So, now the Republicans have 41 votes in the Senate, and can filibuster anything they want. Well shit. Fist I was angry, but then I remembered the saying "do not get angry, get even", so last night I retreated to my cave and started plotting our revenge.
Pretty soon I had a clear vision of what we need to do, and I have been working feverishly to hatch out a plan to turn this new found strength of the Republican Senators in their Achilles heel, and to use it to their demise.
The plan is simple and foolproof, and now I humbly submit it to the consideration of the President, the Democratic Congressional Leaders, and the DKos community at large.
So you think you can filibuster? Well, filibuster this.
Here we go:
- The President must appoint a Supersecret Populist Task Force (more on this later).
- We introduce a bill for the Medicare buy-in in the Senate. While we are at it, we make it better than the original proposal: say we allow the buy-in starting from the age of 50. The we let Scotty and friends filibuster it. And by this I mean we really make them filibuster it: We will have marathon Senate sessions lasting for weeks where the Republicans can display their filibustering skills. We should encourage Holy Joe to join the festivities, the more the merrier. It will be glorious: Lieberman and McCain can take turns in reading the Phone Directory aloud, there will be cries of socialism and death panels, all live on C-SPAN. We will schedule cloture votes every couple of days, possibly during prime time, and after every vote the President will call a press conference and publicly shame the obstructionists.
- After a couple of months of this circus we can pass the bill by reconciliation, and move to the next step.
- Now it is time to introduce the bill for taxing the banks, as the President has proposed, and let our friends from the other side of the aisle filibuster it. Rinse, lather and repeat step 2, only with more cloture votes and more press conferences calling out the Republicans.
- Let me answer your objection here: "But if we do this, the Senate will be always locked up in the debate and will not be able to do anything else"... Yes, and this is actually a bonus feature of my plan! Let's face it, the current Senate is worth shit, and we might as well have them spend all the time babbling it out on C-SPAN. At least they cannot do any other damage.
- Again, after a couple of month we pass the bank tax bill by reconciliation. Now we are close to the fall elections, and here is were the plan switches to high gears.
- By this time the Supersecret Populist Task Force (see point 1) will have completed their mission, that is, they will have produced the most shamelessly pandering, the most fucking populist piece of legislation ever conceived. Here is a rough blueprint for this bill that the task force can use as initial draft:
The Wall Street executives can earn bonuses as big as they want, but:
-They will have to disclose how much they earn to John Stewart, on an episode of the Daily Show taped in front of an audience of foreclosure victims.
-They will have to pay a 50% tax on it.
-Then they will have to buy every child in America a puppy.
-They can pocket what is left.
- We introduce this bill in the Senate, and we double dog dare the Republicans to filibuster it. And I mean it literally, we double dog dare them: We will have Bo and Champ (Biden's dog) deliver a copy of the bill to the Senate minority leader, and they will be trained to pee on his carpet.
- The republicans will howl and scream and filibuster it. This time we will have two cloture votes each day, each followed by a press conference of the President.
- At some point the President will summon the Republican Senators to the White House to work on a compromise, but when they arrive he will have them meet Bo. That day Bo's menu will consist of chili and apple juice. Then we go back to more of point 9)
- One week before the elections we will pass the bill by reconciliation.
- Now we sit back and enjoy the fall election day.
- When the new Senate reconvene, we will nuke the filibuster rule to kingdom come and start working on some cool legislation.
You are very welcome.