Congressman proposes enclosing Capitol gallery in Plexiglas
Published: June 22, 2009
Updated 5 months ago
A Republican Indiana congressman has a new plan to protect members of Congress from a terrorist attack: enclose the Capitol gallery with a Plexiglas shield.
In a little-noticed proposed amendment to a bill last week, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) sought a study to examine the feasibility of enclosing the Capitol gallery chamber with a protective shield.
“What this bill does is it would authorize a study to look at enclosing the chamber, the gallery chamber, with Plexiglas so that somebody can’t throw a bomb down on the floor and kill a lot of us,” Burton told the Rules Committee Thursday.
To the shock of onlooking congressmembers, Burton described how a terrorist could kill the lot of them. Someone could kill “half the Members of Congress right now,” he said.
“You could take a detonating device that looks like a watch so you could get through the metal detector,” Burton explained. “And when everybody was on the floor, as many as you wanted, you could put that into the plastic explosive, toss it out on the floor, and there is no way you would lose half of us if we were on the floor, at least, or more. I don’t know how much damage it would do.”
Plexiglas, he said, would protect legislators from a disaster –“and you can do it in a way that would be very attractive,” he quipped. “They do it in the Knesset in Israel.”
The Washington Post’s Mary Ann Akers noted: “Before rejecting his amendment, members of the committee stared at Burton dumbfounded, according to sources in the room, as if wondering to themselves how to delicately explain to the Indiana Republican that he may be more in need of Xanax than Plexiglas.”
Burton’s spokesman was quoted as saying his boss “hoped the Rules Committee would think outside the box.”
The Indiana legislator is most famously known for re-enacting the alleged murder of former Clinton aide Vince Foster by using a gun and a melon (the type of melon is in dispute).
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“Change” has arrived. OK that was crude.
Right, this is a good idea, then all someone would have to do is simulate an attack and release poison gas into the air system (which would obviously be needed).
Then all you need is one person with computer skills (computer training could be done in isolation, with virtually no cost), allowing any would be bad guy to avoid any detection through missile site, launch, missile tracking, destruction or all the manpower and cash to pull something like that off.
Or maybe we could just give this idiot the cash, so he would retire and stfu, it would be much in the long run.
It is the people’s house and the people’s capitol you DUMB ASS DICK!
OK I’m not positive about this but I’m pretty sure Xanax doesn’t cure insanity. But I am positive that anyone that could sneak a detonator and plastic explosive into the Senate Gallery wouldn’t be deterred by plexiglass. And I am positive that a contained blast does much more damage then an uncontained one. I’m also positive that this idiot Senator is very much in need of professional mental health care and will not get it anytime soon.
No parking near federal buildings.
Armed guards and metal detectors.
Concrete barriers and snipers.
Bomb-sniffing equipment.
This is what they Already have.
Maybe ensuring the liberty of The People would be better protection, since they can’t possibly plan for all contingencies.
I say we plant landmines in the Mall and not give a map to any politicians.
“They do it in the Knessit in Israel.” Yep, that’s what you have to do to run a genocidal, terrorist, police state…. Sounds like they’re getting a little worried about telling us that we have to die without health care, while they have the best in the world paid for by the peasants, so that they can afford to give billions away to their rich buddies, and to steal it through war profiteering. I’d be worried too. I mean, What would an old man with explosives experience and terminal cancer have to lose? Congressmen, Be afraid, be very afraid!
Ops excuse me that should be Congress not Senate in my comment. Same shit different idiots.
I think he said plexiglass because he was afraid to say titanium..that bullet proof material..!
What is our government afraid of?
I believe he’s been reading his e-mail and the comments section on many political websites. They should go ahead with Burton’s idea. Just don’t poke any holes in the Plexiglas bubble. That way they would suffocate from all the methane and we could be done with them.
The man is still nuts. I would have thought after the Bolivia and Clinton things he would have learned.
Goggle him and become acquainted with him
I guess that would be… with plexiglas goggles?
Sorry.
Seriously, how much crazier can Republicans get? It’s like any day now they’re gonna start having sex with small livestock on Pennsylvania Avenue while singing Judy Garland tunes.
And if they sell tickets….
Put plexiglass around that clown’s brain and isolate the problem that way.
His entire ego does not need to be encapsulated.
Gin Rummy …
yes, let’s separate congress from The People even more. They’re certainly not out of touch or anything.
If you’re pissing off _everybody_, you’re doing something wrong. In this case, VERY wrong.
Such as telling the richest people in the world you have their back and bail them out with a trillion dollars, but then tell the 99.9% of those who don’t get some of that “perk” that you can’t spend that same trillion on making sure they ALL can live disease and pain free. Make sure you cut millions from food stamps and welfare so you can spend 10s of millions on a giant plastic hat for your hot-air chamber.
LMAO - Burton sounds really ‘bright’.
He *should* be worried….
This guy is nothing but a hoekstra. They do it in Israel? Dude, in Israel, they have a country that’s been at war for years, they HAVE to do it. You, you pontificating idiot, have a much better chance of being mugged by your teenage mistress’ boyfriend in the privacy of your love nest. Someone should take this idiot and put him out to pasture. In a real barn. He’s no smarter than the other horses’ asses he’d be sharing space with.
