The Only Way to End Gridlock

The GOP has abused the Supermajority rule by making everything a filibuster.  It's the Tea Partyfication of the Senate.  The tyranny of the minority.

Ezra Klein says...it's unconstitutional:

In 1806, the Senate, on the advice of Aaron Burr, tried to clean up its rule book, which was thought to be needlessly complicated and redundant. One change it made was to delete something called “the previous question” motion. That was the motion senators used to end debate on whatever they were talking about and move to the next topic. Burr recommended axing it because it was hardly ever used. Senators were gentlemen. They knew when to stop talking. 

That was the moment the Senate created the filibuster. But nobody knew it at the time. It would be three more decades before the first filibuster was mounted — which meant it was five decades after the ratification of the Constitution. “Far from being a matter of high principle, the filibuster appears to be nothing more than an unforeseen and unintended consequence of the elimination of the previous question motion from the rules of the Senate,” Bondurant writes. 

And even then, filibusters were a rare annoyance. Between 1840 and 1900, there were 16 filibusters. Between 2009 and 2010, there were more than 130. But that’s changed. Today, Majority Leader Harry Reid says that “60 votes are required for just about everything.”
At the core of Bondurant’s argument is a very simple claim: This isn’t what the Founders intended. The historical record is clear on that fact. The framers debated requiring a supermajority in Congress to pass anything. But they rejected that idea.

He goes on to talk about how the Framers were against a supermajority being used just to humiliate the President and block all his initiatives.  Sound familiar.

Somebody take this to the Supreme Court...ASAP.

Elizabeth

Candidate for Massachusetts Democratic Senatorial nomination, Elizabeth Warren:

I like how Obama and Warren are attacking the GOP "class warfare" smear head-on.

And lest we forget, she spoke so intelligently on the financial crisis and need for reform, she made Jon Stewart horny.

The Main Man

President Barack Obama once again flipped the story around with his now patented strong finish, closing out this session of Congress with a flurry of wins that have him looking pretty darn strong again. His press conference today was excellent, the best in ages, as he touted the wins, spreading the credit and dropping the type of answers we didn't hear in the previous eight years, including this one in response to a Jake Tapper question regarding the future of marriage equality in light of DADT repeal:

As I've said, my feelings about this are constantly evolving. I struggle with this. I have friends, I have people who work for me, who are in powerful, strong, long-lasting gay or lesbian unions. And they are extraordinary people, and this is something that means a lot to them and they care deeply about. At this point, what I've said is that my baseline is a strong civil union that provides them the protections and the legal rights that married couples have. And I think that's the right thing to do. But I recognize that from their perspective it is not enough. And I think this is something we're gonna continue to debate, and I personally am gonna continue to wrestle with going forward.

I'll take that as a yes. For the record, here's a list of some of his biggest accomplishments in just two years, with the latest being DADT repeal, START missile treaty ratification and the 9/11 responders bill passage (two of those much thanks to the also underestimated Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) who just got a nice NY Times piece on her accomplishments).

Here's our President and VP Biden with the emotional audience at the DADT repeal signing:



And, as a final treat, this incredibly moving video of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) both when he received Lt. Dan Choi's West Point ring in July and today, after passing the bill, he gave it back:



God bless America.

More Winning to Come?

So is Obama about to get Senate approval of his START nuclear treaty with Russia, now that enough Republicans are saying they'll support the President? Even with bitter, twisted John McCain taking out his anger over DADT repeal on it?

And he's getting some his judicial nominees passed, finally, even if a few good ones have to fall as bargaining chips?

I know many of my friends on the Left are unhappy with Obama compromises, but he's not looking very Jimmy Carterish this week. Not at all.

