Dear Senator Reid,. . . . *** HEY!, YOU!!***

[annabanana]

I know that there has been lots and lots of good legislation passed in the Senate over the course of the last year. Most of it hasn't gone anywhere because the Republicans filibuster it over and over again. And not just the big stuff... even littler things like Amtrak funding gets stuck by the roadblock. And the News Anchors keep droning that "The Democrats failed" to do this or that.

And everyone thinks it's the Democrats fault.

Because no one outside the beltway knows that the Republicans are filibustering.

Because no one on the 6 O'Clock News is telling them.

And every American knows what a filibuster looks like, don't they? It looks like Jimmy Stewart, sweating and raging and losing his voice. It looks like exhausted sausages reading the D.C. phone book at 3am, with everyone else sitting there, bleary eyed.

C'mon Harry! Make those obstructionists do it out in public. Make them do it long enough that the media HAS to come around. Make them do it long enough that the media has to explain it a hundred different ways. The have to fill the air time, you know. Make the media explain it until everyone understands exactly WHAT the Republicans are objecting to.

Health Care for poor children.

Time at home for our exhausted troops.

An end to that God awful war.

When you force the media to explain it, Americans will understand just exactly what has been the problem all this year.

Please Senator Reid, .. Don't allow anymore proforma filibusters.

Best Regards
The Weary Democrat.

[tekisui]

1. Spot on anna.

Regular people need to know that the lack of productivity is in repuke Obstructionism. This needs to be clear, they must own the frame on this if they want a stronger majority next year.

[annabanana]

4. I really can't see any other way of getting the word out there.

We have had to force the media to cover everything.

[kansasblue]

2. Supporting documentation: Senate Republicans are threatening filibusters to block more legislation

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/18218.html

WASHINGTON — This year Senate Republicans are threatening filibusters to block more legislation than ever before, a pattern that's rooted in — and could increase — the pettiness and dysfunction in Congress.

[annabanana]

3. There was an article in the Times on Sunday about this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/weekinreview/02herszenhorn.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The filibuster may be well established in the popular consciousness — think of long-winded senators speechifying for days. But because modern Senate rules allow lawmakers to avoid the spectacle of pontificating by merely threatening the act, filibusters and the efforts to overcome them are being used more frequently, and on more issues, than at any other point in history.

So far in this first year of the 110th Congress, there have been 72 motions to stop filibusters, most on the Iraq war but also on routine issues like reauthorizing Amtrak funding. There were 68 such motions in the full two years of the previous Congress, 53 in 1987-88 and 23 in 1977-78. In 1967-68, there were 5 such votes, one of them on a plan to amend cloture itself, which failed.

Clearly it has gotten completely out of control. The only way to rein it in is to put it on the front page and expose the Repug tactic..

[annabanana]

5. kicking for the hell of it. . . . .n/t