The Road Not Taken

Beware The Warrenator™, Scourge of Lazy Regulators & Greedy Banksters Everywhere

So today, I read this article. It’s a good article, as these things go. In fact, it’s difficult to disagree with anything in it:

How astonishing to have a public servant who actually cares to inform the public about the inner workings of the system of crony capitalism that has wedded big government with big business. This comes at the expense of the free market that corporate lobbyists delight in invoking as an ideal while they subvert it as a reality. 

Hell yes! Preach on, brother Scheer!

*ahem* Anyway, Scheer’s article echoed a lot of similar sentiments I’d been seeing around Twitter recently: how thankful liberals are to have someone like Warren in office who’s a wonderful, genuinely robust defender of the people against the power of corporations. To which I say, Amen. Warren is all of those things. And people have been noticing that she is because, since taking office in January, Warren keeps garnering press like this (“Elizabeth Warren Embarrasses Hapless Bank Regulators At First Hearing“) and this (“Elizabeth Warren Accuses Regulators Of Protecting Banks Over Homeowners“) and this (“Sen. Elizabeth Warren Questions Regulators’ Willingness To Prosecute Wall Street Banks“).

Seems like everybody on the left (including me) agrees: Elizabeth Warren’s great!

So, what’s the problem? Well, the paragraph I quoted above in the Scheer article was immediately followed by this one:

Those seeking to join Warren in taking a stand on behalf of students attempting to survive in an economy that the bankers have come close to destroying should get behind her bill. Unless Congress acts, student loan rates will automatically double in less than two months.

Yeah. They should join her. Because unless Congress acts, etc…

Unless Congress acts. But that’s kind of the nut of the whole issue, isn’t it? Unless Congress acts. Quick, what’s the one thing you can be dead-certain of regarding the current political climate? If you answered “that Congress will NOT take action, especially not on public-interest-over-corporate-interest legislation,” then congratulations: you’ve been paying attention to politics since the Democrats re-took Congress in 2006. If there’s one thing that best defines Congress since 2006 (especially the Senate), it’s that it won’t take action. Not with Mitch “Filibuster” McConnell circling over the Senate like a vulture waiting for something to die. And now, since 2010, not with a House that’s controlled by John Boehner. The GOP has simply decided “fuck all y’all” is going to be their legislative strategy for the indefinite future. Probably until they can get enough Americans so disgusted with the gridlock that they stupidly vote for a Republican, just to get the sensation that something’s getting accomplished, even if it is something bad.

That’s why all of the “isn’t Elizabeth Warren wonderful” paeans that are being tossed out lately just make me wonder why she was stovepiped by the party into the Senate last cycle? It’s not as if any of what I just said was a secret or even some obscure minority opinion during the last election. Every progressive and Democrat knows how broken the Senate is. If what is earning Warren those rave reviews and kudos today is her willingness to hold regulators’ feet to the fire and insist they protect consumers and citizens instead of the interests of the big banks…um…wouldn’t it have been better to continue along with Plan A and actually, you know, make Warren one of those regulators, instead of sticking her into the most dysfunctional, broken governing body in the developed world – the United States Senate?

As a regulator, Warren would have had the ability to actually affect the day-to-day business of protecting consumers and/or overseeing the banks. In the Senate, she’s one of a hundred voices, barely over half of whom must line up behind Harry Reid and hope they can get stuff past McConnell’s endless filibusters. Talk about frustrating – for progressives as well as (I imagine) for Warren. While it’s great to see her tear into banksters and regulators in hearings, everyone knows hearings are merely public spectacle if they don’t lead to actual legislation — and as I already mentioned, in this climate, they don’t.

I don’t know much about state-level politics in Massachusetts, but in a state that blue, I find it very hard to believe there were truly NO other credible Democratic candidates besides Warren who could’ve beaten Scott Brown and put Ted Kennedy’s seat back in the column in which it belongs. Maybe I need to be educated on that score, but that sounds far-fetched to me. Perhaps the administration believed (not without support from the facts) that Warren might have been simply un-confirmable as head of the CFPB (though, as I’ve written about before, there’s plenty of room to doubt Warren herself would’ve fared any worse than anyone else Obama might have nominated for that role, and if Obama could recess-appoint Richard Cordray, he could’ve just as easily done so with Elizabeth Warren). Even if so, it’s not as if there weren’t other slots she could have filled. One of the Dems’ recent bêtes noire, Ed DeMarco at FHFA, could have been at this very moment being replaced not by a questionably pro-consumer guy like Mel Watt, but by the scourge of Wall Street and defender of homeowners and consumers herself, Elizabeth Warren.

