To join any political conversation you need to know what you're talking about,
it's very very important, right?
Of course!
I don't know if you've heard about Donald Trump at all,
he's our new president
but you might want to talk to somebody about Donald Trump,
you might want to have a conversation
and here are a bunch of peculiar words we have to talk about what's going on
Before we begin, I'm gonna make a deal with you
I'm not gonna make any Trump jokes
and I'm not gonna make any English food jokes
Deal?
Deal!
I just have to...
Perfect
One little change
One change
So the first word is "Filibuster"
Senator Rand Paul began a filibuster
The filibuster
Filibuster
Oh the filibuster!
We have to get rid of the filibuster rule!
I never thought I'd see the day when the whole country was talking about the filibuster!
What exactly is a filibuster?
Turn to camera one!
So what is a filibuster?
Filibuster is a word that describes a
process that happens during the debating of legislation.
In the United States Senate there are a hundred senators
let's say your side only has 48 votes,
the other side has 52 votes
theoretically you should lose right
yeah
because 52 is more than 48
however if you were to filibuster it means you
would debate the issue for so long that you wouldn't be able to get to any other
legislation and theoretically if you're really good at filibustering you'd be
able to filibuster it for so long that the other side even though they
have 52 will just throw their hands up in the air and say
"I quit I give up it's done we have to get to all of our other business"
that being said,
You can't always filibuster
If you have 60 votes, you are able to override a filibuster
It takes 50 votes to pass legislation, but it takes 60 to end debate
Okay so the general concept is
"Okay you've got almost half, maybe I can convince you to
vote the other way if I speak long enough"?
Yes, theoretically it is but it's
That's not what it does, it's a stall tactic
So I think I get it, but I think we need to show people...
an example
Alright, so what is some legislation that you have 55 votes on, Aly?
I want to introduce a new rule that means
bald men have "handsome-man status"
ooh! that's exciting, and there are a lot of bald men
in fact 55 percent of men are bald
and everybody agrees they're not handsome yet
so seemingly I should win!
Well yes, that being said
As a man with luscious, luscious, luscious locks,
I don't want bald to be handsome!
I think we can all agree it won't be handsome
So, we're all ready to vote, right?
It's time to vote? Are you ready to vote
I'm ready to vote
Are you ready to vote?
Wait... we have to have a little more debate
Okay fine
We are here today
To debate senator Aly Williams' "Bald is beautiful" bill
"Bald is beautiful"?
Is it? Is it not?
Do we need to legislate this?
Before we go any further I would like to
bring to attention this, this piece is titled "Green eggs and ham" by Dr. Seuss
Let me read this to make sure we are all aware of the issue at stake
I am Sam
Sam I am
I do not like them, Sam I am, I do not like green eggs and ham
I will eat them in a box
and I will eat them with a fox
I will eat them in a house
and I will eat them with a mouse
I will eat them here or there
I do so like green eggs and ham
Thank you Thank You, Sam I am
Well look at the time
I guess there's no more time for debate today
but maybe tomorrow we'll get to vote on the "Bald is Beautiful" bill!
Oh come on!
Thank you and I rest my case
Filibuster: Should or shouldn't have?
Ideal world? Filibuster yes!
Personally I'm pro-filibuster
I personally am a huge fan of
these systems in the United States Senate that cool democracy
that can kind of slow things down
I believe this was a phrase than the English might enjoy
When you drink tea, there's a saucer right? There's a saucer thing?
"The Senate is the saucer that cools the tea of democracy"
The idea is for the entire American system
American system the idea is that it runs slowly
that things can't happen fast
because when fast things happen bad things can happen too
The idea is if we are inherently slow,
our slowness will prevent any bad things from happening
I feel smarter already
I hear the terms "partisan" and "bi-partisan"
and your organisation is "non-partisan"
precisely
What's the difference? What is "partisan"?
So essentially in America, we have two major parties
The Democrats and the Republicans
"Bi-partisan" means it's something that brings both parties together
"Partisan" means benefiting one of the parties
So, I don't know, a policy that says
"Republicans get free pizza and Democrats have to be their footstools"
That would be a very partisan policy,
and then "non-partisan"
means you're not working with either of the parties
What is a partisan Democrat issue?
