A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
VIEWED: 755368
PAGE 468 of 725
lol
You sure you want to give that toy to Republicans?
Pandora's box there buddy.
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A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey. 
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Quote:Read a few paragraphs from the Senate website about the origin of the filibuster. www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuster_Clotur
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol
You sure you want to give that toy to Republicans?
Pandora's box there buddy.
e.htm
American Senators have always loved to talk-talk-talk so that they didn't have to act-act-act. It is the reason the Federal government has always been a mess. The other reason? Senators from different states have no loyalty to other states. America pretends it is United, but the different states don't have more loyalty to one another than countries like New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and the UK have loyalty to each other. It is obvious those former British colonies have incompatible goals, since they are also separated by thousands of miles, but the States (and their Senators) of the United States also have incompatible goals, even when the states share a border.
What does the Senate historian write about Filibuster and Cloture? This:
Using the filibuster to delay or block legislative action has a long history. The term filibuster—from a Dutch word meaning "pirate"—became popular in the 1850s, when it was applied to efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to prevent a vote on a bill.
In the early years of Congress, representatives as well as senators could filibuster. As the House of Representatives grew in number, however, revisions to the House rules limited debate. In the smaller Senate, unlimited debate continued on the grounds that any senator should have the right to speak as long as necessary on any issue.
In 1841, when the Democratic minority hoped to block a bank bill promoted by Kentucky senator Henry Clay , he threatened to change Senate rules to allow the majority to close debate. Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton rebuked Clay for trying to stifle the Senate's right to unlimited debate.
Three quarters of a century later, in 1917, senators adopted a rule (Rule 22), at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, that allowed the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority vote, a device known as " cloture ." The new Senate rule was first put to the test in 1919, when the Senate invoked cloture to end a filibuster against the Treaty of Versailles. Even with the new cloture rule, filibusters remained an effective means to block legislation, since a two-thirds vote is difficult to obtain. Over the next five decades, the Senate occasionally tried to invoke cloture, but usually failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote. Filibusters were particularly useful to southern senators who sought to block civil rights legislation, including anti-lynching legislation, until cloture was invoked after a 60-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1975 the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds to three-fifths, or 60 of the current 100 senators.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuste
r_Cloture.htm
There is a whole lot more about the filibuster at that URL, but the underlying reason for its existence is to avoid making decisions, taking action, being responsible for outcomes. That is why the Senate has the filibuster. But if the Senators ever decide to live up to the Founding Fathers' expectations of honest, mature and wise behavior, the filibuster will be deleted from the rules.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Read a few paragraphs from the Senate website about the origin of the filibuster. www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuster_Clotur
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol
You sure you want to give that toy to Republicans?
Pandora's box there buddy.
e.htm
American Senators have always loved to talk-talk-talk so that they didn't have to act-act-act. It is the reason the Federal government has always been a mess. The other reason? Senators from different states have no loyalty to other states. America pretends it is United, but the different states don't have more loyalty to one another than countries like New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and the UK have loyalty to each other. It is obvious those former British colonies have incompatible goals, since they are also separated by thousands of miles, but the States (and their Senators) of the United States also have incompatible goals, even when the states share a border.
What does the Senate historian write about Filibuster and Cloture? This:
Using the filibuster to delay or block legislative action has a long history. The term filibuster—from a Dutch word meaning "pirate"—became popular in the 1850s, when it was applied to efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to prevent a vote on a bill.
In the early years of Congress, representatives as well as senators could filibuster. As the House of Representatives grew in number, however, revisions to the House rules limited debate. In the smaller Senate, unlimited debate continued on the grounds that any senator should have the right to speak as long as necessary on any issue.
In 1841, when the Democratic minority hoped to block a bank bill promoted by Kentucky senator Henry Clay , he threatened to change Senate rules to allow the majority to close debate. Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton rebuked Clay for trying to stifle the Senate's right to unlimited debate.
Three quarters of a century later, in 1917, senators adopted a rule (Rule 22), at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, that allowed the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority vote, a device known as " cloture ." The new Senate rule was first put to the test in 1919, when the Senate invoked cloture to end a filibuster against the Treaty of Versailles. Even with the new cloture rule, filibusters remained an effective means to block legislation, since a two-thirds vote is difficult to obtain. Over the next five decades, the Senate occasionally tried to invoke cloture, but usually failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote. Filibusters were particularly useful to southern senators who sought to block civil rights legislation, including anti-lynching legislation, until cloture was invoked after a 60-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1975 the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds to three-fifths, or 60 of the current 100 senators.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuste
r_Cloture.htm
There is a whole lot more about the filibuster at that URL, but the underlying reason for its existence is to avoid making decisions, taking action, being responsible for outcomes. That is why the Senate has the filibuster. But if the Senators ever decide to live up to the Founding Fathers' expectations of honest, mature and wise behavior, the filibuster will be deleted from the rules.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Okay. Not sure what the point of bringing the origins of it up now though are.
