Hey, if you are really bored, like in-the-mood-to-watch-wallpaper-dry-bored, then you can watch the Senate this afternoon. Watch them fail to do anything.
The Senate, meanwhile, is busy finishing up a judicial impeachment. After which, they’ll take a break for the fifth Democratic Caucus meeting in the span of a week. Maybe a little more discussion of the ridiculous paralysis being created by continued abuse of the rules?
Or hey, maybe not! After all, they’re only going to come out of that meeting to face a series of four possible cloture votes. If they get to them all (which they will if they all fail), they’ll possibly move to a fifth, which would make for nine cloture votes this week, and it’s only Wednesday.
But if by some miracle, one of the cloture motions should pass, well, then there’ll be 30 more hours of debate on it. Which is just the thing, you know?
But Chris Dodd is right. It’s all good!
They’ll try to get cloture for the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act of 2009, the Emergency Senior Citizens relief Act of 2010, the DREAM Act, and the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010. When all of those efforts fail, they’ll try to get cloture for the Defense Department Authorization Bill which includes the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. That will fail, too. It should be awesome. And, hey, this is what we can do with control of the House and 58 senators. Just wait until next year!!
If only our president would just do something differently our government would be so great.
you’re right, it’s totally all congress’s fault and the president is powerless to do anything.
[forehead meets palm.]
It’s not their fault. It’s their damn JOB! It’s would they were elected to do! But of course you’re waiting for Super Negro to fly in and save the day.
That’s just plain ignorant. Who enabled the assholishness of Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson and HolyJoe? Lets face it, the Democrats need people that can do strategy. And right now we don’t have that.
Most PSCI research shows that this doesn’t really work on most issues, but on the issue of unemployment benefits it probably would have.
Jonathan Alter tells me that Feingold lobbied the President not to have a vote before the election, too.
But as Atrios says .. why didn’t they start over with a new bill .. so Obama gets credit? Not an extension of the current ones
jesus fuck, stop throwing “it’s cus he’s black” in everybody’s face. we get it.
somewhere along the line, NMP, you have to expect your president whether he’s black, white, martian, male, or female to, ya know, FUCKING LEAD.
he’s the head of the goddman party. he is the face of the party. His job is to LEAD. his job is to twist arms, send his staff our to twist arms, go on tv and make his case. Which he did last night, and his case was “we gotta give the republicans what they want and my supporters who are upset are assholes.”
that’s not much of a case, and it has nothing to do with the color of his fucking skin.
Good gravy, i am so tired of people throwing Obama’s race in my face. I’ve been criticizing him since day one, and his skin color hasn’t come into the equation ONCE. FOR PETE’S FUCKING SAKE I VOTED FOR THE DUDE LARGELY IN REJECTION OF HILARY’S RACE BAITING, AND NOW IT’S LIKE EVERY CRITICISM IS REPLIED TO WITH “IT’S BECAUSE HE’S BLACK.”
I’m not waiting for Super Negro, I’m waiting for my president, who campaigned on ending these tax cuts, to keep his fucking promise and to stand up and fight back.
Agreed. Obama can do tons of stuff. If I were Obama I would have 10 fundraisers in Maine and MA scheduled in 2011 to build a warchest against Snowe and Brown. Got to put pressure on them to move left if they want to keep their seats.
Prediction: Snowe (R-ME) beats Jesus Christ Himself (D-ME) by 8-10%. Good luck getting her out — we’ve been trying for most of my time in this state, first in the House, now in the Senate.
And Snowe won’t get teabagged? The state party up there is getting over run with Teahadists I heard.
What’s her appeal? I really don’t get it. Can we get a Mitchell to run? Will Dems really support her in 2012-its been awhile (since 2000) since she had to run in a presidential year.
Reid could have changed the rules in January 2009 and he could change them next month too.
Exactly. Will he?
Nope. Reid is many things but not an idiot. He rightly believes that with Obama throwing his party’s congressional wing under the bus, and telegraphing that this will be his MO for the next 2 years, Reid is looking at in January 2013 being the Minority Leader. And he doesn’t want to be the guy that takes all the flack for changing Senate rules, only so that McConnel can enjoy all these awesome new powers. Reid, like all politicians, will do what gives him power, and right now, that’s the status quo.
Great!! So Reid feels we are already doomed, huh? That’s not a positive outlook.
I think he can count. And the math of keeping the senate in 2012 is pretty rough, and it gets even worse if Obama’s reelection strategy is going to be to try to win “independents” instead of his base.
The big fallacy in Obama’s strategy (and how he’s been snookered by the Village): not all independents are centrist. There are bunches of leftward independents that he will lose in 2012, and might have already irrevocably lost. Folks who worked and voted for him in 2008.
Also, depending where you are geographically, not all independents are actual “independents.”
In the South, many of the so-called independents are so “conservative” that they’ve decided that the Bushco Republicultists are actually too liberal. Tom DeLay was actually a leftist, y’know, because his cause was rigging voting districts instead of following the true conservative position of barring Those People from voting at all. W was, in fact, a CryptoSocialist.
