Mitch McConnell Kills Minimum Wage Increase

So not only does he refuse to lift a fucking finger to create jobs for suffering Kentuckians, he kills any attempt by Democrats to give working Kentuckians a living wage.

The final Senate roll call is online here. Note, the official final tally was 54 to 42, but it was 55-41 before Reid had to switch his vote for procedural reasons. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee was the only Republican to vote with the majority, not because he supports a wage hike -- he was likely to vote against it -- but because he thought it was a debate worth having.  

Indeed, it's worth remembering that what transpired on the Senate floor this afternoon wasn't a vote on whether to raise the minimum wage; it was a vote on whether to end a Republican filibuster and begin a debate on raising the minimum wage. The GOP minority -- including "moderates" like Susan Collins and Mark Kirk -- blocked wage increase, but in the process, they also rejected the World's Most Deliberative Body from even debating the issue.

Seriously, if Democratic candidates can't beat a party whose members blatantly ass-rape working people in broad daylight and then brag about it, they really don't deserve to be elected.

But we don't deserve the alternative.

Mitch and AynRandy Kill Veterans Benefits Increase

All right, Kentucky veterans, I know most of you are republicans and you hate President Obama. Is this really what you want from your only U.S. Senators?  Sacrificing veterans to kick sand in the face of That Ni**er in the White House?  Do you really think McConnell and Paul are acting on "principle?"  Do you think they give a flying fuck about you?  How fucking stupid are you?

Yes, those two worthless pieces of shit are exactly what you deserve.  But the rest of us don't.

From the Washington Post:

A divided Senate on Thursday derailed Democratic legislation that would have provided $21 billion for medical, education and job-training benefits for the nation’s veterans. The bill fell victim to election-year disputes over spending and fresh penalties against Iran.

SNIP

Republicans used a procedural move to block the bill after Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chided GOP lawmakers about their priorities.

“I personally, I have to say this honestly, have a hard time understanding how anyone could vote for tax breaks for billionaires, for millionaires, for large corporations and then say we don’t have the resources to protect our veterans,” said Sanders, the measure’s chief author.

The Post plays false equivalence by pretending the Democratic members are equally to blame, but that is a lie.

Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul hate Kentucky's veterans and don't you ever forget it.

The Racist Woman-Hater on the Supreme Court Who Is Ruining Lives and the Country

So glad Senate Democrats used their constant filibustering of everyone Shrub nominated to keep this piece of shit off the nation's highest court.  Oh, wait.

Ian Millhiser at Think Progress:

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito lacks “either understanding or interest” in the discrimination faced by women, African Americans or Latinos, according to federal Judge Harold Baer.

SNIP

Whatever the wisdom of Judge Baer’s practice, however, it is difficult to look at Alito’s record and see a judge who is very concerned at all by discrimination against women or minorities. Alito authored the Court’s infamous opinion in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire, a decision that was widely criticized for rolling back women’s right to equal pay for equal work. That decision was eventually overruled by Congress.

More recently, Alito authored an opinion making it far easier for workplace supervisors to get away with racial or sexual harassment. Although federal law provides fairly robust protection to workers harassed by their supervisor, Alito’s opinion in Vance v. Ball State University defined the term “supervisor” so narrowly as to render it meaningless in many workplaces. Under Vance, a person’s boss is only their “supervisor” if they have the power to make a “significant change in [your] employment status, such as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in benefits.” Thus, in many modern workplaces where final employment decisions are made by distant human resources managers and not direct supervisors, many victims of racial or sexual harassment will find themselves without recourse thanks to Justice Alito.

On the same day that Alito handed down Vance, he also voted in another case to make it easier for employers to retaliate against workers that complain about workplace discrimination and get away with it. 

Alito’s also voted to give employers an easy way to immunize themselves from class action lawsuits brought by their workers. And he’s a strong supporter of “forced arbitration,” a practice which allows employers to shunt discrimination lawsuits into a secretive and privatized arbitration system rather than allowing those cases to be heard by a real court.

Yet, for all that Justice Alito has done to prevent women and racial minorities from fighting discrimination in Court, he took a very different tone when faced with a group of mostly white plaintiffs alleging discrimination.

SNIP

The skepticism Alito showed in so many other opinions towards plaintiffs alleging discrimination suddenly abandoned him when white people made such an allegation.

SNIP

But Justice Alito has also had several years on the Supreme Court to demonstrate his commitment to abolishing discrimination against women and racial minorities. What he’s shown instead is a desire to roll back anti-discrimination law, even while he rails against discrimination against white people.