In modern times, the fillibuster protects half of America at any given time from having a bunch of bullshit they'd never be on board with being passed.
Right now, it's protecting me from stuff you want done. In 2016, it protected you from stuff that I wanted
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Quote:There is divide in understanding that can't easily be crossed about the difference between what devices like filibusters or guns were designed to do and what you think those devices do. I will tell what the devices were designed to do and you can keep believing your myths:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Okay. Not sure what the point of bringing the origins of it up now though are.
In modern times, the filibuster protects half of America at any given time from having a bunch of bullshit they'd never be on board with being passed.
Right now, it's protecting me from stuff you want done. In 2016, it protected you from stuff that I wanted done.
This country is fucked until we find our way back into the middle for sure.
Until then, it's a good idea not to let these assholes make any changes.
1) The filibuster was designed to prevent the Senate from making decisions, not to "protect" you. Often, both sides in Senate are pleased that filibuster was used because neither side really wanted to eventually face the voters on a decision. Civil Rights was the perfect example. Neither Democrats nor Republicans wanted to touch that subject for 100 years after the Civil War because the voters back home might not reelect them if they expanded rights. Best for the Senator's reelection to hope somebody filibusters Civil Rights so that the Senator can safely do nothing.
2) Firearms were designed to kill, not to "protect" you. If you ever were in gun fight, you'd know that. TV and movies give Americans peculiar ideas about what happens. I've seen what happens when soldiers raised on TV Westerns get into a firefight. Those soldiers kill civilians and guys on their own side. The soldiers might, or might not, feel bad about it afterwards, but it would not have happened if they showed self-control and aimed rather than spraying bullets randomly for "protection".
Pat Tillman killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pat-tillman-killed-by-frie
ndly-fire-in-afghanistan
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Election changes such as ranked-choice voting and nonpartisan primaries are popping up across the country—and are already upending national politics.
Lisa Murkowski was the first GOP senator to demand Trump’s exit after the deadly riot. The speed and bluntness with which she spoke out against the former president surprised her allies, who saw in her words the first reverberations of how Alaska voted in November. Murkowski wasn’t on the 2020 ballot, but in passing a ballot measure to change the way the state elects its leaders, Alaskans effectively gave their long-serving senator a fresh infusion of political freedom: She no longer needs to worry nearly so much about a conservative primary foe defeating her next year. “I think we’ve seen the result of it already,” former Alaska Governor Bill Walker told me.
The ballot measure that Alaska adopted by a narrow margin last fall represents the farthest-reaching changes to any state’s election laws in recent memory, giving a boost to political reformers who are trying to increase voter participation while reducing the incentives for partisanship across the country. Its advocates hope the reforms will be a model for other states, leading to a shift in how both Congress and state legislatures function in the years ahead. And for the next two years, they will have their eye on Murkowski.
The referendum scraps party primaries in favor of a single nonpartisan primary, a move that might help Murkowski more directly than any other politician in Alaska. In 2010, Murkowski was defeated in a Republican primary and secured her second full term only after mounting an unlikely write-in campaign in the general election. She’s up for reelection next year, and before Alaska passed its ballot measure, Murkowski was seen as once again vulnerable to a primary challenge because of her votes against her party, whether in rejecting the GOP’s attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act or opposing Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
As recently as September, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was teasing a possible primary challenge to Murkowski. But as remarkable as Murkowski’s immediate denunciation of Trump was, equally notable was the silence among her peers that followed. Palin said nothing, and Trump loyalists made no serious move to rebuke, censure, or oust Murkowski even though they have threatened other Republicans, such as Representative Liz Cheney, who faces a primary challenge in Wyoming and an effort to remove her as chair of the House GOP conference in Washington after voting to impeach the president.
The absence of a backlash to Murkowski’s move against Trump is more evidence that the new laws have altered Alaska politics, supporters argue. The idea isn’t to push Murkowski, a lifelong Republican, to the left—she’s already ruled out switching parties—but to allow her to keep voting independently when she sees fit, whether that’s to break with Trump or to work across the aisle on areas of common ground with President Joe Biden.
