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What Was the Effect of Rand Paul's 10-Hour "Filibuster"?
An anonymous reader writes: Sen. Rand Paul held up a vote on the Fast Track Authority for an eleven hour dissertation on the flaws of: the Patriot Act, the replacement the USA Freedom Act, bulk data collection including credit card purchases, the DEA and IRS's use of NSA intel. for "parallel construction", warrant-less GPS bugs on vehicles, as well as the important distinction of a general warrant versus a specific one. "There is a general veil of suspicion that is placed on every American now. Every American is somehow said to be under suspicion because we are collecting the records of every American," Paul said. The questions is what did the "filibuster" really accomplish? The speeches caused a delay in Senate business but it's unclear what larger effect, if any, that will have.
While I'm proud of my Senator (Wyden) and Paul for attempting to shine a spotlight on the "USA Freedom Act", they accomplished very little. A symbolic gesture for the Congressional records at most.
They accomplished: shine a spotlight on the "USA Freedom Act"
This has to do with knowledge.
Consider the case where I know that something is bad, and you know that something is bad, but neither of us know that the other also thinks its bad. In this case we are effectively loners even though we are not really alone.
Now the case where I know that something is bad, and you know that something is bad, and I know that you know that something is bad, and you know that I know that something is bad. In this case we are not loners by any measure.
You can't change things when you are a loner.
"His name was James Damore."
The senior senators have more to hide that the NSA already knows about.
And if anyone thinks that isn't at least a factor, I may have some shares in a bridge for sale.
This was a fake filibuster ..
If he had been serious, he could have lodged a nominal filibuster (e.g say "I am speaking" that could only be overridden with a majority vote of the senate.
Since his party controls the senate, and he basically just did a political stunt, I question if he is actually against the Patriot Act, or if he was just playing political theater for his doomed presidential campaign.
While I applaud Paul, Wyden, and the other Senators who have pledged to do everything in their power to block the spying-allowed version of this renewal; Sen. Paul's "filibuster" was pure PR stunt for his presidential campaign. It was during the discussion of a completely unrelated bill, and wasn't even an official filibuster.
Populism works by incentivizing politicians to do PR stunts drawing attention to issues people care about. This PR Stunt is much more important than 90% of Senate Business anyway.
It was never feasible for him to block the bill, so I don't see why details of, e.g, when he did it would be important. The purpose was to raise awareness and I've seen quite a bit of coverage including major political sites like DrudgeReport so I would say whatever his notions were they worked out rather well. If it is a call to the masses then it makes sense to give them time to digest and react (hopefully with a call to their representatives) before the actual bill.
As is, are we under the impression that once in office Rand Paul will abandon the cause? Because if not, as the chief executive he would certain have the ability to direct these agencies differently. Personally, this convinces me he would be committed to doing so.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Here is why:
One: He is forcing the cloture vote on this to be next week, there is not time (its complicated) for the cloture vote to happen before the NSA must shut down the program.
Other business, like the pending trade agreement will have to be dealt with to come back to the NSA.
So for at least one weekend, there will be no NSA spying, and they will have to get it back on line if and when it is reauthorized. Inertia is our friend, if it is down, there will be pressure to keep it down.
Two: He also prevented it from passing cloture by unanimous consent, which is really silence. The chair asks a variation of "Without objection, so ordered" and if everyone is silent, it passes. There are no up/down votes, so no up/down vote is recorded
Now people are going to vote yea or nay, and THAT will be on the record for the next election.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
His father Ron Paul once ran third party and got less than 1% of the vote, if I'm not mistaken.
Even though according to independent polls he won every debate in which the news media and other organizations allowed him to participate.
george w bush signed a pretty significant environmental protection bill that significantly reduces the amount of pollution from diesel locomotives
he did it because it generated windfall profits for GE who was the only company poised to sell the new locomotives
sometimes good things happen for bad reasons
While I'm sure this message will be lost on the slashdot forums, I submit that liberals and libertarians actually agree on a whole range of issues. Paul was able to work with a Democrat from Oregon on this, after all.