Cowardly Bullies Paul and McConnell Whine That Dems Fought Back

Nobody nails the GOP like the Rude Pundit:

In Brief: Oh, Shut the Fuck Up on the Filibuster, GOP:

Dear GOP,

You reap what you have sown, motherfuckers. And now you get at least a year of eating shit on judges and executive branch appointees. Why? Because you were such unbelievable dickheads for the last three years and the government can't function when a minority of one house of one branch can stall everything. Frankly, this should have been done all the way in January 2009, with no exception for bills and Supreme Court justices, and then we'd have real heath care reform, Gitmo closed, and more.

Just fucking stop with the outrage and the promise that you're gonna do even more evil cuntery if you ever get the majority and the presidency again. C'mon. You know and so does everyone else that, no matter if Reid went nuclear or not, you were gonna change the filibuster the first chance you got. And that's because you're dishonorable scumfuckers who won't stand to let the black man president have his way.

SNIP

Let's just hope Obama tees up a shit-ton of liberal judges to correct the rightward tilt of the judiciary in this country. You know how it got so conservative, GOP? Because Democrats weren't complete and utter pricks. Like you. So even some fuckin' perverse animals got through to lifetime appointments on the bench.

You got what you deserved. Now, really, go out and try to sell America on how much majority rule sucks as you try to get the majority.

Kisses in Hell,

The Rude Pundit

Attention Red-State Democrats: This is How It's Done

Come to Kentucky, Wendy, and run against Mitch McConnell.  He is TERRIFIED of women bearing giant cans of whoop-ass.

Wonkette:

Were you unable to sleep last night because of the sound of women screaming WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?!?!? coming out of the Texas state capitol? It all started when state Sen. Wendy Davis, Wonkette’s unanimous frontrunner for the Legislative Badass of the Year Award, stood on her feet all goddamned day to explain, in little itty bitty words that even Texas Republicans should be able to understand, why Senate Bill 5 — which bans abortion after 20 weeks, requires clinics to be certified as “ambulatory surgical centers,” and a bunch of other steaming donkeyshit — is wrong and stupid and unconstitutional and also wrong and stupid (and unconstitutional). As Yr Wonkette already ‘splained at you, all but five of Texas’s 47 existing clinics would have to close under this new bill.

But then? Oh, there were shenanigans!

As you might imagine, the menfolk of the Texas Senate did not appreciate having to listen to some lady running her mouth off ’bout ladyparts, as, clearly, that’s none of her business. State Sen. Bob Deuell, who is A Doctor and also A Idiot, even mansplained that none of this is even relevant because — we shit you not — pregnancy only results from “accurate intercourse.” Yeah. We can’t believe that shit either. Except that considering today’s Republican Party, we totally can.

But Wendy Davis, who is a superbad badass, just kept yammerin’ and yammerin’ and was all, like, “No, I will NOT yield.” Which is when the menfolk did some outside-the-box thinking (yes, we use that “thinking” word loosely) and decided they’d found a way to shut that whole thing down.

WHAT?!? you say. They just, like, made her stop talking? Why yes they did. Because she dared to discuss other Texas restrictions on abortion, and the menfolk kept saying that discussing abortion restrictions was not “germane” to the discussion of abortion restrictions, and some RIDICULOSE Texas procedural rule says that if the men whine three times and click their heels, they can end a filibuster.

In case you were watching the clock, yes, that was the exact moment that ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.

The audience — and vaginas all across the land — started shouting “BULLSHIT!” so the Texas menfolk had the audience escorted and locked out of the room because lalalalalala, we can’t hear you! Shut up, men are talking!

They then proceeded to discuss, for, like, hours, whether the whining about referencing abortion restrictions in a discussion about abortion restrictions was “germane this” and “germane that” and yes, Jermaine was the worst Jackson, and argle bargle something something yadda yadda MAKE THE MEAN LADY STOP TALKING!

Finally, after they’d consulted themselves and their manual enough to convince themselves that yes, they were quite certain they did not want to hear any more from the little woman, they decided it was time to vote on their heinous bill. And that’s when the dogs of war were REALLY slipped and the crowd went wild. No, seriously, it went motherfucking wild. There was screaming and shouting, even as the very gifted state Sen. Robert Lloyd Duncan begged the crowd to please stop shouting at him and said, “If I can have some order,” to which the crowd basically shouted FUCK YOU AND YOUR ORDER! And when he tried to announce a vote tally — surprise! The menfolk got their way, according to his calculation! — the crowd erupted into chants of “SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!” and some more general shouting and outrage, while the GOP frantically looked for a parliamentary loophole so they could fool the crowd into leaving, then vote with no one in the chamber.

While the bill did not actually pass by the midnight deadline, the GOP decided it was just a heckuva lot easier to say it did. Congratulations, womens of Texas! You are cordially invited to go intercourse yourselves accurately.