Opponents of the Alaska ballot measure have sued to stop its implementation. But if it survives a legal challenge, the state will hold a nonpartisan primary for all statewide and federal offices beginning this year. The top four candidates will advance to the general election, where Alaskans will use ranked-choice voting to determine a winner. The referendum also significantly boosts disclosure requirements for campaign financing in an effort to crack down on so-called dark money pouring into state elections.
California dropped partisan primaries a decade ago, and Maine voters approved the use of ranked-choice voting in 2016, but Alaska is the first state to combine the two reforms. Alaska and Maine are separated by more than 4,000 miles, but many of their voters share a similar distaste for the two major parties. More than six in 10 voters in Alaska aren’t registered as either Republicans or Democrats, and both states regularly elect independent candidates to statewide po
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:There is divide in understanding that can't easily be crossed about the difference between what devices like filibusters or guns were designed to do and what you think those devices do. I will tell what the devices were designed to do and you can keep believing your myths:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Okay. Not sure what the point of bringing the origins of it up now though are.
In modern times, the filibuster protects half of America at any given time from having a bunch of bullshit they'd never be on board with being passed.
Right now, it's protecting me from stuff you want done. In 2016, it protected you from stuff that I wanted done.
This country is fucked until we find our way back into the middle for sure.
Until then, it's a good idea not to let these assholes make any changes.
1) The filibuster was designed to prevent the Senate from making decisions, not to "protect" you. Often, both sides in Senate are pleased that filibuster was used because neither side really wanted to eventually face the voters on a decision. Civil Rights was the perfect example. Neither Democrats nor Republicans wanted to touch that subject for 100 years after the Civil War because the voters back home might not reelect them if they expanded rights. Best for the Senator's reelection to hope somebody filibusters Civil Rights so that the Senator can safely do nothing.
2) Firearms were designed to kill, not to "protect" you. If you ever were in gun fight, you'd know that. TV and movies give Americans peculiar ideas about what happens. I've seen what happens when soldiers raised on TV Westerns get into a firefight. Those soldiers kill civilians and guys on their own side. The soldiers might, or might not, feel bad about it afterwards, but it would not have happened if they showed self-control and aimed rather than spraying bullets randomly for "protection".
Pat Tillman killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pat-tillman-killed-by-frie
ndly-fire-in-afghanistan
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
It doesn't matter what things were designed to do. It matters how they're used now.
I live right by one of the most historically dangerous cities in the entire country. I even do some shopping there. And most of the time I'm part of the minority.
But you know what doesn't happen in my state? BLM and Antifa bullshit. Ain't nobody clogging up the streets or beating through car windows to yank somebody out of their car and do god knows what to them. Ain't nobody even doing any carjacking out here, while only 50 miles from me the amount of carjackings in Chicago so far this year are nearly 1/3 of what they were for the entirety of 2020.
We've got conceal and carry here. I don't even have to go out with a gun to be protected. The implication alone does that for me.
Just the idea that some random dude like me has a pretty good chance of walking around with a deadly weapon makes people a whole lot more polite.
--------------------------------------------------
A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.
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Quote:The filibuster has always worked the way it was designed -- to delay making decisions by the majority. Senators and political scientists understand. Ordinary people will continue to misunderstand by describing the filibuster as "protection" for the minority, but it can't be "protection" because the majority can deactivate the filibuster rule, if the majority wanted. The majority won't deactivate because it is to the individual majority Senator's advantage to avoid decisions without it being obvious that is what the majority is doing. Making decisions makes enemies and most Senators hate to make enemies among voters if they can avoid it without looking like cowards. That's why there is filibuster rule. Too many Senators on both sides of any issue always feel safer when no decision is made. The filibuster gives the majority cover for doing nothing and adroitly shifting the blame to the other side.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
It doesn't matter what things were designed to do. It matters how they're used now.
I live right by one of the most historically dangerous cities in the entire country. I even do some shopping there. And most of the time I'm part of the minority.
But you know what doesn't happen in my state? BLM and Antifa bullshit. Ain't nobody clogging up the streets or beating through car windows to yank somebody out of their car and do god knows what to them. Ain't nobody even doing any carjacking out here, while only 50 miles from me the amount of carjackings in Chicago so far this year are nearly 1/3 of what they were for the entirety of 2020.
We've got conceal and carry here. I don't even have to go out with a gun to be protected. The implication alone does that for me.