Tell me THAT wouldn’t have been a win, at least in comparison to having Warren in the Senate?

Lastly, if Warren was installed (via regular process or recess appointment) at FHFA or CFPB or CFTC or any one of a number of other financial regulation agencies, and she was later thrown out in the future when a Republican or conservaDem took the White House, she could STILL run for Senate at that time. I guess I just don’t see what the loss would’ve been, nor what the rush was to get Elizabeth Warren into the Senate.

Sometimes I Despair of The Left

I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.

- Will Rogers

Sometimes, I do get weary. Heh.

The quoted text following this paragraph is an excerpt from the text of a very earnest and serious email sent to me today from MoveOn’s email blast servers. I subscribe to these email blasts from MoveOn, just like I do from several other lefty-activist groups (as well as, clandestinely, a few wingnut organizations – hey, gotta keep tabs on what the competition is doing, especially when the competition is bug-fuck insane, as is today’s Republican party). So I see a pretty broad spectrum of what’s motivating the activist community to action at any given time. Here’s the one that landed in my inbox today:

Victims of “legitimate rape” can’t get pregnant because a woman’s body will shut down and prevent the pregnancy. Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) actually said that—in other words, he’s saying that if a woman does get pregnant, she must not have been raped. Even scarier? He’s running—and leading—in the race for Missouri’s senate seat.

What he said was bad, but it was hardly a gaffe or poor choice of words. In 2011 he and Rep. Paul Ryan led the push in the House of Representatives to redefine rape as “forcible rape” in order to further restrict rape survivors’ access to abortions. As a state senator, Akin questioned whether anti-marital rape laws would be abused by women in messy divorces.

Anyone who doesn’t understand basic biology and tries to create more hurdles for rape survivors seeking justice doesn’t belong in the United States Congress.

Well, obviously, Ms. Kat Barr (the name associated with this petition on MoveOn’s email blast): Akin doesn’t belong in the United States Senate. For my money, he doesn’t belong anywhere near anything that affects policy regarding women. I’m with you that far. But let’s talk tactics here for a moment. Instead of signing Ms. Barr’s petition, this is the reply I sent to the MoveOn mail server. Not because I’m a crank who sends reply emails to anonymous, automated bot servers out of frustration (who, me??), but because, well…here:

Have you lost your minds? Todd Akin is the best thing that could have happened to Clare McCaskill! Don’t believe me? Ask her. McCaskill is THRILLED that, in very  purple Missouri, the GOP primary electorate – in their wisdom – chose Akin instead of one of the far more eminently reasonable (read: less extreme) candidates they COULD have chosen on the recent primary ballot. Akin represents McCaskill’s best comparative chance at retaining her Senate seat. So, while I agree that Todd Akin must go, let’s remember that he hasn’t actually arrived yet, and thus calls for him to “go” are premature. Right now, there’s every likelihood that he will “go” all on his own, through the already-existing mechanism we call “November’s election.” Let’s not spoil that by trying to remove him prematurely from the ballot, which would only result in McCaskill facing a tougher opponent this November.

That’s why I sometimes despair of the left: of COURSE Akin should no more be allowed near the levers of power – based on the strength of this lone, thuddingly awful, retrograde comment itself – than Wile. E. Coyote should be hired as a security guard at the Roadrunner Motel. But trying to have Akin thrown off the ballot or otherwise disqualified NOW, with the election that would determine his fate anyway coming up in less than three months, strikes me as misguided at best. Missouri is a deeply divided (“purple”) state. It’s home to both Harry Truman and current darling of the wingnut blogosphere, Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit — too stupid for me to waste a link on). Had McCaskill drawn any of the other, less insane opponents out of the GOP primary, she would currently be in a much tougher race than she already is. As of the end of July, McCaskill trails Todd Akin by five points. These neanderthal comments by Akin will certainly have a negative effect on his poll numbers against McCaskill, especially among Republican women who might otherwise prefer the daddy-figure in this year’s Senate race, but who perhaps have daughters and/or a personal history with unplanned pregnancy, and who will conclude, after Akin’s disastrous remarks, that a woman like McCaskill is preferable to a troglodyte like Akin who understands literally nothing about them.

