tdurden21 wrote:jethro wrote:
I was being sarcastic there. It is hard to think of a government more riddled with sheer incompetence and hypocritical bullshit than America's, though it does compensate by being among the most entertaining governments.
I completely agree. There are a lot of people who actually like it when the Senate is in a filibuster or something cos those fools can't pass their senseless laws and pork barrel spending. The best was when Clinton was being impeached. There were no new bills and good jokes on Letterman and Leno.
The filibuster is one of the most important tools, if not the most important one, in the Senate. If forces negotiations between both parties and at the end, it is to the benefit of the people (that is, most of the time. It doesn't always work out that way). If the Senate was almost identical to the House, there would be no point to having two houses in Congress. The Senate has always been considered the most competent and most formal of both houses (they still use roll call votes). They are very different from the House and that's what makes it special.
Believe or not, filibuster is rarely used in the Senate. It is mostly used for large or radical pieces of legislation. It cannot even be used when the budget is being voted on (there is a little process called reconciliation that allows a simple majority to pass the budget proposals).
For scholars, a filibuster proof majority is not such a big deal as the news make it out to be. For us, we see it as an election accomplishment rather than "it's going to make it easier to pass anything through the Senate."
With respect to the impeachment trial. According to Senate rules, you cannot have any bills on the table while the impeachment trial is ongoing. It is also kind of impossible to be working on more than one thing one someone is getting impeached and you are supposed to be the jury.
ME! 
