This is becoming a routine thing in the Senate since the Democrats were almost elected to oblivion. So are we now seeing 60 votes becoming the norm for legislation to pass? They aren’t even calling this a filibuster anymore. It’s an “obstacle.” Where are the Republicans? Why don’t the Republicans make these obstructionist Democrats actually filibuster? Make the Democrats stay right through the August recess and carry on minute by minute, hour by hour. It will make for great entertainment in a hot summer.

The sad story is that the Democrats aren’t actually filibustering anything. They just raise a sign or some such thing that says “filibuster” and the Republicans roll over and say, “Oh gee, I guess we’ll need 60 votes.” Is the Senate becoming a joke or what?

From NewsMax…

Senate Republicans will push for a vote this week on permanently repealing the estate tax even though the GOP appears to lack enough support to get past Democrats’ objections.

Lobbyists and lawmakers acknowledge they are several votes short of the 60 needed in the Senate to clear potential Democratic obstacles to a permanent repeal. The House passed a bill in April that would abolish the tax.

This latest “filibuster” issue centers around Democrats wanting your money when you die. For some odd reason they don’t want you to pass your hard earned savings to your children. They hide behind “the rich” when ironically it is they who are rich. It seems these politicians, however, always like to include loopholes that only rich people can afford to navigate in a “legitimate” effort to exclude political riches from confiscation.

Under Bush and the Republicans, the estate tax is scheduled to be eliminated in 2009. That helps millions of small business people, farmers, and folks who have been wise savers and investors. But in 2010 it reverts back to pre-Bush times when the government confiscated your estate unless you spent your time and resources hiring lawyers to create trusts or engage in other expensive schemes to avoid the confiscation. The average American not only can’t afford these expensive lawyers, but folks on Main Street, who have worked hard all their lives, don’t understand the complicated loopholes contrived by the rich Democrat politicians.

As further indication of the Democrat mindset, former Clinton economic advisor thinks that estate taxes go to pay Social Security benefits. What does that tell you about the current state of affairs in the Democrat Party?

NewsMax again…

“Way too many senators are more focused on the three wealthy donors they have met at their last fundraiser than they are at the millions of their constituents who will pay higher debt or get less Medicaid or Social Security benefits,” said Gene Sperling, former President Clinton’s economic adviser. He is now a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress.

Apparently Sperling doesn’t spend much time on Main Street. How about the millions of Americans who will pay higher taxes or have their savings confiscated by the government? Besides I thought Social Security was in good shape according to the Democrats. Why do they need oppressive estate taxes to fund it? I thought Social Security was the only ponzi scheme that actually works. Looks like Clinton was getting some pretty poor economic advice.

And then we have the shadow Senators who once supported repeal but now have “concerns”…

NewsMax…

Some senators who in the past have supported abolishing the tax joined the negotiations because they now worry that a repeal would worsen federal budget deficits.

Hey shadow Senators… ever consider cutting back your wasteful spending?

The Senate seems to be sliding into circus mode. The Democrats objective is to delay anything and everything through whatever means possible to get to the 2006 elections and into 2008. The Republicans are either too blind to see this or are willingly playing along in some closed door power broking of future promises. Some, no doubt, like being in the center ring anyway they can get there. If the Republicans believe anything the Democrats promise they are foolish. There is no credible reason to believe the Democrats in the Senate will keep their word or agreements whether it is to legislation, judges, or the elevated prestige of these shadow Republican Senators.

At the very least the Republicans in the Senate should be making the Democrats actually have to filibuster. What a spectacle that would be, time after time, legislation after legislation, nominee after nominee. That would be better than any campaign dollars the Republicans will spend. Just picture 45 bedraggled and enervated senators slouching over the podium babbling on like drunken bums everyday from now until the 2006 elections. They couldn’t do it. Some of them would die at the podium. Others would have to slip out the ol’ flask for a swig.

It would be priceless. Republicans, please stop depriving us of such great entertainment. And get on with the job. Use the rules. Make the Democrats actually, really, truly, in real time, day in and day out, hour by hour, filibuster.

Or make it 51 votes, the way it’s supposed to be.

Others commenting on this issue include: Joon Park, Pat Cleary, Not a Pundit, ISE Fire, Democratic Daily, Illinois Pundit.

Fox calls this a Payola Shocker. But is anyone really surprised?

The internal memos from Sony Music, revealed today in the New York state attorney general’s investigation of payola at the company, will be mind blowing to those who are not so jaded to think records are played on the radio because they’re good. We’ve all known for a long time that contemporary pop music stinks. We hear “hits” on the radio and wonder, “How can this be?”

Now we know. And memos from both Sony’s Columbia and Epic Records senior vice presidents of promotions circa 2002-2003 — whose names are redacted in the reports but are well known in the industry — spell out who to pay and what to pay them in order to get the company’s records on the air.

Fox News is reporting a quote by Gov. Tom Vilsack that is classic.

We’ve got to be for something, and it is pretty clear that America is waiting for us. They are desperate to know what we are for.

Just as soon as the polls tell them what they should be for I guess.