A'Courting We Shall Go

Per the top-notch blogging by Andrew Pincus on Talking Points Memo, on her first day responding to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan did just fine. She actually had a great line that I heard replayed on the radio, to which I laughed out loud:

...during her discussion of terrorism-related legal issues with Senator Graham, he began a series of questions about the failed Christmas Day bombing of the plane headed for Detroit by asking where Kagan was on Christmas Day. Kagan: "like all Jews I was probably at a Chinese restaurant."

I have to say I was prepared to hear her remark that like all Jews she was at the movies, but now that everyone of all religions seems to go to the movies on Christmas, her answer was funnier.

Meanwhile, after slamming deceased Supreme Court Justice and Civil Rights giant Thurgood Marshall yesterday, it appears the GOP Senators who did so can't name a single decision of his as an example of the "activism" they alleged.

Kagen and Marshall

Looks like Obama's current Supreme Court nominee is causing division in the ranks. She doesn't have much of a record to attack and some (not radical) conservative judges she's worked with like her. But check out that link for the histrionics from the far right, especially blood-on-his-hands anti-abortion leader Randall Terry.

Meanwhile, the GOP Senators seem to think they are debating whether to confirm deceased Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Nice way to further alienate minority support for the party...kind of like arguing settled law that most people like. Except, maybe, racists. Since they have nothing else to do with this hearing, could this be a cynical play to the base?

Hmm.

Have I Got a Deal for You

Yet another language taboo falls, courtesy Goldman Sachs and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI):

What will be the last taboo word?

Reform Really Coming?

So financial industry reform...how tough will it be? (Break 'em up!!)

Senate progressives offer hope, if their amendment passes:

Stressing the need for more competition among smaller banks and increased business lending, the senators believe that the largest financial institutions present too much risk to our economy to keep them around. They have the support of the Main Street Alliance, a group of progressive-leaning small business owners who have advocated for strong financial reform and set themselves up in opposition to the Chamber of Commerce.

The bill's central points:

• Imposing a strict 10 percent cap on any bank-holding-company’s share of the United States’ total insured deposits
• Reducing the maximum amount of non-deposit liabilities at financial institutions (to 2 percent of United States GDP for banks, and 3 percent of GDP for non-bank institutions)
• Setting into law a 6 percent leverage limit for bank-holding companies and selected non-bank financial institutions

These steps would require several of the largest banks to, in effect, break themselves up to come in under the limits that this law would create. While most of the existing legislation in the House and Senate contains gestures toward these ideas, this is the first time they've been proposed as statutory limits, something called for by a number of public figures, including several Midwestern regional Federal Reserve presidents and former Fed Chair Paul Volcker.

Godspeed.

While It Lasts

It seems clear to me that the Massachusetts Dems won't make a mistake next time with some weak-tea machine candidate without the common touch, so that means the supposed comer Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) has to be pretty damned good to keep the job.

Something tells me he'll be a one-partial-term Senator:

Asked by the Boston Globe how he'd like to see the bill improved, Brown fumbled -- appearing not even to know what it was he wanted changed in order to garner his support.

Brown left open the possibility that he could support a compromise.

"I want to see when it's going to come up, how it's going to come up,'' he said. "I'm always open to trying to work something through so it is truly bipartisan.''

Brown, whose vote could be critical as Democrats seek to find a GOP member to avoid a filibuster, assiduously avoided talking about specifics.

When asked what areas he thought should be fixed, he replied: "Well, what areas do you think should be fixed? I mean, you know, tell me. And then I'll get a team and go fix it.''

Even the Globe struggled to explain Brown's position: "He appeared to oppose the creation of a consumer protection agency within the Federal Reserve. 'It’s more government, it’s more government regulation at a time when businesses are trying just to pay their bills,' he said. 'Is that good? . . . If it’s an area we need to fix, then I’m certainly open to it. But I haven’t heard that that’s the biggest thing that’s problematic with it.'"

It sure won't help him -- and possibly hurt him further with the 'baggers -- if he continues to take the solid party-line position with his GOP against even debating banking reform. Especially when those banks are getting indicted.

