:cry:
http://www.first-draft.com/2009/12/malaka-of-the-week-united-states-senate-rules.htmlThis is a first for me: past malakas have all been people or reasonable facsimiles thereof. I was originally planning to pick Holy Joe Lieberman as the personification of Senatorial malakatude. But Holy Joe, for alll his unprincipled pomposity and posturing, is merely a symptom of the disease that ails the US Senate. By most counts there were anywhere between 51-56 votes for a public option and 55-59 for a medicare buy in.
I'm actually old enough to remember when *every* major piece of major legislation did NOT require a cloture vote. It's simply ridiculous that a handful of recalcitrant Senators can hold the country hostage. Tom Harkin and-get ready to laugh-Holy Joe proposed doing away with the filibuster back in the Nineties but got nowhere. Senator Harkin has mentioned revisiting the notion and I *really* hopes he does. The problem is that Senators want to reserve the option to filibuster when they're in the minority, which means change remains unlikely but a push should be made by progressive Senators.Oh, well, wait'll next week...
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