All of which means that to do anything to preemptively remove Todd Akin from the Missouri Senate ballot for November is to ensure that Claire McCaskill faces a more difficult-to-beat opponent this fall. And that’s the last thing we want to do. Claire McCaskill may have her faults, but right now it’s either her or whoever the Republican party of Missouri coughs up like a cat with a hairball. I’ll take McCaskill any day, warts and all.

Harry Reid: Finalist, Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda Division

I’d like to be taken at least a little bit seriously in terms of what I write here, and I know full well that beginning any post with a giant, all-caps “AAAAAAAAARRRGH,” followed by several exclamation points will make me seem like all-that-is-wrong-and-laughable-about-bloggers in a nutshell. Nevertheless, sometimes, there’s genuinely nothing that better than a good AAAAAAAARRRGH!!!!! to sum up the feeling many of us on the left have when we read certain articles in the press.

This was one of those articles:

In May, Harry Reid apologized for killing off a 2010 filibuster reform bill, admitting that the legislative procedure has been “abused, abused, and abused.” Reid has now gone a step farther: the Senate Majority Leader is now openly promising to pass filibuster reform in the beginning of the next Congress if Democrats manage to hold onto a simple majority in the Senate and if Obama is reelected.

Really, Senator? The procedure has been abused? Who knew? (hint: that was sarcasm – EVERYBODY KNEW (even me), well in advance of the January, 2011 opportunity to reform the filibuster). As they say on Twitter, SMH – “shaking my head.” Or, even better: AAAAAAAARRRGH!!!! Because, of course, as any number of bloggers, reporters, television commentators and average citizens who follow politics could’ve told you several years ago, the fact that the GOP minority in the Senate has been trying to force their will-of-the-minority on the country by abusing the filibuster since the Democrats took control of the Senate in 2006 is about the least-surprising item in politics, currently. It’s not even questionable:

Cloture motions filed per congressional session

This information wasn’t secret prior to January, 2011, either. But apparently, it was news to Harry Reid — or, perhaps, due to his close, clubby, “collegial” relationship with the other 99 members’ of the world’s most exclusive club – US Senators – Reid just “felt,” in his heart of hearts, that the GOP just wouldn’t DO such mean-spirited things for political gain. After all, Reid personally knows all those GOP Senators, and they’re really great, once you get to know them! They’d never do that to him!

Of course, I am exaggerating out of frustration what Reid’s actual position probably was at the time in 2010/early 2011. But not by much, I’d bet. What other explanation could there be for one of the people who’s closest to the matter being one of the few people anywhere who couldn’t see the reality of GOP filibuster abuse (or at least couldn’t see the need to take any action regarding it)? Let’s not forget, while we’re at it, that Harry Reid doesn’t have an exactly stellar track record when it comes to prognosticating about what will happen in the body he helms, at least in terms of predicting other Senators’ actions based upon what Reid “knows” of their intentions and their hearts:

First of all, Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman is my friend, and he is a good Democrat, votes with us on everything, except the war. So Joe Lieberman is easy to work with.

That was Senator Reid, utilizing his obsidian ball to predict in December of 2007 how easy Joe Lieberman would be to work with in the upcoming congressional session. How’d THAT work out, Senator?

So now, on Friday’s The Ed Show, Harry Reid says, in true Rocky and Bullwinkle fashion, that now he’s ready to really do filibuster reform (“this time, for SURE!“). Reid alluded to having had a change of mind on this back in mid-May, when he apologized to Senators Udall and Merkley (the principal sponsors of genuine filibuster reform in 2010/11) for having squelched their efforts.

