Reply #34: The TIMING and sponsorhip of this "apology" sure are suspect,

[AirAmFan]

aren't they?

I wonder whether the wording of the "apology" will amount to a "sense of the Senate" resolution that the filibuster is an archaic practice which must now end.

Someone should ask Senator Allen (R-VA) whether he's going to do anything about a legacy of slavery that continues in full force in his state and other southern states: lifetime "felon disfranchisement".

This practice began at the end of Reconstruction, when Union soldiers pulled out of the former Confederate states, with legislation whose racist intent was expressed openly. Together with a current criminal "justice" system that incarcerates blacks at rates 7 or more times white incarceration rates, these laws take voting rights away from up to a third of Southern black men in states where they're still on the books. Would Allen even be in the Senate without Virginia's racist voting laws? His sponsoring this."apology" is the utmost in hypocrisy.