And people actually elected this guy???? They must be some stupid motherfuckers!!!!!
Let Congress hold their meetings in Israel.
That is who they truly represent.
This doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with “terrorists”. It has to do with keeping US away from them, so that they don’t have to listen to us at all and worry about our anger and frustration coming back at them. That way they can do the bidding of their big money masters and won’t have to worry about the retribution of the American citizen at all. Kind of like how over 70% of us want single payer health care, and yet these scum bags won’t even discuss it.
It’s time to get rid of private money in ALL elections in this country and remove corporate personhood for our reality. We are getting screwed both ways from Sunday, and it’s shitheads like this jerk off who are helping do it. And for BIG money, too. These jerk offs are far too removed from their supposed public as it is, and now this fucker wants a wall there, so that we can watch them screw us and yet we can’t even have our say against what they are doing? FUCK NO.
Maybe this shit head needs to be reminded that if he weren’t a fucking sell out, he wouldn’t have to worry about us coming to get his sorry ass. If you don’t screw other people, then you don’t have to worry about them wanting to do you harm. Terrorists, my ass, he’s afraid of the American people. And HE SHOULD BE.
Dan, grow some stones you whiney little coward.
Congress has sold out the American people and they are terrified that when this whole thing comes crashing down they will be the target of the peoples anger. They are exactly 100% correct. Better build that glass wall now.
When politicians fear the people they serve, it is a sure sign they are doing something wrong.
And if this man is afraid in one of the most protected buildings in the world, perhaps he should just go back home and crawl under the sheets. Imagine trying to campaign as a man afraid to stand up in a place far safer than most of his constituents have to work.
I had a proposal to open the skylights above the house and senate chambers…to let sunlight shine on our legislative process. But we are too afraid for that to happen. What ’s happened to American resilience and take charge attitude. We seem to be loosing the war on great fear. And a legislator just announced his surrender.
“We seem to be loosing the war on great fear.”
Fear mongering has become the basis of American Reality. The girl I work with’s “first thought” about “living in an apartment” was “yeah, kids like playing with fire.. and if you’re in there when some kid is playing with matches… I wouldn’t like that”.
How many, exactly, “apartment fires” happen every year from kids playing with matches? As compared to the “non-apartment” fires across the country (from non-matches sources.. like stoves on, bad wiring, faulty appliances, etc etc)…?
I don’t want to live in an apartment because neighbors tend to be loud, and I would not be able to be loud without infringing on my neighbor’s quiet.. Seems a better reason to not want to live in an apartment than “I’m ascared!”.
She also can’t seem to get her head around “single payer”, she thinks that means humans and oversight automatically leave the picture, and “people will go to the doctor for no reason at all! [if it's free]“. WTF? Reality be damned, I guess.. and logic and reason, too.
How about wrapping yourself up in plastic, seal the job with duct tape and put a straw in your ass for food and pressing down on your keyboard.
With all due respect to Mr. Burton, a sudden loss of many congressmen would not cripple the government, not even a little bit.
For that reason alone it’s unlikely to be a target.
If all of Congress were to “disappear” tomorrow, we’d hold special elections the day after (well, it would take a few weeks to get it all moving)… it would be like they were taking one of their month long “recesses” where they try to drum up money for future elections..
But, you get a sense of just how self-important these pricks are.. delusionally so.
What if the terrorist brough two watches filled with plastic explosives? One for the plexiglass, the other for the floor. That would mean we need another layer of plexiglass, unless of course the terrorist bought three bombs.
If congress wants to know how important they really are they can just go home & watch how well D.C and the rest of the country gets along w/o them.
On the other hand if the garbage collecters go on strike watch what happens in a week or two w/o garbage pick up.
Now , who’s the really important person in the grand scheme of things?
To keep costs down I suggest starting with tin foil hats.
Seems to be a Congressman is inciting violence and describing exactly how to go about doing it.
There is a more low cost solution. The brave Senator from Indiana could resign and go home to hide in his basement.
care the Congress members so generously voted themselves.
Yeah Dan…great idea. When people fear the govt it’s called tyranny. When govt fears the people it’s called liberty. Maybe we’re headed in the right direction. Dan, at some point people are coming to you for some serious answers to questions about why their country has been destroyed…from within. At that time plexiglass won’t help.
Burton is proof positive that you can’t hide stupid.
Here’s a BETTER IDEA, Dan.. Why don’t you stupid fucks just GO TO ISRAEL and hide behind THEIR plexiglass barrier?
You’re already more interested in that 11 mile wide shit stain, AND THE PSYCHOTIC MURDERERS WHO INHABIT IT, than you are in serving your own constituents, so why not just remove the fucking pretense?
Fuck you..
If you spent a tenth as much time DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB and SERVING THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED YOU, them you MIGHT NOT NEED to live in a geranium. Ever think about that, genius? Eh?
I’ve got a better idea: how ’bout an IQ test for every sitting Congressperson where any member whose IQ is less than their shoe size must resign their seat and report immediately to a Burger King in their home district for more suitable employment.
Yes, Danny boy, I do want lids on those.
Why don’t we enter the USA in the reality show that exchanges geography and government with another country? I am all for Grand Fenwick.
Like a big plexiglass condom to protect this dick.