Scott was in the right place at the right time and has obvious retail skills. He'll be out in 2012, when more Dems are swept in on the coattails of President Barack Obama, whose landslide victory could not have been predicted back in the early health care reform passage days of 2010.

From the Inside Out

According to the creators of the new SyFy show, Caprica, the premise of the series is that Caprica is beautiful and technologically advanced on the outside, but completely corrupt to the core on the inside.

Think maybe that might be a comment on our times?

I just watched The Daily Show report on how banks are jacking up credit card fees right and left, in advance of new regulations going into effect. They can even charge you for underutilizing your credit card -- charging you for not buying things!

Good luck to Obama attempts to reform Wall Street, which is clearly rotten on psychotic profiteering and won't change their ways without a deathmatch loss.

And I just watched the moron who made a name for himself by moronic behavior, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) repeating over and over again that we have the best health care system in the world, when that is demonstrably false. (Credit to Dylan Rattigan for calling him out.) Meanwhile the GOP is playing pouty games over the possibility that we actually get comprehensive reform, saying instead there should be either no real reform or, worse, piecemeal reform -- the kind that doesn't work because it doesn't address all the interrelated elements of the existing system.

Hey, but the health insurance companies are currently -- I kid you not -- exempt from anti-trust laws! So we must have the best system!

Then we've got red states going nuts expanding gun rights for nuts, playing on the fear that Obama will someone take their guns away -- even though he doesn't talk about the issue and has neither proposed nor offered support for any new gun restricting legislation. This, as more guns go off in Littleton, CO schools.

And can you believe that the U.S. military is riddled with private mercenaries, i.e. armed contractors? Good luck to House Dems trying to phase them out -- when the Republicans in the Senate have bottled up 290, count 'em, 290 pieces of legislation passed by the House.

Per BAGnewsNotes, you just can't deal with these people. It's all about money, that and inability to synthesize new information and grow with it. It's a recipe for disaster for America's future, and that includes any Democratic enablers.

It'll leave us to continue rotting from the inside out.

Reconcile This

So Harry Reid is finally helping out:

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced on Friday afternoon that he would work with other Democrats and the White House to pass a public option through reconciliation if that's the legislative path the party chooses...

...This represents a major breakthrough for those Senators and activists who are pushing to get a public option considered via an up or down vote.

I can't say I've terribly optimistic about its passage, although (a) the number of Senators supporting it has grown, including relatively conservative Dems like Feinstein and Spector, and (b) the California health insurance company Anthem Blue Cross (a subsidiary of Wellpoint, where retiring Sen. Evan Bayh's wife works) is paving the way by hiking premiums an alarming 30-40%, acting as bellweather for what Americans nationwide can expect from private insurance in the months and years to come.

The public option will take exceptional political courage to pass -- not because Americans don't want it, because they do, but because of the media led by Fox News elites posing as populists to help corporate interests by misleading their constituents.

Like I said, not terribly optimistic, but would love to be surprised.

Bayh Bayh

Maybe a Republican will win his seat, but at least it'll be someone you can rely on for something.

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) has never shown either the intellect or the courage of his father, Birch Bayh, who actually dragged Ted Kennedy to safety from a plane crash they were in together, who lost his own Senate seat to Dan (yep!) Quayle in the 1980 Republican sweep election that seemed to spook his son for life.

Enough of the media kissing Evan's ass for being s supposed "centrist." That means a Democrat who let the Bush Administration roll right over them, and who declares he's retiring from the Senate due to partisanship as if it's somehow balanced.

This when the Republicans appear they won't even vote for the Debt Commission they asked for -- not when President Obama actually puts it into action.

Per John Cole a year ago:

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

Don't be bamboozled.

Shelby Game

So here's how The Party of No works...when it wants a Yes for it's own earmarks:

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary "blanket hold" on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

...

According to the report, Shelby is holding Obama's nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track. The two programs Shelby wants to move forward or else:

- A $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers. From CongressDaily: "Northrop/EADS team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals." Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.