Except wait! After a couple more hours of private conversation in quiet rooms, the GOP decided that maybe stealing a vote right in front of the whole world was not such a good idea, and that it was finally and bitterly willing to admit the official vote was recorded at 12:03 (that’s after midnight, for you clock-challenged Republicans out there). So SB5 is, it turns out, dead as fried chicken. Awww yeah.

As always on Wonkette, the comments are Not. To. Be. Missed. Here are my favorites:

Lizzietish81

Its also super awesome that the people were able to keep this from happening by being involved. Like right there involved. 

StarsUponThars 

Molly Ivins would be so proud.

Callyson

It's like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you're wrong.

The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.

from her last column, January 11, 2007: We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there.

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/molly_...

I'd say "RIP, Molly," but somehow I suspect her reply would be "oh hell no, darlin', we've got work to do..."

nmmagyar

So would Ann Richards and Barbara Jordan...

Finally, from Juanita Jean:

“WHO WOULD HAVE EVER DREAMED THAT THE AMERICAN SPRING WOULD HAVE STARTED IN TEXAS?” Margot Nielsen

Filibuster Delenda Est

Ed Kilgore at Political Animal channels Cato the Elder:

Of all the factors contributing to yesterday’s gun legislation fiasco, I only have eyes today for the one that so many others writing about the “crushing defeat” of the Manchin-Toomey background check bill keep strangely forgetting about: the current way the U.S. Senate operates. Ezra Klein, however, nails it:

The gun vote didn’t fail because a couple of red-state Democrats bolted, or even because too many senators are afraid of the National Rifle Association, or even because Sen. Pat Toomey couldn’t bring along more Republicans. Those factors help explain why the gun vote didn’t clear the extraordinary bar set for it to succeed. But they’re not the main reason it failed.

The gun vote failed because of the way the Senate is designed. It failed because the Senate wildly overrepresents small, rural states and, on top of that, requires a 60-vote supermajority to pass most pieces of legislation.

The Manchin-Toomey bill received 54 aye votes and 46 nay votes. That is to say, a solid majority of senators voted for it. In most legislative bodies around the world, that would have been enough. But it wasn’t a sufficient supermajority for the U.S. Senate. Of the senators from the 25 largest states, the Manchin-Toomey legislation received 33 aye votes and 17 nay votes — a more than 2:1 margin, putting it well beyond the 3/5ths threshold required to break a filibuster. But of the senators from the 25 smallest states, it received only 21 aye votes and 29 nay votes.

It’s typical to say that this is how the Senate’s always been. It’s also wrong. The filibuster didn’t emerge until decades after the first congress, and its constant use is a thoroughly modern development.

Yes, it’s true that the legislation would have probably expired in the Republican-controlled House, as a lot of us pointed out when a lot of Beltway pundits were treating Manchin-Toomey as some sort of miracle of wonder-working proportions. But what’s maddening to me is the easy acceptance by so many people (Democratic senators as well as media observers) of the radical idea of a Senate that requires super-majorities for every legislative act—other, ironically, than budget measures. Had Mitt Romney been elected president and Republicans had taken the Senate, the Ryan budget with all its vast implications would have almost certainly cleared the Senate on a straight 50-vote majority thanks to special rules for “reconciliation.” But a bill as meek and mild as Manchin-Toomey? No, it can be dealt a “crushing defeat” by 46 senators.

I would normally say “this has to change.” But for this to change, the first step is for political actors and political media to recognize and draw attention to the problem. I noted late yesterday that in a long report on the Manchin-Toomey vote in The Hill, the words “filibuster” and “cloture” do not appear, even though the vote in question was actually on a motion for cloture to end a filibuster. The defeat of the measure by a Senate minority was treated as just the way things are done. That is what has to change first, before real change can come to the Senate. And frankly, any post-mortem on the failure of gun legislation, however well-meaning, that doesn’t prominently mention the horrifically anti-democratic set-up of the current Senate is missing a crucial point.

Filibuster Delenda Est.

 David Atkins at Hullabaloo on the California Democratic Party demanding an end to the bullshit:

The governance of the country is broken, and the Democratic Party in the largest state in the country is demanding an end to one of the rules that is most responsible for the dysfunction. We'll win eventually. It's just a matter of time. The more progressives gain influence in their own state parties, the faster we'll win.

That should be the standard. Every state Democratic Party that FAILS to call for an end to the filibuster is therefore SUPPORTING the filibuster.

From the Kentucky Democratic Party:  Crickets.

Apply NFL Rules to the Filibuster

Maybe Harry Reid's Hulk side is going to make an appearance and force the Cowardly Dems to eliminate the ludicrous and obstructionist filibuster once and for all.  But it's looking more and more that Reid and the reduced-in-number-but-still-disprortionately-powerful Senate Blue Dogs will water it down to nothing.

