I'm not sure I understand the recent filibuster thing that
happened. This might be because I get all my news from
Comedy Central's The Daily Show and
GamingReport.com, but if an uninformed American like
myself can't understand what's going on in the world from
hearing ten second sound bites on the radio while I'm
commutting to work, there is something wrong with the
world. (Although I wouldn't know about it because of the
lack of a good sound bite.)

From what I've gathered, the Democrats don't want to
appoint a specific judge, but even if they all vote against the
nominee, the Republicans will pass the nomination anyway.
So the only way the Democrats can stop the judge from
being nominated is to filibuster. (Which I don't quite
understand because can't the Republicans wait until the
person doing the filibuster just wait until he or she shuts
the hell up and then vote on the nomination?)

This upset the Republicans because even though the
Democrats didn't stop something around 2900 judicial
nominees from being appointed, they now say that because
the Democrats are stopping this batch, they're not playing
fair. To be fair, the Democrats should just roll over and let
the Republicans have their way. At least, that's what it
sounds like to this uninformed citizen.

So then, the Republicans schedule this long thirty-hour
ordeal where both sides alternate, talking for thirty minutes
at a time about why they're talking for thirty hours for some
reason.

So my questions are:

Isn't a filibuster supposed to be something where someone
stands up and starts talking in order to delay passage of a
bill or nomination? Why didn't the Democrats just do this?

If they were doing this, how did this thirty-hour thing
become scheduled?

What's the point of the thirty-hour session? Won't the
Democrats resume their filibuster as soon as the session
ended?

Color me confused.

-FP