There’s is no particular vote that he is fillibustering, he is just doing it because he can.

The NYT also theorized that he wanted to do this at some point anyway, because the record for longest continuous speech in the Senate is currently held by Strom Thurmond, while fillibustering the 1967 1957 Civil Rights bill, and Booker wanted to top it. He only has an hour or two to go to get there.

Don’t misgender him…

BUTT TIZZY MALES!!!

I don’t understand why some in this thread are so offended when it’s noted that it’s not a Filibuster, because it’s not blocking a vote. It doesn’t matter what we call it. He’s doing this to get some attention to certain issues, and it’s working. In many ways, it’s better that he does it when no critical vote is pending, because he can’t be accused of obstructionism.

People need to understand that, as the minority party in the Senate, all Democrats can really do is obstruct. And Republicans are counting on that obstruction, because it makes it easier to tear shit down. If Democrats simply refuse to let anything come to the floor, Republicans will just wait until the entire government defaults, and then blame it all on Democrats.

Democrats need to pick their battles carefully, and I think Booker did a good job here. Whether or not is actually blocks votes is besides the point.

… Thanks for linking to a source which confirms my interpretation, you did my work for me!

the term filibuster was first used in the 1850s when it was applied to efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to prevent a vote on a bill.

The Senate does not have a time limit on any speech like other bodies do. One a Senator has the floor, they can keep talking until they yield the floor.

A traditional Filibuster is when a Senator does this to postpone a particular vote. Since there was no vote pending, technically this doesn’t count as a Filibuster. Which means Booker can get the press coverage for doing this, without really holding up anything important.

I wonder what all those “uncommitted” Michigan voters are thinking now…

Not everyone, just people who weren’t born here. Or people who were, but who don’t look like they were. Or, people who just don’t “look right”…

Yeah, no way We’re letting a long haired, bearded freak into our church…

Of course not, the two cases are totally different. They’re so different, it’s like black and white…

Maybe that’s his defense, if he ever sees a trial over them. “You can’t prove my idiotic subordinates didn’t give them away before I could sell them!”

Next they should take back the Nordiques

Aw, it’s too bad that empathy is the downfall of Western Civilization, because I have none left for him.

The one thing we have going for us that might make a difference in the fact that the administration of elections is up to the individual states. So there is very little the President can do, on his own. Even the recent Executive Order targeting elections only threatened to stop Federal funding. States can (and will!) fund elections on their own if they have to.

We also have never postponed a Federal election, the date is set by Federal law and it has gone off without a hitch, even through a Civil War and all the wars and pandemics since. So he can declare “Marshall” Law all he wants, but States are free to ignore him and hold elections anyway.

Wisconsin has a lot of dairy farmers, and produces a lot of cheese. So much so that their football team’s fans wear those cheese hats and are often called “cheeseheads”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheesehead

They have lots of liquidity and are willing to take the hit to buy more at lower prices.

I bet before the end of the day we’ll hear about how Goldman Sachs, of all places, is full of RADICAL LIBERALS and has gone WOKE!

But there is nothing that prevents him from taking a position in the line of succession.

The Constitution left the matter of Presidential Succession up to Congress, and Congress set it up in the Presidential Succession act. That act includes clauses that say it only applied to those “eligible to be President” and not to those who have a "failure to qualify* for the office.

So, simply putting Trump in the line of succession is not enough to get around the Constitutional bar on a third term. He would still be ineligible. There is precedent to enforce this, too: there have been a handful of cabinet secretaries over the years who were not natural-born citizens, and they were not included in the line of succession. Madeline Albright is the one I remember; she was born in Prague and was not eligible despite being Secretary of State.

With all that said, succession is determined by Congress and I suppose they could just pass a law to do whatever they wanted. They’d have to blow up the Filibuster for it. Would they? It would surely get challenged in court but even if the Supreme Court disallowed it, would Trump listen? The Court would need to find a way to enforce it.

Idk how the USDS had money lying around in its budget for a bunch of new and unqualified GS-15s to just be added to the payroll like government billets aren’t painstakingly difficult to establish, but that is another question, I suppose

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if all the DOGEies are actually only getting paid a token amount by the government, or not getting paid by the government at all, but are getting paid directly by Musk. It’s probably illegal, but who’s gonna prosecute it?

That’s very generous of you, but I would advise against doing this secretly, for a few reasons.

First of all, the information needed to do this (like their loan account number) is considered personal financial information whose disclosure is protected. There is nothing preventing them from giving you the info willingly, but if you try and find it out without their knowledge you may be breaking the law.

Also, technically any gifts between people who aren’t directly related are treated as income by the US government, and there is technically tax owed on it. And yes, paying off a loan would still count as a gift. The threshold to trigger tax on a gift is high ($19k for 2025), but the tax is the liability of the giver, not the receiver. Depending on how big the gift is, you could be inadvertently opening yourself up for scrutiny by the US IRS. But if you are open about the gift and plan it with the recipient ahead of time, you can also do all the required tax planning to make sure you don’t run afoul of the IRS.

I don’t think I need to remind you that the legal climate regarding foreigners in the US on student visas is precarious right now. It would suck if your attempt at a secret gift ended up backfiring and ruining your plans for education in the US.

I was very confused by this quote, because I thought Luna was one of the authors of the proxy bill. But she is saying “Allowing proxy voting won’t destroy democracy”, she is still strongly in favor of the bill.

It’s noteworthy because they are trying to use a discharge petition to get around Speaker Johnson, who refuses to bring it to the floor to a vote because he says it’s unconstitutional. I bet if it makes it to the floor, it will pass. (And if they can demonstrate that a discharge petition will be successful, then there may be more in the future).

If this is denied, the next pregnant member should just give birth right on the House floor, and see what they think of that.