What we learned from McConnell's failed gambit

[Sam Osborne]

37. A 40-minute filibuster for one

And add Sen. Chuck Grassley to the foolish pile---Grassley in a 40-minute-long diatribe on the Senator floor ended up sounding like he was filibustering in support of filibustering (excerpted in the Press-Citizen captioned “Filibuster change a partisan power grab,” 12/9/12).

Grassley and his fellow Republican obstructionists are trying to continue their partisan stranglehold that constitutes government of the privileged few, by the privileged few and for the privileged few. In his long-winded propaganda Grassley spoke of the “design” he contends is built into the Constitution but disingenuously tries to hide the fact that ”filibuster” is not even provided for in the Constitution.

Filibuster is a rules-instituted ploy devised to thwart what is provided for in the Constitution and that is “a representative form of government.” This is what the first Republican President Abe Lincoln took the people in Union to ensure would not perish from the earth and so described on a battlefield of that war of preservation as “government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

In addition to James Madison’s Federalist Paper No. 63 in which he describes the role of the Senate, Grassley might want to read and grasp what Madison had to say about the remedy to partisanship in Federalist Paper No. 10, “The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection.” In it Madison comes down in strong support of representative government as the remedy and concludes his paper with:

“In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists.”

Do away with the filibuster and get to work doing WE THE PEOPLE’s business---if what is done does not serve the interests of the people within our republican hey can use their vote to throw out of office those that misrepresent them and their common interests.