Is it finally time to flush the filibuster?

And its racist roots?

Personally, I dislike a law that allows elected officials to waste time loitering without accomplishing a damn thing. Except the prevention of passing laws. Sure, I don't mind their $180k a year lordly salaries for wasting time. The "do nothing Congress" - a phrase that really suits it as of late - works less than half the days in a year.

That amounts to Strom Thurmond's infamous 24hr 18 minute filibuster wasting a whopping $1200. That is a stimulus check for a needy American.

cthia wrote:And its racist roots?

Personally, I dislike a law that allows elected officials to waste time loitering without accomplishing a damn thing. Except the prevention of passing laws. Sure, I don't mind their $180k a year lordly salaries for wasting time. The "do nothing Congress" - a phrase that really suits it as of late - works less than half the days in a year.

That amounts to Strom Thurmond's infamous 24hr 18 minute filibuster wasting a whopping $1200. That is a stimulus check for a needy American.

Oops, I should have used a slide rule. That should be multiplied by 100 senators which amounts to 12k. Stimulus checks for 100 Americans.

Actually the senators salary in 1950, Thurmond's era, was only 120k. 120k is equivalent to $1,309,613.28 today. So, Thurmond actually wasted $7275. Multiplied by 100 senators equals $727,500 of taxpayer money. While some of them certainly slept, and possibly wept.

cthia wrote:

cthia wrote:And its racist roots?

Personally, I dislike a law that allows elected officials to waste time loitering without accomplishing a damn thing. Except the prevention of passing laws. Sure, I don't mind their $180k a year lordly salaries for wasting time. The "do nothing Congress" - a phrase that really suits it as of late - works less than half the days in a year.

That amounts to Strom Thurmond's infamous 24hr 18 minute filibuster wasting a whopping $1200. That is a stimulus check for a needy American.

Oops, I should have used a slide rule. That should be multiplied by 100 senators which amounts to 12k. Stimulus checks for 100 Americans.

Actually the senators salary in 1950, Thurmond's era, was only 120k. 120k is equivalent to $1,309,613.28 today. So, Thurmond actually wasted $7275. Multiplied by 100 senators equals $727,500 of taxpayer money. While some of them certainly slept, and possibly wept.

The filibuster is designed to insure minority control and needs to go. As currently implemented, it's probably unconstitutional. And It's probably the single largest factor at the public's long standing disgust with Congress for getting almost nothing done.

Don

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A “do-nothing” congress is about as good as we can reasonably expect to get. I don’t think Chuck Schumer is going to toss it aside, not after he saw how quickly eliminating the filibuster for judicial appointments came back to bite the democrat party. As we saw in ‘16, not even having the full throated support of the corporate media and all of Hollywood can guarantee victory in the ballot box.