A Taste Of Things To Come: Far Right Senators Filibuster Extending Unemployment Insurance

H.R. 6867, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008, was introduced by Jim McDermott (D-WA) on September 10 and it passed overwhlemingly on October 3. Only the 28 most extreme right wing Republicans voted against extending unemployment insurance to the hardest hit American families who are the worst of the victims of the Bush Economic Miracle all these Republicans voted for. Most of them are neo-Nazi backbenchers and a few of the names are all too familiar to DWT readers, like Michele Bachmann (R-MN), of course, her lunatic fringe colleagues Paul Broun (R-GA), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Steve King (R-IA), Ron Paul (R-TX), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Doug Lamborn (R-CO) and now ex-Rep Bill Sali, whose irate constituents had the brains and the will power to repay him in kind on election day and obliterate his disgraceful career. One less real enemy of American families we won't have to worry about again!

So why bring this up today? Well, with the latest unemployment report showing jobless claims jumping to a 16 year high and the stock market crashing on fears of a "deep recession" (a polite way of saying a Depression)-- and even Bush agreeing to sign the bill-- the Senate, after all the weeping over Ted Stevens defeat-- finally got around to considering it.

And immediately the far right of the Republican Senate caucus announces a filibuster, which means the Democrats need 60 votes to pass it. Let's hope that all the filibusters are this easy to overcome in the coming couple years. The hard core lunatic fringe Republicans who refused to vote for it were:

Jim DeMint (R-SC), who thinks he should be the leader of the opposition
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
James Inhofe (R-OK)
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
John Barrasso (R-WY)
Michael Enzi (R-WY)

Bob Geiger couldn't find any kind words for this lot of scoundrels.

In one of the best Senate-floor speeches I ever heard Ted Kennedy (D-MA) give, he brutalized Senate Republicans for continuing to block the first increase in the minimum wage in almost a decade and roared to the other side of the aisle "What is it about working men and women
that you find so offensive?"

"What is it about it that drives you Republicans crazy? What is it?" asked Kennedy about GOP objections to raising the minimum wage rate. "What is the price that the workers have to pay to get an increase?"

...[S]uch fine gentlemen, these six Republicans, huh?

Hopefully, their evenings will be complete if they can only find a homeless child to kick on the way home.

Not just homeless, Bob-- sick and homeless, since these are the same legislators who have also opposed extending health care to needy children. Barrasso, Enzi and Inhofe were all just re-elected by the voters of Wyoming and Oklahoma, the majority of whom, apparently, are quite brain-dead.