So, great news, right? I mean, if Reid now recognizes the foolishness of his past mistake on filibuster reform and is now fully committed to seeing it through, Democrats can simply do at the start of the 2012 congressional session what they could have done at the start of 2010: change the rules of the filibuster, since they are the majority party in the Senate. The beauty of it is, such rule-changes, under the Merkley-Udall plan, are not themselves subject to filibuster, meaning a simple majority vote would suffice.

So what’s the problem? Well, although a lot is still up in the air, and many factors (not least of which may be the outcome of the Presidential race itself) could affect the makeup of next Senate, it’s now appearing likely that the Democrats won’t control the Senate in January, 2012:

Currently, we project the most likely outcome to be Republicans winning 50 seats, Democrats 49, and Mr. King the seat in Maine. Under those circumstances, the Democrats would retain control of the Senate if Mr. King caucused with them and President Obama won re-election, making Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. the tiebreaking vote. Otherwise, Republicans would control the chamber.

In other words, Reid’s abject failure to strike while the iron was hot – when Senate Democrats actually had the CHANCE to make meaningful filibuster reform – not only cost him (and the country) dozens of potential legislative victories to continued GOP obstructionistic abuse of the filibuster from 2010-2012, but also likely put the entire idea of filibuster reform into indefinite limbo, if not outright killed it.

This is a textbook example of what progressives mean when we talk about frustration with Washington – both the executive and legislative branches. Think of this the next time you see the the equivalent of AAAAAAAARRRGH!!!!! coming from a progressive. It’s nice to know Reid recognizes progressives were right in 2009/10 about filibuster reform. It’d have been a lot nicer if it hadn’t taken yet another two years of being able to get very little accomplished for him to realize it.

House Republicans to Force Senate to Hold ‘Pro Forma’ Sessions to Prevent Recess Appointments

In a move which will surprise approximately no one who’s been paying even the slightest bit of attention since 2006, when the Democrats re-took control of congress, the House GOP signaled yesterday that it would use a parliamentary procedure which prevents either house of congress from going into a recess longer than three days without the consent of the other house.

How can House Republicans force the Senate not to adjourn? Republicans, always on the lookout for ways to deny President Obama and the Democrats their due authority and legislative goals, have discovered and are utilizing a never-before-used-in-this-way provision of the constitution, Article I, section 5, clause 4, which reads:

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

This means even though Democrats are still in the majority in the Senate, Harry Reid cannot simply adjourn the Senate for the holiday break (during which time President Obama could recess-appoint some of the blocked nominees the GOP has been filibustering). Instead, the Senate will hold a pro-forma session every three days which will last no more than a couple of minutes, but which is long enough to prevent the Senate from considering itself in recess for the entire month-plus between yesterday and January 23. In short, what this means in practice is: President Obama will not be able to recess-appoint Richard Cordray to the CFPB.

Unless.

Unless Mr. Obama is willing to take steps of his own, also granted to him explicitly by the constitution. Specifically, Article II, section 3, clause 3, which reads:

[The President] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

The constitution is an astonishing document. Although the framers could not foresee everything which might come to pass in the future, they did in an amazing number of instances have an uncanny insight into human nature as applied in the political process, setting up our justly-vaunted system of checks and balances. Most people, when they hear of checks and balances, think of the separation of powers into three branches of government, with good reason. But the framers’ clear desire not to have the government shanghied by any faction using the law as a procedural weapon for subverting the will of the people or the balanced operation of government, can be seen in many smaller and less famous portions of the constitution, as well. This is definitely one of them.

Everyone knows the framers were considerably worried about the re-imposition of a monarchy. That’s why they gave the President considerable power but made him or her subordinate to congress in many key areas. Conversely, however, the framers had already (in the late 1700s!) seen enough of legislative grandstanding, gridlock, treachery and abuse in Europe that they also were able to foresee the kind of shenanigans that might ensue in a body so large and diffuse in responsibility as congress. So they put little mini-checks and balances directly into our constitution so the President, while he could not and cannot simply ride roughshod over congress, can use power specifically granted to him to break up such ideological and legislative logjams.