They should abandon all the complicated new rules and just adopt Occasional Plant's genius idea for fixing the filibuster:

Adopting the “Jimmy Stewart Rule” seems to be an improved way to limit the damage that the filibuster does to the will of the majority. But borrowing a procedure from the National Football League might be far superior.

The NFL has a rule stating that the coach of each team is able to throw a red flag on the field twice a game. The red flag indicates that he wants to challenge the referee’s ruling on the field. The coaches have to be judicious about throwing the red flags, because if their appeal does not result in the decision being overturned, the coach’s team loses a time out, which can be crucial to managing the clock.

The key is that there is a limited to the number of challenges each team can have per game.

How it would work

Suppose that this was applied the number of  filibusters the minority party could use in a session of Congress.

When Lyndon Johnson was Senate Majority Leader in the 1950s, Republicans engaged in only one filibuster. That’s right, one. Over the past six years, in which Harry Reid (D-NV) has been majority leader, Republicans have engaged in 386 filibusters. These filibusters are the primary reason why Congress has been in a state of gridlock ever since Barack Obama became president.

Suppose that the minority party was limited to ten filibusters (and “a hold,” – a topic for a future post) per year. The minority party would have to be extremely judicious about how they used their filibusters. Currently, they can use a filibuster for a wide expanse of legislation, ranging from the confirmation of judges or cabinet to funding an overseas military engagement. Frequently, Republicans have used the filibuster to stop important social welfare programs, such as food stamps, or extending unemployment benefits. In fact, they have often used it to block any effort to reach a budget accord aimed at reducing the national deficit through increased taxes and cuts in government expenditures.

Indeed, the filibuster is important to protect the rights of the minority party. Many of the issues that face the Congress are designed to protect minorities, whether they are in the field of civil and human rights, workers’ rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights, or other social issues. The Senate is often referred to as the deliberative house of Congress. It needs to remain that way. However, being deliberate is not the same as causing gridlock. With Democrats currently in the majority in the Senate, now is the time to reform the filibuster system. Senate rules allow one day, the first day of the new session in January, for changes to the rules. Maybe members of the Senate should spend their holidays watching NFL games so that they see the wisdom of putting limitations on the number of challenges.

No, Mitch: Harry Reid Is Not Your Bitch

This opens the Ditch Mitch 2014 file - with the right graphics, it'll make a great campaign ad.

From Wonkette:

Frankly, we are surprised it took this long — three years and ten and a half or so months into Barack Obama’s Purple Reign — for Senate Minority Leader and King of All He Surveys Mitch McConnell to become so demented that he is now forced to filibuster his own bills. This man, he is just not very good at his job, right? How ever has he managed to last this long opposite streetcorner brawler Harry Reid?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wanted to prove on Thursday that Democrats don’t have the votes to weaken Congress’ authority on the debt limit. Instead they called his bluff, and he ended up filibustering his own bill. [...]
McConnell brought up the legislation Thursday morning. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) initially objected, seemingly proving the Republican leader’s point that it cannot pass the Senate. But then Reid ran it by his members and, in the afternoon, agreed to hold that same vote. This time it was McConnell who objected. [...]

McConnell claimed he never agreed to hold a simple majority vote on the bill.
“What we’re talking about here is a perpetual debt ceiling grant in effect to the president. Matters of this level of controversy always require 60 votes,” the GOP leader said.

Jesus Christ. But what’s this? Harry Reid let him get away with that shit?

“Senator McConnell’s filibuster prevented us from having this vote today,” he said in a statement, “but I will continue to seek an agreement to hold an up-or-down vote on his proposal to avoid another debt ceiling debacle.”

Put on your boxing gloves, Harry. Of votes.

As I keep warning, the more defeats the repugs suffer and the more they stumble and fail, the more dangerous they become. Like cornered and wounded animals or disorganized serial killers, they lash out in unpredictable ways.

"We were sent here to serve the American people."

This isn’t about me. We weren’t sent here to wage perpetual political campaigns against each other. We were sent here to serve the American people. And they deserve better than gridlock and games. One senator gumming up the works for the whole country is certainly not what our founding fathers envisioned.

The truth is, neither party has been blameless in tactics like these. But it’s time for both parties to put an end to them. I’m asking Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, to stop this kind of behavior by passing a rule that allows all judicial and public service nominations a simple up-or-down vote within 90 days.

Yes, Mr. President, it is too about you. You're the ni**er in the White House and they won't stop until you're gone.

And no, both parties are not to blame. You've seen those graphs of the number of filibusters staged by each party and so have we: repugs have staged more in the last three years than Democrats have staged in the last seven decades.

Stop insulting our intelligence, stop pandering to people who will never, ever vote for you, stop pretending there's some "vast middle" of voters you can win over, and get down to the real work of shoving an anti-Wall-Street agenda down the repugs' throats.



