Kos wrote earlier about how some people are wistfully wishing that Republicans had pulled their nuclear option regarding the filibuster after all. It's pleasant to think how nice it would be if the Senate would enact laws based on the desires of, you know, the people of the country -- who mostly voted for Democrats.
Here is a tweetfrom Senator McCaskill, as reported by Iglesias:
Just saw Krugman's comments on reduction in recov act. Question for him. Would no stimulus act be better than one thats 800 B instead of 900
Democrats are fighting with progressives because the minority Senate Republicans are throwing a tantrum -- when the Republicans are in the minority and despised by a majority of the country!
It's the Californicationof the Senate -- you know, that insane unintended result of rules that allow the minority to get out their little whips and chain the majority to the wall.
Everybody knows that mighty California is flailing in a failure of governance. Republicans are in the minority. Most Californians do not want Republican "values" translated into legislation.
Too bad!
The romance of the filibuster lives on the memory of a black-and-white Jimmy Stewart standing up, literally, to corrupt forces that have co-opted the status quo. One pure citizen against the machine. Who couldn't go for that?
But the Senate filibuster been corrupted by the Republicans, transmogrified from a miracle of rare device into a blunt force instrument, dull as the blades who wield it. It is the federal equivalent of the California supermajority requirement.
It's time put away childish things, to forget the Romance of the Filibuster -- or risk our country being endlessly bent to the will of an aristocratic wingnut cabal that has no love and indeed no respect for democracy.