I’ve written extensively already about the self-professed need of the Obama administration to have a competent, pro-consumer director of the CFPB. The administration themselves has highlighted this need, and I agree 100% with their reasoning. Now, as every alert onlooker has observed already, the time has come for the White House to put up or shut up about this desire. The Republicans have opened the door by using an obscure provision of the constitution to jam up the Senate majority into accepting the will of the OTHER chamber. Now, President Obama can and should allow the houses of congress to function as the framers intended them to. He has the explicit authority to force the Senate (and House) into adjournment, during which time recess appointments can be made. Even the GOP Senators don’t assert that Cordray is unfit to helm the CFPB; they simply don’t want the CFPB itself to exist. Too late. They already lost that battle, and their unprecedented obstructionism must be met with equally unprecedented obstruction-removal.

Break the logjam. Adjourn congress for the holidays. Recess appoint Richard Cordray so he can begin protecting consumers from fiscal predation. Obstructionism delenda est!

Rubber, Meet Road

As expected, Senate Republicans have voted in a united bloc (with the exception of occasional pseudo-moderate Olympia Snowe, who voted “present”) to filibuster President Obama’s nomination of Richard Cordray. Not voted against the nomination itself, voted (as they do customarily these days) to filibuster it. If you aren’t familiar with the difference, see Filibuster 101, and how it’s being abused by Senate Republicans. Essentially, the GOP voted procedurally to not allow the Senate to even vote on Cordray’s nomination – because the Republican leadership understands that there are enough Democrats and independents in the Senate to confirm Cordray…so they won’t even allow a vote. An abuse of process? Yes. Unexpected? Not at all: it is how the GOP does business these days. The question is what to do now. And it’s not a question you or I can really have much of an effect on; this question goes directly to President Obama. So here’s what amounts to an open letter:

OK, Mr. President – now, right now, would be an excellent time for you to show us that your brilliant speech in Osowatomie on Tuesday wasn’t just pretty words. You have in front of you a perfect opportunity for you to do something concrete to advance the agenda you laid out in your speech. In fact, it is nearly THE perfect opportunity, one not likely to be repeated soon with the lines so clearly drawn, since it doesn’t require you to work with or depend upon any of the other branches of government. Political calculations need not be made in this instance; there is no quid-pro-quo.

As Jared Bernstein put it in the post I linked to in my previous post, you have begun speaking a language that is resonating with voters and citizens…and now, with the GOP’s rejection of Cordray’s nomination, you have an opportunity to also act in a way that would resonate with them. You can do so in a way that is unfettered by considerations of having to give up something to get votes, or worry about what the Supreme Court might do. Almost like a murder investigation’s steps of means, motive and opportunity, you have the opportunity to do this now (or at least soon), completely on your own. The House cannot keep the Senate in session without recess forever. You have the means: the constitution explicitly gives the President the authority to recess-appoint on his own initiative, unilaterally. The only remaining question – literally – is: do you truly have the motive to match your actions to your words?

Tuesday, in Kansas, you told the American people:

Every day we go without a consumer watchdog is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or a member of our Armed Forces — because they are very vulnerable to some of this stuff — could be tricked into a loan that they can’t afford — something that happens all the time. And the fact is that financial institutions have plenty of lobbyists looking out for their interests. Consumers deserve to have someone whose job it is to look out for them. (Applause.) And I intend to make sure they do.

You bet consumers deserve that. And you have the means and the opportunity to see that they get it. Now, the time for words is over. It is time for you to show the people who took time out of their busy lives to come see you speak on Tuesday, and the millions more who heard it live on TV or radio, or heard or read about it later that day in the news, that you meant what you said. Show them that you also have the motive you said you had in your speech. The voters are watching, and as I said in my previous post, comparing yourself to Teddy Roosevelt, no matter how eloquently done, will simply not resonate with them if you aren’t willing to break out TR’s “big stick.”

You chose these terms and these images, used this language. Now show us they weren’t just a pretty speech. Give struggling Americans what you said they deserved. Recess appoint Richard Cordray at the earliest opportunity.

Don Quixote, Meet Clarence Thomas

Or, more accurately, Don Quixote, meet today’s Democratic base. Why Don Quixote? Because a “quixotic” quest is one which is fantastical and romantic, but impractical and likely a lost cause, or has very little chance of success,. And that’s exactly what the current push on the left against the recent revelations about Clarence Thomas’ ethical improprieties are: a quixotic quest.