Full transcript here.

Some People Need a Metaphorical Two-by-Four to the Head

Like national Democrats who can't - or won't - do the very simplest and most obvious things to help themselves.

Steve M:

DR. DEMOCRAT'S (UNUSED) MAGIC BULLET

I saw a tweet from Talking Points Memo about a half hour ago:

Dem cave in 3, 2, ...

The link that follows goes to this story:

Dems Consider Dropping Demands As Republicans Risk A Shutdown

If it weren't for the filibuster, Democrats would have the GOP neatly over a barrel. But Republicans believe they've regained the upper hand....

Senate Democrats are now considering dropping their demand that a payroll tax holiday for workers be offset by imposing a small surtax on millionaires, according to Democratic aides -- resigning themselves to the fact that Republicans won't lift their filibuster if the surtax stands....

You know, I was told that the battle had really, really been engaged when President Obama delivered a fiery populist speech in Kansas last week. But do you know what Obama didn't do in that speech? Do you know what he never does? What no Democrat ever does? No Democrat ever explains the filibuster to the American public, with the goal of urging voters to demand that Republicans back down from their abuse of the practice, particularly on overwhelmingly popular measures like raising taxes on the wealthy.

I know, I know: it's hard to fire people up with a civics lesson. But it's the only way Democrats will ever win a vote on anything, ever. It doesn't matter if it's difficult -- the party has to try.

I thought there were no more ways to describe Democratic self-destruction and defeatism, but Steve came up with a new one:

Dealing with the American people on this is analogous to practicing modern medicine while working in a less developed society and knowing that a devastating epidemic affecting that society can be stopped, or at least greatly slowed, by means of universal hand-washing, or cooking all food to a certain temperature, or using condoms during sex. The American people are like members of this less developed culture who may think the real solution is, say, an animal sacrifice to the gods -- yes, it's very difficult to communicate to them that their assessment of the problem is inaccurate, and that the real solution, which they regard as bizarre, is, in fact, what will work. But you have no choice. You have to figure out a way to communicate the truth to them. You have to get it across to them in a way they can understand, or things will just go on as they are forever.

The treatment exists. The Democrats just won't work at communicating its urgency to the public. And so the epidemic rages on.

No, don't give up. Just stop assuming that Congressional Democrats and the White House will take even the tiniest, easiest steps toward victory on their own. Pressure the fuckers. Call, write, visit, protest. But don't let them off the hook.

Kill the Filibuster. Kill the Whole Thing. Kill It Dead. Do It Now

Forget all the too-clever ideas for "reforming" the filibuster when the Senate convenes on Monday. Any "reform" that leaves intact the ability of the minority to prevent majority rule is a victory for obstructionism and a defeat for progress.

In other words: Reform = rethuglican victory.

Liberal Democracy wins only after the filibuster is dead.

That's because the filibuster is fundamentally anti-progress.

Back in August, Thomas Geoghegan in The Nation explained:

Sure, sometimes liberal Democrats put the filibuster to good use when Republicans are in power. Sure, sometimes a liberal senator can use the filibuster to stop a piece of corporate piracy. It's impossible to prove that the filibuster never does any good. But the record is awfully thin. Look at all the financial deregulation that Senator Phil Gramm and leading Democrats like Larry Summers pushed through only a decade ago. The filibuster did not stop their effective repeal of the New Deal, but it would block the revival of it today.

On the other hand, Republicans and conservative Democrats use their filibusters on labor, health, the stimulus, everything. They can and will block all the change that Obama wanted us to believe in. And even when they lose, they win. For example, when we say that after a major rewriting of the stimulus package--a rewriting that seriously weakened the original bill--it "survived the filibuster," what we really mean is that it didn't.

SNIP

Nor will any "liberal hour" come in our time, until we bring the filibuster down. I know it seems hopeless. But so did knocking out slavery when the abolitionists first started, or segregation, when civil rights activists began their struggle against Jim Crow. It's a fair enough analogy, since the filibuster is one of the last remnants of racist politics in America: it was a parliamentary tactic used by the Calhounians to make extra certain slavery would stay around.

We should adopt the strategy of the antislavery movement, which in the early stages had three approaches:

1. The laying of petitions on the House. Forgive the archaic legal phrase: I mean petitions to Congress, both houses. In the era of John Quincy Adams - in case you missed the Steven Spielberg movie - there would be mass petitions, with Adams and others reading them on the House floor to the howls of the Southerners. Every group busted by a filibuster should lay on a petition. And start with the House, which is the only place it has a chance of being read.

2. Resolutions by the House, as a warm-up for the Senate. Such resolutions might read: "Resolved, that Congress has no authority to require supermajorities in any chamber except as authorized by the Constitution." Aren't House chairs tired of seeing their bills cast into black holes by senators whose names they never even know?

