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The Senate is broken, vol. 473
The Senate is broken, vol. 473
I've found myself thinking quite a bit lately about the Senate and its arcane and undemocratic rules, and how a super-minority is essentially able to hold up and stymie any substantive progressive. For instance, health care. Scott Brown wins an election in Massachusetts, and suddenly it takes a herculean task to even bring a much-needed, long-overdue up-or-down vote to the Senate floor. Or there's that son of a bitch Richard Shelby of Alabama, who placed a hold on hundreds of appointments to try to score his home state some sweet, sweet pork.
And now, another example: Sen. Jim Bunning, a former baseball player who is so incredily stupid that even the Republicans of Kentucky don't want him any more, is single-handedly blocking a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits for 1.2 million Americans.
All. By. Himself.
Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, is single-handedly blocking Senate action needed to prevent an estimated 1.2 million American workers from suddenly losing their unemployment benefits next month.
As Democratic senators asked again and again for unanimous consent for a vote on a 30-day extension Thursday night, Bunning refused to go along.
And when Sen. Jeff Merkely (D-Ore.) begged him to drop his objection, Politico reports, Bunning replied: "Tough shit."
Bunning says he doesn't oppose extending benefits -- he just doesn't want the money that's required added to the deficit. He proposes paying for the 30-day extension with stimulus funds. The Senate's GOP leadership did not support him in his objections.
And at one point during the debate, which dragged on till nearly midnight, Bunning complained of missing a basketball game.
It's one thing to debate the propriety of the filibuster. Indeed, perhaps some changes should require extraordinary measures (but hell, even Robert Bork got an up or down vote; he just lost). But the fact that one guy — a backbencher on a minority party, no less — is able to fuck over more than 1 million Americans by himself, when even his own party doesn't agree to his objections … that's just nuts.
Reform, anyone?
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