Just the idea that some random dude like me has a pretty good chance of walking around with a deadly weapon makes people a whole lot more polite.
As for your understanding of guns, I point you to the story of Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two. His defense team will claim he used his rifle for "protection" against BLM. That's both a lie and stupid. Kyle killed because he is a 17 year old fool who learned from TV dramas that guns are for "protection," not for murder. His defense team will have to confuse the jury about how he ran back to Mommy who lives in another state immediately after "protecting" himself, when he should have stood over the bodies and bragged to the police about how good he is at "protecting" himself.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53934109
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The filibuster has always worked the way it was designed -- to delay making decisions by the majority. Senators and political scientists understand. Ordinary people will continue to misunderstand by describing the filibuster as "protection" for the minority, but it can't be "protection" because the majority can deactivate the filibuster rule, if the majority wanted. The majority won't deactivate because it is to the individual majority Senator's advantage to avoid decisions without it being obvious that is what the majority is doing. Making decisions makes enemies and most Senators hate to make enemies among voters if they can avoid it without looking like cowards. That's why there is filibuster rule. Too many Senators on both sides of any issue always feel safer when no decision is made. The filibuster gives the majority cover for doing nothing and adroitly shifting the blame to the other side.
Let them get rid of it then. And two years from now it won't matter for them since so many will be voted out. And god help them if a Republican wins the Presidency in 2024 with a majority in the House and Senate.
Outside of a couple of crazies like AOC, and idiots at MotherJones and Salon that don't know how things work, nobody wants to fire that first nuke.
Sure... It will be great to let 11 million illegals have even more rights than actual US Citizens do right now...
Until the GOP can work unchecked and just start putting anybody who crosses the border for any reason to death because now everybody can just do whatever the fuck they want to do.
It's not really even worth debating though, since it's not going to happen.
Quote:
As for your understanding of guns, I point you to the story of Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two. His defense team will claim he used his rifle for "protection" against BLM. That's both a lie and stupid. Kyle killed because he is a 17 year old fool who learned from TV dramas that guns are for "protection," not for murder. His defense team will have to confuse the jury about how he ran back to Mommy who lives in another state immediately after "protecting" himself, when he should have stood over the bodies and bragged to the police about how good he is at "protecting" himself.
Your understanding on the issue is incorrect.
Those ADULTS who attacked a minor carrying a non-concealed rifle while holding it properly and not aiming it at anyone are Darwin award winners and got what they deserved. The ADULT who attacked Kyle that didn't die got his fucking arm blown off at the elbow seconds before firing his handgun into Kyle's brain.
If the cops were allowed to do their fucking jobs, that incident would never have taken place. Kyle and others were there simply being Rooftop Koreans protecting businesses that Antifa and BLM were burning to the ground. They even stopped those idiots from blowing up a gas station that night.
And it still doesn't change the fact that despite being well armed myself, I never leave my house with a gun. Concealed or otherwise. But I very well could.
And nobody pulls any of that bullshit anywhere near me. Kyle's incident would never have been a thing here because that doesn't happen here. Antifa and BLM only operate in Democrat ran shitholes that don't allow people to arm themselves.
The day you successfully disarm every violent lawbreaker out there. The day that you successfully remove every bad cop off of every force. The day that you remove every corrupt politician on both sides of the aisle who enjoy nothing more during their day than taking more rights away from the citizens they're supposed to be serving...
On that day, we can talk about guns.
In the meantime, prepare yourself for a lot more of them for a very long time with SCOTUS being as it is today.
--------------------------------------------------
A government is a body of pe
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Quote:
Election changes such as ranked-choice voting and nonpartisan primaries are popping up across the country — and are already upending national politics.
The hope might be that these 2 AK moves (non-partisan primaries, ranked-choice voting) reduce the effect of tribal party-voting and put the focus on policy. But I don't see a cause-and-effect. As an example, in CA's non-partisan primaries, rather than voting for the person in their party they think is most likely to win, people will vote for the OTHER party's candidate they think is most likely to lose. There's still a lot of partisan games going on, despite the non-partisan primaries. Alaska's new rules seem to be more likely the effect of a substantial majority of people more interested in policies over partisanship, rather than the cause.
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FWIW, the House of Representatives is based on the House of Commons in Britain, quick to react to the hoi polloi's concerns and temper of the day. The British House of Lords is supposed to be the more deliberative body, thinking more long-term and being slower to pass laws until they've been thoroughly examined ... but since we don't have Lords in the US, we have the Senate. If the Senate is putting the brakes on quick changes, it's performing its assigned function.
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