3. Evangelizing. The most effective tactic in the fight against slavery was the preaching of New England clergy against it. We can start in our battle against the filibuster by enlisting faculty at New England colleges to hold teach-ins. Teach the kids why "Yes, we can" can't happen with the current Senate rules.

By the way, the abolitionists knew the Senate was their enemy, just as it is our enemy today. Let's hope these tactics work for us in getting rid of this last vestige of slavery: Senate Rule 22. What's painful is that we have to cross some of our most sainted senators. But unless we decide to just give up on the Republic, there's no way out. To save the Obama presidency, we may have to fight our heroes.

On why mere reforms are not just pointless but damaging, first we have two views on reform's "weak tea":

Steve Benen:

I tend to see the proposals as worthwhile, but if we're being intellectually serious about this, the reforms are pretty tepid. The changes -- ending filibusters on motions to proceed, eliminating secret holds, etc. -- would make the chamber function more effectively, but only at the margins. I like the plan, but I also think it's a mistake to consider it a sweeping overhaul. It isn't.

So why support it? Partly because some improvements are better than none, but also because I see some value in getting the ball rolling a bit. Major institutional reforms rarely happen all at once, and the Senate is more resistant to change than most. The point would be to use Udall/Merkley as a stepping stone -- minor changes now that could help clear the way for more systemic changes later.

And Kevin Drum:

Finally, there's #5: require honest to goodness Jimmy-Stewart-talk-til-you-drop debate if you want to filibuster a bill. It's not clear just how this would work technically, but in any case it's not really much of an impediment to filibusters.

If you have 40 senators willing to join in, each one just reads the phone book for an hour or two and then yields. That's about one hour of phone book reading per week per senator, which is hardly onerous. In fact, it's so obviously non-onerous that I imagine it changes nothing in practice. Once the minority starts up and demonstrates that it's willing to engage in a talkathon, the majority will give up and move to other business. Before long, this will morph into the same convention we have now: simply announce that you're willing to talk and the majority takes you at your word.

Overall, then, this is a pretty weak reform package. Items #3 and #4 are worthwhile, but the others are mostly window dressing. The Senate will remain a 60-vote body, but if you can scrounge up those 60 votes then things will move along a bit faster than before. That's about it.

But it's worse than that. Yet again, dems are handing repugs a monster victory while getting nothing for themselves.

TPM:

In a bid to attract Republican support for filibuster reform, Democrats led by Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Jeff Merkley have proposed a new rule that would guarantee the minority party the chance to offer three amendments to any legislation.

It may have worked too well. A senior Senate Republican leadership aide says GOP members would be "giddy" if they were given that right.

Here's why. Those amendments would be filibuster-proof -- among the only pieces of legislation in all the Senate to enjoy that privilege -- and would therefore be a recipe for poison pill amendments on both sides.

For Republicans, now in the minority, that would mean a chance to get up or down votes on repealing health care and other conservative priorities.

Remember the One Rule for Dealing With Rethuglicans: If Rethuglicans Like It, It's Got to Be Bad.

Finally, John Nichols on what's really at stake:

The signals from leaders of groups associated with the Fix the Senate Now movement are encouraging. "The filibuster has proven to be one of the most potent legislative tactics ever used to deny Americans their basic civil and human rights," argues Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "Once used to perpetuate lynchings across the South and disenfranchise African-Americans, it is now being used to obstruct pay equity for women, human rights for immigrants and the basic rights of LGBT individuals. The civil rights movement, which first coalesced around filibuster reform, believes additional reforms are necessary to move our country forward."

Henderson's message is the right one. This is not just about parliamentary procedure. This is about the impact that abuses of the filibuster do to real people.

It is echoed by Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen, who notes: "No other democracy has a legislative body that depends on unanimous consent like the U.S. Senate. In the last session more than 400 measures passed by the House were never debated by a Senate ruled by gridlock and obstructionism. Reform that would require Senators choosing to filibuster to actually hold the Senate floor and lay out their arguments in full public view will strengthen our democracy and enable the Senate to meet the challenges of our time. If the Senate rules aren’t changed, we all lose."

Kill the filibuster. Kill the whole thing. Kill it Dead. Do it now.

Don't Let the Dems Keep the Filibuster

Yes, repugs are to blame for continued high unemployment and resulting suffering in this economy. The Senate repugs, led by Mitch McConnell, repeatedly and reflexively use the filibuster to block every Democratic attempt to save the economy.

The only way for the Democratic majority to save the economy and incidentally their own asses in November is to kill the filibuster.

Obvious, right? So why haven't they done it yet? Unfortunately, because they don't want to.