Why? Because although Thomas is a loathsome creature as a SCOTUS Justice – an incurious, ideologically rigid tool of the far right, and his actions would likely be a firing-level offense in any lesser jurist, there are no rules which govern the conduct of the Supreme Court. Perhaps there should be, and perhaps it will be this incident which convinces of the need for some…but as things stand right now, there simply aren’t any such rules. The Code of Judicial Conduct applies to every other judge in the United States except the nine who sit on the Supreme Court. Those nine members of that highest judicial body are supposed to be self-policing, and are – by design of the framers themselves – not subject to oversight or review by either of the other two branches of government (except as noted below). That’s what it means to be “co-equal”: Supreme Court Justices don’t work for or under the authority of any other branch. Their actions and conduct are non-reviewable by either Congress or the President. That’s what gives them the autonomy to act in the interest of the constitution and rule upon questions before them as they see fit, not as they worry their “bosses” (if they had any) might feel about their rulings.

Indeed, the only method of redress for a theoretical SCOTUS Justice run amuck is the same one which exists for a wayward or criminal President: impeachment. And the bar for that is – also by design – set just as high for Justices as it is for Presidents. There are three hurdles to clear to impeach a Justice and remove him or her from office:

1. Articles of Impeachment have to be forwarded to the entire House of Representatives by the appropriate committee (usually Rules or Judiciary).
2. The full House has to vote the accused guilty (this is the official “impeachment” – though it does not carry with it any specific remedy or penalty).
3. The Senate then has to vote whether to remove the impeached official from office.

This just. isn’t. gonna. happen, folks. And pretending it will is a waste of organizing energy.

An Open Letter to the DSCC

(welcome Crooks & Liars readers! Thanks for dropping by)

This morning, I opened my email to find an urgent appeal from the Ragin’ Cajun, James Carville on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. It reminded me, in stark terms, what this next election might be about: Democrats are defending 23 Senate seats in the 2012 race, Republicans are only defending 10. And as we’re all painfully aware, only four seats stand between the GOP and total control of congress, leaving a Presidential veto the only thing between the GOP and seeing their increasingly insane policy ideas enacted into law. It’s a huge, high-stakes election, no question whatsoever about it.

This is the letter I sent to them along with my contribution:

Hi.

I just contributed $___ (see below for detail confirmation), and I wanted to drop a note with a brief exhortation on how to spend it – or, rather, how NOT to.

I contributed because you’re absolutely right, with today’s lunatic GOP, and with only four seats standing between them and complete control of congress (making the Presidential veto the only firewall), it’s a crucial time for the future of not just Democrats’ own electoral success, but the entire country’s fortunes. The voices of progress and fairness must not lose this one the way they lost the last one.

So here’s my exhortation: please, PLEASE, for the love of all that is holy, BE those voices of progress and fairness. Embody what this party has traditionally stood for. Stop embracing Wall Street and big corporations instead of unions and small businesses. Stop being scared of being loud and proud of traditional Democratic values. You can win on them, no matter what Karl Rove tries to make us all believe. What’s happening in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and elsewhere should be telling you that, if nothing else has so far. Quit grooming, nominating, funding and electing the next generation of tepid, unreliable blue-dogs like “with us on everything but the war” (HA!) Joe Lieberman, or never-there-when-you-need-them-most corporatists like Ben Nelson or Evan Bayh. Just stop it. They’re. Not. Democrats. As we ALL saw during the President’s first term, just electing someone who’s willing to put the D after their name doesn’t mean that person is truly a Democrat, and it doesn’t mean you’ll have the votes you need when the rubber meets the road.

