Shoot to Thrill

So there's a great deal of hand-wringing over the failure to pass a thoroughly mediocre background check law that might have stopped Jared Lee Loughner, but would definitely not have prevented the Sandy Hook shooting. The bill would not have passed the House in any case, but look -- it's well past time that this threaten-to-filibuster shit stops. Now.

The procedural rules of Congress need to change regardless. No more riders, on anything. Straight up-and-down votes, on everything, no more bills "losing" 54-46. You want to filibuster, get your fucking ass up there and take the time to do so.

This goes for both parties. Obama can get pissy about this if he wants, but he knows full well that his own party is complicit in this, that this bill got hung up in part because of several putatively Democratic senators. But those senators know there won't be any penalty for their perfidy, because the Democrats don't believe in enforcing party discipline.

As usual, both wings of the party of privilege are contributing to the problem. If you didn't know better, you might think this dysfunction was deliberate.