And while that may be true, the reason so many Democrats are rabid Libertarian-haters is that no matter how many other issues they may agree about, Libertarians simply do not support the big-government model Democrats insist upon. It's a fundamental philosophical difference.
Democrats, by and large, are unwilling to look past this difference, and see the things they DO agree on. Which is too bad, because it leads to the typical Leftist Libertarian-bashing that we see so much: conflating them with anarchists, etc.
Two: He also prevented it from passing cloture by unanimous consent, which is really silence. The chair asks a variation of "Without objection, so ordered" and if everyone is silent, it passes. There are no up/down votes, so no up/down vote is recorded
Now people are going to vote yea or nay, and THAT will be on the record for the next election.
Forcing the jackasses to go on the record as to whether or not they support the bill, rather than allowing them plausible deniability on whether or not they would have voted for it is actually a fantastic thing, particularly after the John Oliver interview of Edward Snowden, which basically makes it pretty obvious that the government gets to see you dick/boob picks if the bill is passed.
rand paul says that the civil rights act of 1965 should be revoked
he says that people should be forced to sit in the back of the bus because somehow this is "good" for them
one day he says "It is our role as a global leader to be the strongest nation in opposing Russia’s latest aggression. "
another day he says ”Some on our side are so stuck in the Cold War era that they want to tweak Russia all the time and I don’t think that is a good idea.”
(Fortune magazine 3/11/2014)
you want accuracy and fairness? I copied and pasted those quotes directly.
The only thing obvious is that a third party has no chance of winning.
The most impact a third party has is to spoil the election for the closest of the two main parties.
I'd be ok if this were required learning material: http://www.cgpgrey.com/politic...
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
The main reason I'm neither Democrat nor Libertarian: I don't believe in either a big government or a small government.
I believe in multiple small governments, who together provide the necessary defense from external forces but which do not have the ability to concentrate (and thus corrupt) power absolutely.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I guess I must not be part of your political persuasion then, because damn. A lot of that list makes him look bad, but some of them make him look really good:
1) Rand Paul opposes gun control measures and voted with his party to filibuster the Manchin-Toomey amendment, which would've merely expended background checks to include internet sales and gun shows.
Good, good.
2) Rand Paul, like Ron Paul before him, has repeatedly objected to key provisions of the Civil Rights Act.
I'd have to see those "key provisions" to have an opinion on this one.
5) Rand Paul voted against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
Again, it's very possible there's some bad, terrible shit in there. I'd have to see his reasons for opposition before believing this to be a point against him.
7) Rand Paul is a fan of paleoconservative conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and has appeared on Jones' show numerous times. He's also endorsed his share of wild conspiracy theories.
Guilt by association.
9) Rand Paul has repeatedly voted to de-fund and repeal the Affordable Care Act, and would very likely do so as president. He's also spread "horror stories" about the law in Kentucky even though his state's exchange is one of the best in the nation.
He sounds good for the push for repealing. I would need to see these "horror stories" to determine anything about this part, though. Given this seems like a pretty left-wing site, the horror stories could have actually been legitimate objections which the left is so fond of labeling as hate/racism/sexism/etc.
12) Rand Paul supports the flat tax.
Is there ANYONE other than congressmen and their cronies who don't support this?
14) Rand Paul supports Voter ID laws, saying there's "nothing wrong" with them.
And what is wrong with them, exactly? I'm legitimately curious, I've never quite understood the problem with them. As long as there's a requirement not to allow which candidates/bills/etc were voted on to be tied or associated with the person or their ID, I just don't see the problem.
15) Rand Paul, in addition to a series of racially-questionable associates, is a supporter of both states' rights and nullification, archaic tent-post beliefs held by neo-Confederates.
As am I, States' Rights is perhaps the greatest issue facing our nation today. And nullification is the right of the jury; whether by design or intentional, it is indeed a good feature.
In fact, that last point alone if even a very good reason for me to vote for this guy. Shit, if he was a convicted serial rapist I would still have to think about it, that last point is just too strong.
The points I didn't quote are issues I'm not challenging, though. If they are accurate then, well, fuck.
Are you trying to promote Paul or bad mouth him? If you think libertarians are crazy, you ought to see their critics, amirite?