's pie recipes.
Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you