Jon Walker at Firedoglake says that by refusing to kill the filibuster, Democratic Senators are breaking campaign promises:

We learned Wednesday from The Hill that many Democratic Senators don’t actually support all the great things they claim they have “fought for.” They lied to voters. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) doesn’t really support her health insurance rate-review agency as she claims to do. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) doesn’t really want Americans to have the choice of a public option, though he told people he’d fight for it. Carl Levin (D-MI) doesn’t really support expanding unemployment insurance. Russ Feingold doesn’t really care about using transparency to reduce corporate spending in elections. And so on. . . .

Why don’t these and other Senate Democrats support the policies they claim to if they really want to deliver for the voters? Because they refuse to take the small step that would actually allow them to become law. They refuse to vote to change the filibuster rules, rules that permanently doom every idea they claim to champion. They want to make sure 41 Senate Republicans always have a veto over every piece of legislation, so nothing they claim to care about could ever pass. They publicly state that they care about defending the broken rules of their clubhouse more than any promise they ever made to any constituent about a law.

SNIP

Only one thing is stopping Senate Democrats from passing all the laws they promised you. It’s a simple rules change, yet many refuse just to vote yes on changing the rules. I don’t know how they could do any less to make good on their promises.

Kevin Drum on why the filibuster survives:

No matter what anyone says, this has always been the reason the filibuster continues to exist: because both parties want it. They mostly don't want to admit it, but both Democrats and Republicans have always had an essentially defensive view of the power of government: They're more interested in stopping the other guys when they're in power than they are in getting their own things done when they're in power. In fact, for a lot of senators, the filibuster acts as a pretty convenient excuse for not doing things they don't want to do in the first place. It allows them to deliver partisan stemwinders to the faithful during campaign season without having to worry about actually delivering once they're safely back in Washington.

So despite the massive abuse of the filibuster that we've seen over the past few years, in which Republicans have made its use so universal that even Mother's Day resolutions now need 60 votes to pass the Senate, it's not going anywhere.

Wait! Don't despair. Cowardice and betrayal from Democratic Senators is nothing new. A year ago everyone was positive it would doom healthcare reform, then that it would doom financial reform. Yeah, both bills are nowhere near as strong as they need to be, but they are starts. And they are also proof that the Democratic majority can do the right thing - when we force them to.

Walker says vote against Democratic Senators in November; Drum says give up.

I say we have not yet begun to fight.

Call and email your Senators, make all your friends to the same, turn up at townhalls and demand the death of the filibuster. And don't forget:



Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

Mikulski Opens Fire on the Filibuster

The Senate repugs are begging for it, and it's time to give it to them. Right up the ass.

Firedoglake:

On the Senate floor just now, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) extended the debate over unemployment benefits, which should pass in a matter of hours, to its logical conclusion – the incessant gridlock and comic dysfunction of the “world’s most deliberative legislative body” is entirely a function of outdated Senate rules which must be changed. Here’s a rush transcript of the heart of her remarks.

(MS. MIKULSKI) WE HAD TO DILLY-DALLY AROUND FOR MONTHS AFTER MONTHS WITH THE OBSTRUCTIONIST TACTICS OF THE OTHER SIDE USING OUT-OF-DATE PROCEDURES OF THIS INSTITUTION THAT BELONG IN ANOTHER CENTURY AND ANOTHER ECONOMY. MY CONSTITUENTS ARE FRUSTRATED. THEY’RE FRUSTRATED ABOUT THEIR LIVES. THEY’RE FRUSTRATED ABOUT THE DIRECTION OF THE COUNTRY. AND THEY’RE SURE FRUSTRATED WITH THE UNITED STATES SENATE, AND PUT ME IN THAT CORNER. IT’S TIME WE NOT ONLY GET THE COUNTRY MOVING, IT’S TIME WE GET THE SENATE MOVING. WE HAVE TO FIRST LOOK AT REFORM FOR OURSELVES, AND I WANT EVERYONE HERE TO KNOW, I’M ON THE SIDE AND DEFINITELY PART OF THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN THIS INSTITUTION TO GET RID OF OUT-OF-DATE PROCEDURES THAT BELONG TO ANOTHER CENTURY WHOSE ONLY JOB IT IS IS NOT TO SLOW US DOWN SO THAT WE DO DUE DILIGENCE BUT THAT WE DON’T DO ANYTHING AT ALL.

Until this year, we’ve heard Senators grumble about their rules only on an every-decade-or-so basis. This really is reaching a fever pitch now, and while I don’t know if 50 votes can be found to return the country to majority rule and out of the grips of the 60th Senator, certainly there are plenty more members of the chamber determined to have this happen now. Even if it fails at the start of the next Congress, it should be a major focus for progressive advocates. The House is not an invalid body because it’s majoritarian. Neither is the Supreme Court. Neither are the hundreds of majoritarian legislatures around the country and around the world. The move to let the Senate join that club is just beginning.