The 2010 elections is already widely described by virtually everyone including the President as having been a “shellacking” for Democrats. Why? Part of it was inevitable pendulum-swing. Part of it was the inevitable flood of negative and outright fictional advertising by the Republicans and affiliated groups. But that’s par for the course, and I know you expected those and (hopefully) were prepared for them. The other reason for the “shellacking,” the part that really hurt you (and us, out here in regular-citizen land), was that you all explicitly led people to hope for fundamental change in 2008, and then you spent the next two years offering tepid technocracy and concessions – especially in the Senate – to an opposition that clearly wanted not compromise, but to destroy you and replace your accomplishments and agenda with their own. Sure, you passed some big legislation, but by the time the GOP and the Blue Dogs got through with those bills, they were hardly recognizable as the reforms you set out to create. Worse, at every step along the way, you looked outmaneuvered by a party that was more out-of-power and discredited than at any time since the Johnson administration. You looked like you were barely hanging on by your fingernails and hoping nothing would go wrong, rather than looking like lions who’d just won the last two elections decisively and were damn well going to implement the people’s agenda and to hell with the tea-tantrumers. And it cost you – and us – dearly. Like any political junkie, I know what’s at stake. I voted in the last election. But as you’re all-too-aware by now, a lot of people who turned out in 2008 didn’t this time. It wasn’t that they voted for the GOP; they stayed home. Not because they were lazy, or they didn’t care, or even that they didn’t understand, but because they thought YOU didn’t. They didn’t see the kind of fight in their leaders they knew would be necessary to really effect the kind of change that candidate Obama talked about in 2008, which motivated so many in that election. Without evidence of that sort of willingness to stand up and fight, a lot of less-politically-inclined people simply lost whatever hope they had for real change back in 2008.

So this time, for heaven’s sake – no, for OUR sake – learn the lessons of both ’08 AND ’10. The CORRECT lessons: stand UP. Fight. Lose if you have to, as long as you go down swinging. The generations before us who built the unions and fought for transformational change like universal suffrage and the end of slavery weren’t willing to stay out all day on picket lines and face the truncheon on behalf of brokered compromise and technocracy. They were willing to do it because they had no choice, but also because they could see clearly that they had people in power who were their champions. We need that spirit again today. BE those champions. The people in Wisconsin and Indiana and elsewhere are standing up now because they’re beginning to be able to feel the blade against their necks again, in a way Americans haven’t felt it in decades. Most have never felt it in their lifetimes, although some of the older ones have. But don’t mistake this burst of renewed activism for any kind of sweeping endorsement of the strategies you pursued over the past two years. It isn’t. They’re doing it because they’re beginning to realize they have no choice: it’s that, or watch the country they thought was solid as a rock change perhaps permanently for the worse. Don’t let them go into that fight alone, worried that nobody out there in leadership or power truly represents them. Stand up. Fight from our shared principles that are the engine that created the most prosperous, well-educated and literate population on the planet once upon a time. Don’t compromise with bad ideas, defeat them. People rally to that kind of leadership – the kind that says “I welcome their hatred.” Be those leaders again. Please. The kind of leaders that people vote FOR, not the kind that people reluctantly use as a vote against something worse (or often, don’t), because no better choice is available. If you can do that, you’ll see another election like 2006 or 2008. If you don’t, I fear we’ll see another 2010.

Thank you for hearing me out.

(Fili-) Bust A Move

***UPDATE, 1/6 1:30PM*** Oops…I was not aware yesterday when I hurriedly posted Greg Sargent’s overview of what the filibuster reform package contained that it did not include a reduction in the number of votes required to invoke cloture (overturn the filibuster). In my haste, I’d been assuming that since the abuse of the sixty-vote threshold was literally the very raison d’etre for the concept of filibuster reform to begin with, if Democrats were going to seriously offer any proposal at all, it would of course include such a thing. I should have known better, obviously. My bad. To repeat: the package offered by Udall, et. al. yesterday in the Senate does no such thing.

In other words, while they may have made the filibuster process more transparent, accountable and understandable for the average person, Democrats actually did nothing to reduce the abusive minority party’s ability to simply block any and all legislation coming through the United States Senate. However, as Ezra Klein and Rachel Maddow Show fill-in host Chris Hayes wryly noted at the end of this clip from last night’s program, Democrats did manage to accede to the GOP’s lone demand on filibuster reform (other than that there be none whatsoever, thankyouverymuch), which was: they wanted a guarantee that they would be able, when in the minority, to offer amendments to any legislation at all times. And the Democrats gave them one. Ah, Democrats. They really do try hard not to suck, you have to give them that. Sigh…Watch it here.

