Senator Rand Paul is engaging in a real-live filibuster

[InklingStar]

I know this is not TNZ, so I do not intend to debate the specifics of Rand Paul's position or the issues he is talking about. I just want to say that it is refreshing to see a real-live filibuster in this day and age. Lately, it seems that senators simply use the filibuster as a threat, a bluff that is never called.

Like it or loath it, the filibuster is a legislative tradition dating back to the Greek and Roman Senates, and as an amateur historian it is neat to see it happening as we speak.

http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN2/

 

[SiddFinch1]

Not a huge fàn of his but I give him credit for two things. Doing a real fillibuster and that he is not just opposing obama for the sake of opposing him. Most Republicans would not bash Bush or a republican. President using drones this way. Of course senator obama would have hashed a republican all v with most democrats who are silent about obamas action s

 

[gturner]

He's also addressing the topic instead of reading poems and such (as Robert Byrd often did during filibusters).

A Democrat Senator joined in with him, making it a bipartisan effort. I think the Senate should find its spine on this issue because drone strikes on non-combatant Americans on US soil isn't something anyone in the administration should equivocate about. The White House rejected the petition to create a police force made up of motorcycle riding "judges" who act as executioners, so I don't see why this is so difficult.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

I agree. I am not a big of Ron Paul, either, but I appreciate that he is actually holding the floor and talking about the issue rather than using only the threat of a filibuster or filibustering by reading the phone book.

I really wish they had -at the start of this session- changed the rules so a filibuster needs to be a filibuster. Using only a threat of staging a filibuster OR the opposition refusing to press the other side into caving in on that bluff are cowardly acts, if you ask me. If you can't talk about your issue for that sustained period of time, I wonder about the strength of your position.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

This is one of those extremely rare occasions where I get to give kudos to someone who I am diametrically opposed to politically for standing up against a policy of someone whom I voted for enthusiastically. We live in interesting times.

With all the partisan hackery and obstructionism in Congress the past four years, it's nice to see someone take a principled stand against a policy and not just reflexively oppose it because it's from the other party, and to do so while employing the old school filibuster and actually talking about the issue at hand instead of just reading recipes or sports statistics.

Paul knew he wasn't going to prevent the confirmation for any significant length of time, so he didn't do one of those BS silent filibusters just to obstruct the proceedings, but he was going to make people listen to his concerns about drone strikes on US soil and hopefully change some minds.

I could be cynical and say it's one of those situations where even a broken clock is right twice a day, which is how I usually feel on those rare occasions when I agree with Rand Paul or his father, but this is the first time in quite a while that I've actually been proud of anything that's happened in Congress. It's nice to see a public servant actually doing his job and questioning the status quo, and I'm ashamed that only one Democratic Senator had the guts to join him in the filibuster, since asking for a set of guidelines and limits on the use of drone strikes (especially when it comes to using them on US soil) would be a perfectly reasonable bipartisan stance to take back before Congress became completely ineffectual and insane.

So, again, kudos to Rand Paul for taking a stand.

 

[Kirby]

Good for him for doing this. With my combination of general apathy for most everything, my short attention span, and the overwhelming joy I receive from sitting down, any filibuster I would do would last about 4 minutes, tops.

 

[propita]

I voted for Obama but have had lots of questions about what he's done, doing, and is thinking of doing.

Now, it would've been nice if, during both elections but particularly the second, the GOP had veered off from the birther bs and all that other crap and really argued--with facts--against what Obama was saying. The fact that they chose not to rally negates their crying about it now. Imagine if they had stopped playing politics first and went after the facts...but since they have dirty hands, too, that'd be pretty hard.

 

[gturner]

I suppose many Democrat Senators are just a bit reluctant to question Obama's position on the drones lest they hand Republicans an issue, but it would also be easy to form a bipartisan coalition (with wildly popular public support) on this one, since airstrikes on US restaurants would be even more unpopular than pedophilia. I'm pretty sure all of the people who would be comfortable with such strikes under both Obama and also under Cheney and Rumsfeld would be a null set.

Or we could frame it this way. If an American was sitting at a table eating breakfast in a restaurant somewhere in the US and a missile came out of nowhere and killed him, along with a bunch of collateral damage, we would call that an act of terrorism and authorize a counter strike against whoever sent the missile into the plate of pancakes, so maybe the President shouldn't be that person.

 

[Amaris]

Good for him for doing this. With my combination of general apathy for most everything, my short attention span, and the overwhelming joy I receive from sitting down, any filibuster I would do would last about 4 minutes, tops.

Oh, man, I could go for days, as long as I got bathroom breaks.

 

[InklingStar]

Good for him for doing this. With my combination of general apathy for most everything, my short attention span, and the overwhelming joy I receive from sitting down, any filibuster I would do would last about 4 minutes, tops.

Oh, man, I could go for days, as long as I got bathroom breaks.

Senators engaged in a filibuster are not allowed bathroom breaks. They must remain standing in the Senate chamber for the duration. If they leave, then that is considered yielding the floor and another member can move for cloture.

 

[gturner]

Derp. Lindsay Graham and John McCain slammed Rand Paul's filibuster.

Washington Times link

McCain was probably outraged that for 12 hours the cameras weren't on McCain, and Graham said he did not believe that Rand Paul's questioning of the drone program "deserves an answer."

 

[gturner]

Oh, man, I could go for days, as long as I got bathroom breaks.

Senators engaged in a filibuster are not allowed bathroom breaks. They must remain standing in the Senate chamber for the duration. If they leave, then that is considered yielding the floor and another member can move for cloture.

If they can pee all over the Constitution why can't they pee on the Senate floor?