By some sad twist of fate, Ted Cruz, a man whose face is regularly broadcast to millions of television viewers, does not possess a face that is pleasing to the eye. What’s worse, he’d now like to openly display that face to the public for hours on end: the Senator from Texas has promised a filibuster.
After a half-day filibuster that was controversially halted by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Republicans in the Texas Senate scrambled to quickly pass the equally controversial abortion bill SB5, but were halted themselves by two hours of motions and parliamentary inquiries from Democrats trying to run out the clock on Gov. Rick Perry's special session.
Shortly after 10 PM CDT, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, in hour 11 of her historic filibuster to prevent an anti-abortion bill from passing, received her third point of order or warning, effectively meaning that the filibuster was over. Except it wasn't. The crowd erupted in protest and Senators have spent the past 40 minutes or so debating whether the point of order violated the Senate's rules. Watch live below:
Republicans care about due process again! Or, at least, they did for 12 hours yesterday while Kentucky Senator Rand Paul stood on the Senate floor filibustering President Obama's nominee for director of the CIA, John Brennan. And as grossly disingenuous as it is to see people like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas—seen here in the National Review condemning John Kerry's "flip-flops" and lauding George W. Bush's national security policies—and right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin—who wrote an entire book defending the WWII internment of Japanese Americans—suddenly start caring about the rule of law, at least someone is: only one Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon, joined Paul on the floor, and even then admitted that he would vote to confirm Brennan. But the Republican caucus appears to have undergone a remarkable political shift, thanks apparently to the popularity of the filibuster on Twitter, and by the end of the night Paul was joined by the senior senator from Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who announced he would oppose Brennan's nomination. Maybe if we can make it trend on Twitter we can get one party to oppose extrajudicial assassination on non-American citizens, too. [NYT | Mother Jones | NRO | BuzzFeeᴅ]
As of this writing, Rand Paul's filibuster protesting potential legal drone assassinations on American soil was entering its eleventh hour. In addition to support across Twitter as well as lots of concern about when/how Paul's going to the bathroom, the filibuster featured a memorable moment from the Republican Party's number one rap fan, Marco Rubio. As the the filibuster's resident wannabe Afrika Bambaataa scholar, Rubio peppered his speech with references to "modern day poet" Wiz Khalifa, Jay-Z, and the "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse" scene in The Godfather. Let's hope this filibuster never ends.
The Senate: It actually functioned in the past week! But that was only after election pressure on moderate Republicans died down. Endless Republican obstruction will continue next year, more painfully. Will Democrats dare to change the "sacrosanct" Senate rules?
