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Honey... they’re showing that author who fooled around with General Petraeus on ABC...
There’s the book she wrote.. All Up In My ***. Wait a minute that’s not the title....
did they just show that on ABC?
Yep, they sure did. Honey!
Hey guys.. .Charles Como back with another Political Minute.. sorry about the delay..
I had to go to Disney Land to comfort a friend of mine after he lost an important contest
of sorts...
After acting as a shoulder to cry on the first part of the week, then spending the next 2
days convincing him that “No, he could not BUY the Magic Castle and turn it into his
own personal guest house” I am finally back.
Since I was gone, Obama won the election, Carl Rove freaked out on live television because
the hacker group Anonymous prevented his computers from stealing the election again.. and the
Republicans had to retreat with their tail between their legs..
Actually.. that’s not true.. even though they lost the election and remain a minority
in the Senate, the Republicans are using an antiquated rule called the filibuster, to
effectively shut down the government down unless the winning party, the Democrats give
them everything they want. What? That doesn’t sound right, right?
And as a response, the Democrats are threatening to use the Nucular Option to..
It’s nuclear
What?
Look at how it’s spelled It’s nuclear, not nucular.
But everyone says Nucular...
Nucular Energy, Nucular Weapons
Build a nucular weapon
Only stupid People say Nucular...
Oh...
Anyway.. the Democrats are threatening to invoke the Nuclear Option to assure that they
can govern as they were elected to.
Filibuster? Nuclear Option? What the hell is going on here?
Start the one minute clock and let’s find out!
The filibuster is a tool used by Senators to seize control of the Senate if they don’t
want a law enacted.
Some people mistakenly think that it was created to PROTECT the Minority but this can’t be
further from the truth.. in fact.. the Filibuster was created by mistake!
Let me explain.
In the early days of the Senate, the simple Majority ruled.
Then one day in 1805, Vice President Aaron Burr, fresh off of killing Founding Father
Alexander Hamilton in a duel, decided to get rid of rules in the Senate that he thought
were useless. And one such “useless” rule that was eliminated was the Previous Question
rule that simply allowed the majority of senators to move on to the next topic if the previous
topic seemed to be going nowhere.
Seems pretty innocuous, right?
Well.. no.. in fact, once they eliminated this rule, they suddenly realized that they
no longer had the power to stop a Senator from speaking at the podium forever.
Thus the Filibuster was born!
And it’s been used to stop such legislation as Anti-Lynching laws and the Civil Rights
act.
And more recently, it’s been used by
the minority of Republican senators, to shut our government down, unless they get everything
they want. Which doesn’t seem very democratic right?
Which is where the Nuclear Option comes in. On the first day of session, the Senate has
the right to change its rules by a simple majority.. which means that they can do away
with the Filibuster and return the Senate back to simple majority rule.. which is what
it was meant to be in the first place.
So.. what now that you know that the Filibuster was created by mistake, what do you think
about this whole Nuclear Option? Let me know in the comments below, don’t forget to subscribe
and I’ll see you all next week.. now I’m going to go find a copy of that Paula Broadwell
book.. looks like a good read! I wonder if it has any pictures...
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