You stop an investigation only when you are guilty (#4501)

      The guilty only have one way of avoiding punishment and that is to not allow an investigation into their crime. Such is what we had yesterday with the republicans in the senate who voted not to investigate the storming of the US capitol by their supporters on January 6, 2021. Needing 60 votes to pass the legislation that would have created a bipartisan commission to investigate the full scope of the capitol insurrection, the bill failed because republicans voted against it and then many of them didn't even bother to vote. The democratic caucus in the senate is only 50 senators so they could not reach the 60 vote threshold by themselves that the filibuster rule requires and not enough of the small handful of republicans who did vote for the bill could get it to 60 votes.
     There are two subjects here that are different but very important. First the treasonous stance that republicans in the senate took yesterday is shocking but given their trends not unexpected. They have long been the party of the wealthy and they would just as soon now have an autocratic government than a democratic one. This by itself should give every US American reason to never vote for a republican again but alas that is not how low our overall intelligence of our electorate has fallen. Too many would follow the republican party right off a cliff and stubbornly flip the rest of us off as they were in free fall to their deaths. It is a conundrum as to how to solve this wasteland created by ignorance but we shall endure.
     The other area of concern is the 60 vote threshold needed to even begin to debate a bill for a vote up or down in the senate. This rule, called the filibuster is a self imposed rule by senators to keep their chamber of legislating looking more like the English House of Lords than an equal chamber of government with the House of Representatives here in our government. They, the senate, like to think of themselves as a more serious deliberative body but nothing could be further from the truth. They are an obstacle to democracy instead and until they do away with their impossible to legislate rule the worst of what will happen to our democracy is still to be revealed. Never voting for a republican again and ending the filibuster, two things that all of our electorate should hold as foundational.