Republican Senators Demand Senate Clerk Read the Entire Boxer Substitue Amendment

I don't know if you folks are paying attention, but debate on the senate floor over the Lieberman/Warner Global Warming Bill has come to a screeching halt.

It appears that those mean old Republicans have forced the reading, word for word, of the entire Bpxer substitue Amendment. They are doing so apparently in protest of the slow processing, by Senate Democrat Leadership, of judicial nominees.

This from RedState.com:

Mitch McConnell shut down the floor today by forcing the clerk to read all 500 or so pages of Barbara Boxer’s climate change bill, making it essentially impossible for anything to happen in the Senate all day (or, technically, until the reading is complete).

In addition to stopping all progress on the legislation currently on the floor, this action will have the effect of throwing off Reid’s entire legislative calendar (yes, the same one he somehow "forgot" to add those promised pre-Memorial Day confirmation votes to).

There are few things the minority can do in the Senate more disruptive to the Majority than removing their ability to manage the floor. Reid and Boxer (D-CA) have been seen very agitatedly conversing on the floor during the reading (clearly, Boxer neither wants to hear, nor wants anybody else to hear, her bill read in so public a location as the Senate chamber).
McConnell's action is designed to send a very specific message to Reid, Boxer, Leahy, and the rest of the Senate Democrats that Republicans will not stand by while they hedge, obstruct, and otherwise refuse to move on the nominations of qualified judges to the bench.

This is really, really boring television, but it is entertaining as a tool to block any progress on the Global Warming Bill without invoking a filibuster and it's not subject to a cloture vote.

Of course like all actions of goverment, the people who really suffer are the workers in the Senate chambers who are forced to sit and listen to the endless drone about section this, paragraph number that, subsection the other and the poor clerks who are forced to read all of the drivel that Boxer's brigade of lawyers dreamed up in writing this 500 page exercise in vanity.

The Democrats have got to be really steamed at this inactivity. I missed the opening this morning but I am certain that Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer and their partners in crime were eloquent in their expression of self-righteous indignation at being forced to have the entire text read aloud into the record.

The really cool thing is that the only statements that can be made from the floor is to request a unanimous consent to dispense with the reading, something McConnel and his fellows are unlikely to allow.

Thus this massive attempt at government takeover of the entire energy sector of the economy will be exposed and can be closely examined by the public.

To quote Little Richard, "We're havin' some fun tonight (or today)."

You know the thought occurs to me that this should be standard operating procedure in the Senate...just think of all the legislative interference that could be stymied and how few bills would ever get passed.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!

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