Fifteen weeks from the November election, it's the only thing that can save not just the Democrats, but the country.

"We need a spinal transplant in the Democratic Party to play hardball."

Do I really have to tell you who said that? If you still don't understand the difference between Rahm Emmanuel's rhetorical fake-tough and the genuine toughness of Howard Dean, watch this:



Full transcript here. (Scroll down for Dean interview.)

26 Senate Dems Announce: "We Want Obama to Fail"

Because make no mistake, that's exactly what these fuckers are saying.

It was probably never gonna happen, but now it's official. Climate change legislation will not be passed through the budget reconciliation process. The Johanns amendment, which explicitly prevents such a move, just passed on a 67-31 vote. We'll get you a roll call when it's available, including the names of the significant number of Democrats who voted with the GOP. Expect to find the usual suspects on that list. And more!

The full list of President Obama-hating, repug-fellating wastes of oxygen is below, but before you read at least one name that will break liberal hearts, consider this: Karl Rove recently accused President Obama of using "Chicago tactics" against members of Congress, including Democrats. Steve M thoroughly nails the idiocy of that accusation, but I think there's untapped potential here.

Let's see some real they-pull-a-knife-we-pull-a-gun tactics against the cowards and obstructionists pretending to be Democrats. If President Obama doesn't start twisting arms and threatening primary challenges and holding legislation hostage, then what the fuck is Rahm Emmanuel there for, anyway?

Meanwhile, here's the list of "Democratic" senators who'd rather sacrifice the last chance we may have to slow runaway global climate change than inconvenience the repug minority.

Max Baucus (D-MT)
Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Mark Begich (D-AK)
Michael Bennett (D-CO)
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
Robert Byrd (D-WV)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Bob Casey (D-PA)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
Russell Feingold (D-WI)
Kay Hagan (D-NC)
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Herb Kohl (D-WI)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Blanch Lincoln (D-AR)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Jon Tester (D-MT)
Mark Warner (D-VA)
Jim Webb (D-VA)

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

Filibuster or No Filibuster, Harry Reid is Still a Coward

Well, shit. It appears that forcing Senate repugs to "really" filibuster instead of just threatening it is not the solution many of us thought it would be.

Reid's office has studied the history of the filibuster and analyzed what options are available. The resulting memo was provided to the Huffington Post and it concludes that a filibustering Senator "can be forced to sit on the [Senate] floor to keep us from voting on that legislation for a finite period of time according to existing rules but he/she can't be forced to keep talking for an indefinite period of time."

Bob Dove, who worked as a Senate parliamentarian from 1966 until 2001, knows Senate rules as well as anyone on the planet. The Reid analysis, he says, is "exactly correct."

To get an idea of what the scene would look like on the Senate floor if Democrats tried to force Republicans to talk out a filibuster, turn on C-SPAN on any given Saturday. Hear the classical music? See the blue carpet behind the "Quorum Call" logo? That would be the resulting scene if Democrats forced a filibuster and the GOP chose not to play along.

As both Reid's memo and Dove explain, only one Republican would need to monitor the Senate floor. If the majority party tried to move to a vote, he could simply say, "I suggest the absence of a quorum."

The presiding officer would then be required to call the roll. When that finished, the Senator could again notice the absence of a quorum and start the process all over. At no point would the obstructing Republican be required to defend his position, read from the phone book or any of the other things people associate with the Hollywood version of a filibuster.

"You cannot force senators to talk during a filibuster," says Dove. "Delay in the Senate is not difficult and, frankly, the only way to end it is through cloture."

And cloture requires 60 votes. Democrats, short of Minnesota's Al Franken, have 58.

(Actually, there are only 56 U.S. Senators elected from the Democratic Party. Two non-Democratic Senators caucus with the Democrats: Bernie Sanders of Vermont, elected as an Independent, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the sole member of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party. Socialist Sanders, as contemptuous as he is of Harry Reid and the other DINOs, is highly unlikely to vote with the repug minority. Lieberman, though a fucking Traitor and repug fellator who should be tarred and feathered and run out of the Senate on a rail, has to run for reelection in 2012 in a state where no republican can ever get elected and where he is barred for life from the Democratic Party. His only hope of reelection is to spend the next four years as Obama's bitch.)

Yes, Reid could propose changing the rules to reduce the cloture number to 55 or even 51. However, the cloture majority on a filibuster of the rule change would be not 60, but rather 2/3 of the Senators present - meaning as few as 34 repugs could stop the rule change.

Steve Benen asks "Now, can we talk about getting rid of the filibuster altogether?"

Fuck that. Now, can we talk about getting rid of the Senate altogether?