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Showing posts from March 3, 2010

Jim Bunning and the mysterious filibuster.

Kentucky's Republican Senator Jim Bunning has dominated headlines in the past few days due to his seemingly incomprehensible and flat out evil "filibuster" of a 10 billion dollar unemployment package.  As reported by CNN just two days ago, Bunning is being blamed for filibustering H.R. 4691 and has in the process drawn ire from not only Democrats, but fellow Republicans.  Most puzzling is the reporting of the story as if Bunning performed some horrendous act for which he now must be crucified for.  CNN is not the only culprit as virtually every major news media spun this story as Jim 'the Scrooge' Bunning blocking unemployment benefits from being paid out.   Not true, he has nothing against unemployment benefits, he simply refused to provide unanimous consent for a bill that has absolutely no financing mechanism.  That is all.  From a geeky political perspective this is hardly a filibuster as the bill was never brought up for debate, but was simply shoved thro