Filibusters, Cloture and Facepalms

As AwesomelyLuvvie said, Congress had One Job – ONE JOB to do.

But NEWP. Couldn’t even manage to do that.

[UPDATE]: Oh SNAP! Emily L. Hauser Gives You Phone Numbers of ALL the Senators in question. She suggests CALLING YOUR SENATOR(S) to thank them – those that supported the bill – or ~~cuss em out~~ express your disappointment to – those that did NOT.

Thank you Emily for saving me some time. I have BOTH types of phone calls to make today.

Many are puzzling over why come this 60/100 madness. Well I lookted it up. The following is why shite doesn’t GET DONE:

Filibuster.

Cloture. Yeah that 60/100 biznizz. It goes a lil somethin like THIS:

Procedure

The three-fifths version of the cloture rule does not apply to motions to end filibusters relating to Senate Rule changes. To invoke cloture to end debate over changing the Senate Rules, the original version of the rule (two-thirds of those Senators “present and voting”) still applies.^[12]

The procedure for “invoking cloture,” or ending a filibuster, is as follows:

A minimum of sixteen senators must sign a petition for cloture.
The petition may be presented by interrupting another Senator’s speech.
The clerk reads the petition.
The cloture petition is ignored for one full day during which the Senate is sitting. For example, if the petition is filed on Monday, it is ignored until Wednesday. (If the petition is filed on a Friday, it is ignored until Tuesday, assuming that the Senate did not sit on Saturday or Sunday.)^[13]
On the second calendar day during which the Senate sits after the presentation of the petition, after the Senate has been sitting for one hour, a “quorum call” is undertaken to ensure that a majority of the Senators are present. However, the mandatory quorum call is often waived by unanimous consent.
The President of the Senate or President pro tempore presents the petition.
The Senate votes on the petition; three-fifths of the whole number of Senators (sixty with no vacancies) is the required majority; however, when cloture is invoked on a question of changing the rules of the Senate, two-thirds of the Senators voting (not necessarily two-thirds of all Senators) is the requisite majority. This is commonly referred to in the news media as a “test vote”.

After cloture has been invoked, the following restrictions apply:

No more than thirty hours of debate may occur.^[14]
No Senator may speak for more than one hour.
No amendments may be moved unless they were filed on the day in between the presentation of the petition and the actual cloture vote.
All amendments must be relevant to the debate.
Certain procedural motions are not permissible.
The presiding officer gains additional power in controlling debate.
No other matters may be considered until the question upon which cloture was invoked is disposed of.

The ability to invoke cloture was last attained by a US political party in the 113th Congress, by the Democrats, during a debate on the vacancy in the position of Secretary of Defense.^{[citation needed]} The previous time was in the 111th Congress, also by the Democrats, with the help of two independents.^[15]

Yup I fell asleep too and all I was doing was a copy/paste.

Kinda reminds me of THIS:

I observed, here and there, many in the habit of servants, with a blown bladder, fastened like a flail to the end of a stick, which they carried in their hands. In each bladder was a small quantity of dried peas, or little pebbles, as I was afterwards informed. With these bladders, they now and then flapped the mouths and ears of those who stood near them, of which practice I could not then conceive the meaning.

It seems the minds of these people are so taken up with intense speculations, that they neither can speak, nor attend to the discourses of others, without being roused by some external taction upon the organs of speech and hearing; for which reason, those persons who are able to afford it always keep a flapper (the original is CLIMENOLE) in their family, as one of their domestics; nor ever walk abroad, or make visits, without him. And the business of this officer is, when two, three, or more persons are in company, gently to strike with his bladder the mouth of him who is to speak, and the right ear of him or them to whom the speaker addresses himself.

This flapper is likewise employed diligently to attend his master in his walks, and upon occasion to give him a soft flap on his eyes; because he is always so wrapped up in cogitation, that he is in manifest danger of falling down every precipice, and bouncing his head against every post; and in the streets, of justling others, or being justled himself into the kennel.

– Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, Part 3, Chapter 2.

We, the people – my round brown ass. We the people – 90% of us actually – were all for getting this ONE JOB done. Y’all even ticked off My President so much he had to go HAM on ya:

1) “I’m going to speak plainly and honestly about what’s happened here because the American people are trying to figure out how can something have 90 percent support and yet not happen.”

Yeah uh-HUH. We want ANSWERS.

2) “This legislation, in fact, outlawed any registry. Plain and simple, right there in the text. But that didn’t matter. And unfortunately, this pattern of spreading untruths about this legislation served a purpose, because those lies upset an intense minority of gun owners, and that in turn intimidated a lot of senators.”

Welp. You know nobody even bothered to READ the effing thing. And all yall who got intimidated – watch us intimidate you in the voting booths right quick.

3) “But the fact is most of these senators could not offer any good reason why we wouldn’t want to make it harder for criminals and those with severe mental illnesses to buy a gun… It came down to politics — the worry that that vocal minority of gun owners would come after them in future elections.”

I repeat. Y’all ain’t gotta worry about them. We are coming after you. There are more of us than there are of them. The thinning of the herd due to all those unintentional shootings.

4) “I’ve heard some say that blocking this step would be a victory. And my question is, a victory for who? A victory for what? … It begs the question, who are we here to represent?”

Yes. Who won out here exactly? I would really love to know.

5) “I’ve heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced. ‘A prop,’ somebody called them. ‘Emotional blackmail,’ some outlet said. Are they serious? Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don’t have a right to weigh in on this issue? Do we think their emotions, their loss is not relevant to this debate?

Man that political bubble y’all living in must be a sumbitch. If not them, then who exactly should we have heard from?

6) “So all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.”

Yup. That one-way ticket to Mars thing is looking pretty good right now. This ish got me too embarrassed to stay on the planet.

7) “You need to let your representatives in Congress know that you are disappointed, and that if they don’t act this time, you will remember come election time.”

Think I won’t? Made my list, am checkin it TWICE. This ish ends right here, right now.

_____________________________________________