- An improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. From CongressDaily: "[Shelby] is frustrated that the Obama administration won't build" the center, which Shelby earmarked $45 million for in 2008. The center is due to be based "at the Army's Redstone Arsenal."

I'm assuming this is partially the problem of being in the minority party, perhaps partly just pork. I accept that this is the way the sausages in Congress get made. But isn't there something criminal about slowing down the government like this?

Or this?

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to confirm Martha N. Johnson as head of the General Services Administration, nearly 10 months after she was first nominated to head the federal agency.

Upon assuming office, Johnson "will become the first permanent Administrator of the General Services Administration in nearly two years."

Earlier in 2009, Johnson was unanimously approved by members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. But a single senator, Republican Kit Bond from Missouri, has used his symbolic 'privilege' to hold up consideration of Johnson's nomination since last summer. The delay was meant to pressure GSA administrators to approve a $175 million federal building project in Kansas City.

Hey, voters. When you're all pissed off about gridlock in Congress as you cast your vote this November, how about not blaming the Dems for everything?

More Reason to Hope

High marks for the Senate bill from a healthcare skeptic.

Horror and Halliburton

Hard to take story about a young woman who went to Iraq working for contractors KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary, and within four days of arriving was drugged and gang raped by KBR employees. And that's not the worst of it -- when she reported this crime to her superior, she was locked in a shipping container with two armed guards. Only after convincing one of the guards to let her call her father did her rescue get put into motion. It's all here in this harrowing Rachel Maddow segment.

After refusing to take any action against the rapist employees, Halliburton has been working hard to keep this from going to trial, including trying to get a silencing out-of-court arbitration per the employment contract created under then-CEO Dick Cheney. But it's looking that that's not working for them.

Meanwhile, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) got an amendment to a massive defense bill passed in the Senate making it illegal for the U.S. government to do business with contractors who deny victims of assault the right to bring their case to court. Seem like a slamdunk, yet thirty Republican Senators, and only Republicans, voted against it. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) called it a political amendment aimed at punishing a company the Dems didn't like. Nice sentiment for the victims from the supposed law 'n' order crowd, list here:

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/07/meet-the-senators-who-vot_n_312976.html

You read that right. McCain (R-AZ) was one of the thirty.

Now there are rumors that powerful senior Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) is looking to strip the amendment from the final bill. There's a denial from his office, but who knows what will happen, with the Pentagon against it.

After all, what matters more, rape or riches?

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/22/frankens-anti-rape-amendm_n_329896.html

Out of Committee

So the "Baucus bill," no matter how heinous, has moved out of the Senate Finance Committee, passed 14-9 almost entirely along party lines, save for Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Sen. Snowe made it clear that she may not vote for the final bill that comes out of reconciliation between the Senate and the House of Representatives (where the Public Option, favored by 2/3 of Americans, still exists in their bill), and significant hurdles remain.

But Senator Snowe did mention history in her statement, and I can foresee a moment coming where Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats have to make a decision whether they want to be part of a historic development or...well, if they vote against a bill that still passes, they've sort of covered their butts. That "no" vote may be forgotten in light of success.

However, if it is Democrats like Kent Conrad, or quasi-Dem Joe Lieberman, or even enough Republicans to block consideration or passage and throw their own victory party, I predict that individuals will start going down in history as villains.

American not only wants health insurance reform, they are desperate for it. Get ready for that work plan so dear to you to require more funding from you, the worker, as the employers of America cut back their contributions -- per Rupert Murdoch's own Wall Street Journal:

As companies begin unveiling their workplace benefits for next year, many employees are learning they will have to dig even deeper into their pockets for health coverage.