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***UPDATE, 1:30PM*** (via Greg Sargent at the Washington Post), here’s the filibuster reform package being proposed by Democrats. Check it out. It’s not bad, though it could have been stronger by not giving credence to the GOP red herring of not being able to offer amendments. Still, a good package, all in all. Now, to see if they can actually get it done…never a sure thing with our infrequently vertebrate modern Democratic party…

 

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ORIGINAL POST:

Today starts the 112th Congress of the United States. They change numbers every two years because although Senators are elected for six-year terms, the House is only elected for two years, and even in the Senate, at least some of the Senators are up for re-election every other November (states are staggered; we don’t vote for all 100 Senators every six years).

As we were all in our final frenzy of pre-Christmas and New Years madness, you might have noticed that it seemed like the last Congress, the 111th, was generating an awful lot of headlines for getting stuff done – or at least talking about stuff – during that same time period from about late November right up through the last few days before Christmas. Did you wonder why that was the case? I mean, sure, it’s human nature to procrastinate. But that isn’t why the 111th Congress seemed both so unusually productive at the end of the year and so maddeningly slow previously. The reason for both those occurrences can be summed up in one word: leverage. Over the last two years, Republicans have used a procedural maneuver in the Senate called the filibuster to jam up everything from cabinet and judicial nominations to (literally) nearly every piece of legislation proposed by either Democrats in Congress or the White House. The reason the lame-duck session from November to December was so productive was that Harry Reid, as majority leader, had the power to say when the Senate was in recess. Thus, if he held the Senate session open as it got closer and closer to Christmas, Republicans would be the ones put in a jam: they could leave…but then Reid would have enough votes to pass bills the GOP didn’t want because there wouldn’t be enough Republicans to filibuster them. So they were forced to stay, as it got closer and closer to Christmas. When Reid looked like he might be able to keep the Democrats there right up through Christmas eve – and bring them back again right after – the GOP was forced to let some nominations, and some legislation, move. That’s the only reason.

Cornyn And Eleven GOP Senators To Offer Balanced Budget Amendment

Two of the eleven are incoming Senators-elect Rand Paul (R-Batshit) and Pat Toomey (R-DerivativesTrader). Others include David Vitter (R-Hookers), Jim DeMented (R-Jesusland) and John Ensign (R-Boning-The-Staff). This ought to be fun to watch, especially in light of the upcoming need to raise the US debt ceiling within the next six months or so.

What The GOP Means By “Bipartisanship”

It may come as no surprise that Nevada Senator John Ensign is a vile, lying, cheating, sanctimonious sleazeball after the revelations about his having had an affair with a staffer and then having his parents pay the staffer and her children $90,000 in what looks suspiciously like hush money, to say nothing of the subsequent allegations that Ensign also illegally found a prime lobbying job for that staffer’s husband, and steered constituents with business before his committees to that staffer’s firm.

So perhaps I’m asking a bit much of anyone to truly be surprised by the following public messages from Senator Happy Ensign. But the following three tweets from Ensign so perfectly capture both the Republicans’ whole tactic of absolute obstructionism of literally all of either Obama’s or the Democratic congress’ initiatives, as well as the GOP’s sneering mendacity and complete lack of either principles (other than: “we want power back,” if that can rightly be called a principle) or shame in so doing.

Ensign fired off three tweets in succession this evening. Here’s his first tweet:

Democrats are going to try to push health care through a procedure known as reconciliation. This is outrageous. The American people want us (and here’s the second, a continuation of the previous tweet) to stop this bill. Here in the senate we’re going to fight with everything we have to kill it.

Charming, eh? Well, if you liked that one, you’ll positively swoon for this one, his third – or, what Ensign and the GOP think of tomorrow’s health care summit with the President:

The president is putting on a phony show at the white house tomorrow. Don’t be fooled.

You listening, White House? Don’t be fooled by all that GOP talk about “bipartisanship.” Ensign and the GOP are telling you, flat-out, that unless you’re willing to do literally everything their way, you can forget about any of their votes.