"Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE), joining a parade of Republican Senators angry that a minority of Senators can no longer obstruct President Obama's judicial and executive nominees, took to the Senate floor Friday to compare his caucus' plight to that of abolitionists in the 1800s — a comparison that probably would have shocked abolitionists from the 1800s. Indeed, for much of the Nineteenth Century, the Senate's anti-majoritarian design played a crucial role in thwarting efforts by abolitionists to eliminate the South's "peculiar institution."
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JOHANNS: They can appoint the entire judiciary of the United States in the District Courts and in the Circuit Courts with absolutely no involvement whatsoever from the minority. None. That's what their rule change did. Let me take that rule change and think out loud about where we put ourselves as a country. I wonder who was the first United States Senator in our history who came to the floor and said, "My fellow Senators, I have thought about this, I have contemplated it, maybe I have even prayed about it. And I believe the day has arrived to end slavery in the United States. And I will be attaching an amendment to every bill to end that horrific practice. I'll bet they were a very lonely United States Senator at that point in time. But I'm also guessing that that Senator and tenacious other Senators along the way exercised their rights as a minority and as an individual United States Senator to continue to force that issue. What a courageous, remarkable thing to do.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/12/13/3061211/mike-johanns-slavery-nominations/"
http://assholeoftheday.us/post/70198739014/is-mike-johanns-asshole-of-the-day
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