Such price increases have become a fact of life during open-enrollment season, when workers sign up for their health plans. But the jump is expected to be steeper in 2010 than this year, as employers struggle with the impact of the recession and continually rising insurance costs. Employees will pay $4,023 on average in premiums and out-of-pocket charges next year, up 10% from 2009, according to a projection from Hewitt Associates, a benefits-consulting firm. In dollar terms, it's the biggest boost since the firm started keeping track of the data a decade ago.

For workers, that will mean larger payroll deductions, as well as spending more on co-payments and other fees tied to care. Companies also are expected to prod more employees into cheaper coverage by getting them to sign up for high-deductible health plans. And many employers are trying to rein in the expense of covering workers' families, sometimes by making insurance for kids and spouses pricier.

Me, I favor Single Payer, and that's the only way we'll ever have 100% coverage in this country. But clearly now we see, without a Public Option, there's no backstop, and the President's prediction of costs spiraling out of control will come agonizingly true.

Approaching the Tipping Point

Today feels like the day that healthcare reform or health insurance reform is gaining momentum.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has just come out with its findings that the Senate Finance Committee version of the bill, while not my personal favorite to date, will actually reduce the deficit over 10 years. Matt Ygelsias posts the chart here.

Fox News Anchor Shep Smith won't let Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) spout the same old fear-inducing myths about the Public Option unchallenged:



Former Senate Majority Leaders Bill Frist and Bob Dole both come out favorite healthcare reform as is currently being fashioned. In Dole's case he chastises his own Republican Party for knee-jerk partisanship. (It looks like Obama is able to find the bipartisanship he seeks -- only with GOPers no longer in office.)

And now an idea started by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) has the potential to end the debate and get a Public Option passed: giving individual states the right to Opt-Out of the government run insurance plan if they like. This requires a kind of proactive Federalism on the part of the states, and thereisnospoon over at DailyKos outlines the benefits of this approach (headlines -- go here for details):

• It forces GOP legislators to put up or shut up, leaving them in a very uncomfortable position.
• It leaves the rest of us with a strong public option, even after it's watered down.
• It hampers the ability of Republicans to lie about healthcare issues.
• Businesses will have an incentive to move to blue states.

The latter could be a major plus for California, with our now 12% unemployment rate. But the big news would be, as the piece points out with its own partisan opinion as to who would win:

Rarely do the Left and the Right have a head-to-head opportunity to prove out, in real time, the relative superiority of their respective value systems and legislative choices, with real and immediate consequences not only for the partisan legislators involved, but for the legitimacy of a Party's entire ideological underpinnings.

I say let the contest begin.

Next Option

So the Senate Finance Committee voted down both the Rockefeller and the softer Schumer Public Option amendments to the Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) health insurance reform bill, the one that his detractors believe has been written for insurance companies to benefit over the public. As in over a Public Option.

It's very simple: America supports a Public Option. Doctors support a Public Option. Just as we have both private and public universities, there would be choice for all, no one forced to go into the Public Option plan. Without the Public Option not only is there no competitive price check on For-Profit Insurance companies (as in 30% profit or more), any legislation will likely be a huge giveaway to these insurance companies, in essence rewarding them for decades of bad behavior.

While the loss on both Public Option amendments today wasn't exactly great news, two writers with more knowledge than I believe that the margins of loss, particularly for Schumer's version, were much smaller than expected, and this on the #1 most conservative committee in the Senate. Four other Senate committees have the Public Option in their versions, so today's bad news could mean good news later.

I've said it before and will say it again: passing the bill with a robust Public Option intact assures Democratic victory in 2010. Without it, watch the Democratic Party base crumble.

Which is why no political GOPer is supporting it.

Finger Crossed

The Public Option headed for a Senate Finance Committee vote Friday, maybe even by the time you read this.

The U.S. public is for the Public Option that competes against private health insurance plans (NY Times/CBS News poll) 65/26.

Sen Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) are confident that it will pass.

The edge-of-seat suspense begins now.

The Man

The battled has been joined.



Big time.

Now get bought 'n' paid Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) off it.