Obama’s not going to get those people to work with him to govern the country; many of them don’t think he should actually have the right to walk on the streets without a notarized pass from his owner.
We can also do stuff, like calling our Senators and demanding that they repeal DADT. Here are some key Senators who need to hear from us:
Olympia Snowe (Maine) – (202) 224-5344
Susan Collins (Maine) – (202) 224-2523
Scott Brown (Massachusetts) – (202) 224-4543
George LeMieux (Florida) – (202) 224-3041
George Voinovich (Ohio) – (202) 224-3353
Jim Webb (Virginia) – (202)-224-4024
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) – (202) 224-6665
John Ensign (Nevada) – (202) 224-6244
Richard Lugar (Indiana) – (202) 224-4814
Remember when the Senate wouldn’t allow cameras in the chamber or agree to be televised?
I kinda miss those days of ignorance.
How many Americans are aware of the legislation being blocked by Republicans? You could have a failed cloture vote right now on the Mother Teresa Act of 2010 and nobody would know. Some of that is media’s fault, for enabling this reckless strategy of non-governance. But some of it is the Democrats’ fault, and in particular Obama’s.
In 2004-6, we had the spectacle of Republicans running Congress and basically shutting Democrats out from any say in running things. The Democrats did a very poor job of fighting back (they had all the tools the R’s have now), but there was public awareness of the phenomenon. Now, I think, not so much. Folks are aware the R’s are stalling the big items, like unemployment benefits and DADT, but not that they’re grinding the basic workings of the legislative branch to a halt. And a lot of that is on Obama.
Jesus, Geov. How many times do Obama and Reid have to complain bitterly about the Party of No Strategy before the public becomes aware that it exists. I think our biggest enemy is PlayStation and the Wii. Because lord knows the Democratic leadership has made an issue out of the damn stalling, but it’s process and it makes them look weak and ineffectual to complain about it. No one cares. Not even among the Pond Dwellers. Most comments ask Obama to solve this by leading. Leading how? Making one more bitter complaint? Show me more than two Republican senators who have to worry about getting reelected. I’ll show you more who have to worry about a primary challenge. No leverage equals no way to get what you want. Checkmate. House lost. Senate next. And a bunch of pouty liberals as the cherry on top. I’m really starting to admire McConnell for his evil brilliance.
General complaints about the Party of No strategy are discounted as political posturing by the public – at least around here they are.
People need the information that the reason that they don’t get their unemployment benefits is because x number of Republicans by name and y number of Democrats by name decided they don’t deserve it. And a citation of the vote. And an explanation that failing to pass cloture stops a bill in the Senate. Folks don’t get all that even though some coach might have breezed through it in high school civics. Is it too much to have the White House communications staff actually communicate?
The Republicans are not taking heat because (1) their constituents don’t know what they are doing except their “conservative principles” posturing and (2) the progressives and Democrats in their district have written off the effort of bugging them (like the Tea Party crowd did Democrats on healthcare). Well maybe not screaming and shouting. Plus Republicans are using “security” as an excuse to exclude all but their adulating fans from Town Hall meetings.
McConnell’s evil scheme works because Democrats have not adjusted to his strategy. Democrats keep running the same play over and over.
And right now it is only pouty liberals, who can easily be dismissed. But as the “evil strategy” moves forward more and more Democrats are going to get scared. And punting means that “as it moves forward” moves into where Republicans now have the House. Let’s have a “pouty check” in December 2011 and December 2012.
The public does not understand why one can have a majority in the House and the Senate, a President and the Democrats have no leverage. So the Democrats get the blame. Checkmating a majority; boy, oh boy, does the system work.
You know, I don’t comment much around here, but I find myself agreeing with you more and more everyday. What you just described is pretty much the same argument I had with a cousin over Thanksgiving weekend. So…
Thanks.
You’re welcome. I understand how difficult family discussions can get; my daughter has in-laws in Alabama.
Big part of the problem here isn’t that the voters aren’t concerned about process. Largely, it’s that the consultants who tell the media what to publish don’t think the public is concerned with process, and further that many reporters are no longer given the time and space to learn to understand, report, and write process stories.
Woodstein wouldn’t be ABLE to do Watergate now; no publisher in the country would give them the time or support to track it down. It took a lot of time and effort and generated many many pissed off letters from Republican readers and High Powered Government Officials. Nobody would take that heat now, and if they did…
TPM reports that Collins has come back with a counter-offer for Harry Reid: she will vote for cloture if Republicans get to offer 10 amendments to the Democrats’ 5 and there are four days of debate. Reid’s previous offer was for the same number of amendments for both parties but only two days of debate.
Honestly, if we can take Collins at her word that she will vote for cloture and that this will allow Murkowski, Brown, and maybe Snowe to vote with her as well, I think Reid should take the deal. Obviously, that’s a lot of big ifs. But this close to the finish line, a couple extra days of speeches is worth it.
Told you:
http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/12/08/republicans-casually-agree-theyll-never-allow-payroll-tax-cut
-to-rise-again/
In a vacuum, the “deal” isn’t bad. Using the future as a gauge, it must be opposed.
Indeed, the Republican party would be far less powerful if he did.