| Well. This is refreshing. That a Republican Senator mounts a "filibuster" isn't a new story: the GOP has played that card hundreds of times since 2008. But in this case, Paul is actually talking. It's a real "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" style filibuster against John Brennan's nomination to head the CIA: Paul, who strongly opposes the Brennan nomination and the Obama administration’s use of unmanned aerial drones, becomes the first senator to make use of the procedural tactic in more than two years and the first to do so since the Senate approved a bipartisan rules reform package in January. “I will speak until I can no longer speak,” Paul said. “I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court.”
Well, I can't argue with that. And I'm strongly in favor of Senators who hold up legislation being required to actually filibuster instead of just "saying" they will if they don't get their way. We wrote about the filibuster reforms needed in the Senate in January. Sadly, Senator Harry Reid once again folded his winning hand and decided to "trust" the GOP not so misuse the tactic. Rand Paul is using the filibuster they way it has traditionally been understood and kudos to him for it. If only the Senate Majority Leader had made it part of the rules of the Senate instead of accepting the rather false promises of the minority. |