In 2017, a partisan Democratic issue might be fighting global warming
What would a partisan Republican issue be?
Making sure that to vote you need to bring a state-issued ID
and what would a bipartisan issue, which is something they both agree on
A bipartisan issue
might be the NSA or the National Security Agency
it seems like both parties are big fans of listening to our phones
I want to know what you're saying late at night
"This new McCarthyism!"
"This reminds me of the McCarthy hearings"
"Reminiscent of Senator Joe McCarthy's abusive tactics"
"Have you no decency, sir?"
"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"
I'm assuming it's something bad
Yes
McCarthyism refers to kind of an unwarranted witch-hunt
so it's named after former Senator
Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin
and what he was known for was making these crazy allegations
that communists had infiltrated the entire United States government
and this is him holding a piece of paper
that may or may not be evidence of 115 communists in the State Department
as it turned out
there were not 115 secret communists working in the State Department
Shockingly
Shockingly there were not.
Communists didn't infiltrate our government
So he goes after somebody in the military
The lawyer that was defending the person accused of communism
at one point got up and said
very famously on nationally televised TV
"Have you no decency, sir?"
To McCarthy, and it turns out he may or may not have had any decency
Have you no sense of decency, sir?
When people are saying that Trump is colluding with Russia would that be "McCarthyism"?
What would be more 'McCarthyism' is if a Democrat were to get up and say
"There are 38 Russian agents in the Trump administration
we need to get every Russian agent out of the Trump administration"
"The Supreme Court announcing they will take up a major case on political gerrymandering"
"Gerrymandering"
"The public needs to know that they have been fooled!"
What the hell is a gerrymander?
Why do we.. what? What?
So essentially "Gerrymandering" refers to the process of dividing of the districts
The people who are going to vote
The idea is that we all want representation in Congress
and our Congress people represent small local areas
So the state of Iowa has four different congressmen that go to Washington DC
in addition to two senators
These numbers represent individual congressional districts
Every two years district one gets together and decides
"Do we want to..." theoretically they could send whoever they want
but it's probably going to be between a Democrat and Republican
This is how theoretically it should be!
as you can see this, this makes sense
Iowa is a state where computers drop the district's literally
Literally they have a software a quote-unquote "nonpartisan software"
That decides, "Okay this is however many people fit here, this many people fit here"
and as you see,
They're not perfect squares they're not perfect rectangles
But it all kind of makes sense
So this would not be quote-unquote "gerrymandered"
are properly drawn districts
it's visually appealing
I'm excited
Do you want to see how a gerrymandered state might look like?
I would love to see it
You would love. Alright
So let's move over to our friends in Maryland
So obviously six over here and one over here are gonna be weird
shaped because the states weird shaped
however if you look very very closely
district 4 kind of is a hat on top of district 5 and then 1 has this weird
thing over here and 7 looks like it's eating 2 and 3
If Picaso were to district a state, create congressional districts,
this might be what we end up with
but why would you want to change the lines from a square so this squiggly mess?
So in the state of Maryland, Democrats control the state house
so when they draw up these districts they're gonna cut up the pie
in a way to make sure that as many of these districts are gonna lean to the
Democrats as possible
But then if your senator is Republican
They could redraw these lines
Exactly, so these lines are drawn every 10 years
after the census we have a census we count everybody
and then we redraw all the lines every 10 years
and it's not like one party does gerrymandering,
both parties do this
and in fact actually sometimes both parties partner together
to gerrymander to kind of screw other people over
so they do this to stay in power
you will cut these up
and you will have these
"perversions of democracy", so to speak
because look at these, these are gross
only a pervert could enjoy
Okay but this is allowed, right?
It's not like a secret thingy?
It's an American tradition
Theoretically our elected officials vote on their conscience
but in practice they do what we all do,
and they just do whatever the fuck they can to not lose their job
so really what would have to happen is...