Students Filibuster Frist .:. grubbykid.com

Students Filibuster Frist

From Josh Marshall comes this heartening story: students at Princeton have started a Filibuster outside the Frist Campus Center - yes, that Frist - and have been going strong since 11 a.m. on Tuesday. Speaking continuously for over 48 hours, through heavy rain, reading the Constitution, phone books, judicial nominee bios, and whatever reading material they have at hand. The students are protesting the ~~Nuclear~~ Crybaby Option which Senator Frist is set to detonate anytime soon.

The students have also jury-rigged a live webcam of the Filibuster - which is cool in its' own right. Here are photos from the Filibuster - the night shots are amazing, showing citizens exercising their rights even if no one shows up.

The Princeton Filibuster is the closest anyone will get to the triumphal scene in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, where James Stewart filibusters a vote to expel his character. The real Filibuster will never match Capra's scene.

Of course, some have poo-poo'd their protest:

"It is almost, if not completely, unprecedented for judicial nominees to be filibustered," said Dylan Hogarty '06, president of the College Republicans. "I don't think [the Princeton students] are going to make much of a difference."

Which is a dirty, dirty lie - this chart (pdf) created by People For the American Way from data provided by the Congressional Research Service, lists the judicial and executive branch nominees filibustered prior to the current administration. Nearly two-thirds of the them were staged by Republicans in the Senate. Two things Mr. Hogarty: lying makes the Baby Jesus cry and do you like apples?

For more information, check out Frist protest continues for third day and The Official Frist Filibuster Webcam @ Princeton University.

Update 29 Apr 2005
And the students are still at it, going 70 hours strong! I tuned into the live webcam last night, and they were still going strong, albeit with a flood light so that everyone could see the Filibuster continue. The story has hit the AP Wire, no doubt helped by their Press Release (quite savvy). There are some new photos showing their jury-rigged webcam. Josh Marshall is asking technical people to help out with the webcam situation, in order to get the live feed back.

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Comments

A Filibusterer says:

Great work on the write-up and thanks for highlighting what is an outright lie by the president of the campus republicans. The event is generating so much support on campus, there's a reason why we've been able to go for hours and hours -- students just keep on showing up and asking to speak. It's a really wonderful feeling.

Posted by: A Filibusterer at April 29, 2005 12:11 AM #

plemeljr says:

No problem! Keep it up! I hope people are bringing food and drinks for all of you. I wonder how long you will be able to keep it up - if you make it through the weekend, it would be quite a feat.