Sen. Jim Bunning (R) of Kentucky, who has occasionally seemed mentally unstable in recent years, is single-handedly blocking a bipartisan measure to extend unemployment benefits for Americans out of work, which has also led thousands of transportation workers to be furloughed without pay today.
Today, Democrats tried once again to garner unanimous consent to end this fiasco. And for the seventh time, Bunning blocked passage.Despite warnings of hardships for the unemployed and highway workers, Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning on Monday again held up legislation that extends unemployment and health insurance benefits.Benefits for about one million Americans stopped Sunday night after Bunning objected last week to an attempt to fast-track a bill that would have extended payments.Bunning is feeling some heat over this, and he's not handling the pressure especially well. The senator has a bit of a run-in with the media today on the Hill, and resorted to flipping off an ABC News journalist this afternoon.
And given the scope of Bunning's truly ridiculous obstructionism, the bizarre right-wing senator seems to actually flipping off the entire country.
Here's a list of transportation projects that have come to a halt because Jim Bunning is throwing a temper tantrum, and here's how it's affecting small businesses.
And, as Steve later discovered, doctors are experiencing issues due to Bunning's issues as well.
When one man can fuck up the country like this, it's time to seriously rethink the role of the Senate in modern American government.
3 comments:
Maybe we should seriously rethink what kind of people we elect to office? This is hardly Bunning's first meltdown, and he's been abetted by the behavior of the Republicans generally.
When people stop worrying less about what color a candidate is, what his (or her) gender preferences are, and what his religion is than about his qualifications, I think that the quality of people in the Senate will improve rather dramatically.
I keep getting the impression that you don't actually have to talk to filibuster, just say "Please assume I am talking for 15 hours" as long as the rest of them say ok. Sod that, make the bastard wet him self.
That's correct, Last Hussar. In reality, all the "filibusters" have just been failures to get a cloture vote, which requires 60 votes. There are also instances, like this one with Bunning, where a Senator can decline to give consent to some procedure, and then the Senate is stuck.
In many ways, it's a crazy system.
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