The Gun Show Loophole Remains -- And You Should be Angry About That

Reading through the reactions to yesterday's successful obstruction of an expanded background checks bill, there's one thing you notice right away. Normally, stories like this are peppered with words like "saddened," disappointed," or "discouraged." That's not the case today. Today, people are opening their papers or visiting their favorite online news source and reading words like "angry," "disgusted," and "furious."

The pro-crime lobby may think they've beaten us, but all they really managed to do is make us mad.

For her part, Gabrielle Giffords has spent her time cultivating the image of a happy warrior, a friendly hero overcoming tremendous adversity and senseless tragedy. While the hero part of that persona remains, "happy" doesn't describe her op-ed on the issue in the New York Times:

Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on.

I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.

Giffords writes that "if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s." The issue of partisanship does not come up. Democrat, Republican, or Independent, if you sided with the pro-criminal gun lobby, we want your head.

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Harry Reid Needs to Put Up or Shut Up on Filibuster Reform

File under "I wouldn't get my hopes up"; ThinkProgress' Ian Millhiser reports that Senate majority leader Harry Reid is talking filibuster reform again, after the last stab at it turned out to be a completely inadequate joke. In an interview with a public radio station, Reid threatened once again to bring democracy to the US Senate.

“All within the sound of my voice, including my Democratic senators and the Republican senators who I serve with, should understand that we as a body have the power on any given day to change the rules with a simple majority, and I will do that if necessary,” Reid said on Nevada Public Radio.



...“I’m a very patient man. Last Congress and this Congress, we had the opportunity to make some big changes. We made changes, but the time will tell whether they’re big enough. I’m going to wait and build a case,” Reid said. “If the Republicans in the Senate don’t start approving some judges and don’t start helping get some of these nominations done, then we’re going to have to take more action.”

 Yes, Harry Reid is a "very patient man." In fact, on the issue of Republican obstructionism, Harry Reid has been far too patient.




↓ CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP ↓

Greg Sargent:



By my count, this is at least the third time a Dem Senate leader has threatened to revisit rules reform. Yet the obstructionism continues with no action on Reid’s part.



Reid needs to stop threatening to revisit the filibuster unless he actually means it. Empty threats accomplish nothing. Indeed, they’re counterproductive. They make Dems look weak. They inflate expectations among Dem base voters — and supporters who worked hard to reelect Obama and Dems to Congress — that we may soon enjoy a functional Senate.

I couldn't agree more. Something needs to be done. And talking about doing it is counterproductive. GOP filibustering over the past decade has gotten so bad that the media has taken to reporting failures to break one as if the filibuster didn't even exist. "The Senate failed to reach the 60-vote threshold today..." has become a routine opening sentence, as if this is all so very normal and democracy in the Senate is supposed to be a sham. As if the filibuster were some grand constitutional design -- part of the founders' "checks and balances" -- instead a mere obstructionist tactic that could easily be reformed or even done away with.



I understand the concern very well: if Democrats lose the Senate and there's no filibuster, things could get ugly. Take it from a guy from a state where Democrats can only offer token resistance at the moment.



But that's only a real worry if there's a Republican president who won't veto crazy GOP bills and who'll nominate terrible candidates to courts, cabinet positions, and ambassadorships. And that doesn't seem very likely for the foreseeable future. Demographically, the major qualification required to become president right now is that the candidate not be a Republican. So if dems own the White House, they own the veto. It takes a 2/3 majority to override a veto, so that's virtually the same as overcoming a filibuster in the Senate, plus the additional hurdle of a 2/3 majority in the House; i.e., a "super-filibuster" of sorts.



In fact, the current political landscape makes this the perfect time to reform the filibuster. Personally, I'm torn on whether or not to do away with it altogether (leaning toward no, the minority party should never be completely powerless) . But there's no reason just to leave it as it is. Washington is deeply, deeply broken and dysfunctional and the Senate filibuster has a lot to do with that. If there's one thing I'm not torn about, it's that the current version of the filibuster must die -- preferably painfully and with a stake through its heart.



Harry Reid should stop with the threats and grab up a hammer and that stake.



-Wisco



[photo by Steve A Johnson]



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Homophobia Wedge Turns Against the GOP

There's been a wave of Senate Democrats announcing retirement lately, with South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson being the last. That all these announcements are happening at once is not coincidental -- the party has asked people to make their intentions known now, in order to avoid surprises closer to 2014 the elections.

Another wave of announcements has come from the Senate lately -- and it could be the result of similar election strategizing.

Washington Post:

Then there were 10. No, wait. Nine.

In the past month, the rapid rise in public support for same-sex marriage has left Supreme Court justices perplexed and some political veterans, such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, struggling to keep up.

But there may be no better measure of this historic change and its disorienting speed than what has happened among the Democrats of the U.S. Senate. They are often representatives of an urban party in rural places. That makes them the zebras of Washington’s little world: perpetually vulnerable, sniffing the wind.

As recently as the last election, 17 of those Democrats did not support same-sex marriage. By this week, however, the number was smaller.

And getting more so by the day.

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The NRA Way: If at First You Don't Succeed, Try Again. Fail Better

This ought to turn out well for them. Roll Call reports that the National Rifle Association plans to spend big to bring down Democratic senators up for reelection in 2014.

The National Rifle Association will launch a print advertising campaign targeting mostly Democratic senators up for re-election in 2014, according to sources close to the group.

On Thursday, full-page ads are scheduled to run in local newspapers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Maine, North Carolina and West Virginia. They will be supplemented by digital advertising in these states and 10 others, including Alaska, Colorado, Montana, New Hampshire and South Dakota.

Additionally, the group has scheduled full-page ads to run Feb. 25 in regional editions of USA Today, reaching parts of 15 states.

The NRA is planning to spend more than $375,000 on the campaign. But the NRA's clout with voters has eroded over the years. In fact, things have gotten so bad that if the NRA really wants to hurt Democrats' chances, they might do more damage by endorsing them.

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McCain Holds Nation Hostage to a Grudge

As anyone who tries to remember will remember, "Benghazi-gate" was a trumped up scandal designed to deny President Obama reelection. Obviously, it failed. The story was that the White House covered up certain facts that would hurt Obama on the campaign trail. So a narrative was cooked up to explain why this was all a big scandal that the media should give wall-to-wall coverage.

The way the narrative was supposed to go was that the President saw electoral doom in a terrorist attack on a consulate in Benghazi. Why this was supposed to sink his chances isn't clear nor was it ever explained. It just would, OK?

So anyway, the White House colluded with the State Department to hide the terrorist attack and blame it on anti-American rioters -- as if there's any substantial difference here. The scandal's narrative arc had it that a terrorist attack would mean the president would have trouble being reelected, but a riot would mean he wouldn't. Why? Because stop asking so many sensible questions, that's why.

Of course, the president won reelection fairly easily and decisively, despite the fact that this whole terrorist/riot thing was cleared up long before election day. Despite Republicans' best efforts to churn up a big, scary scandal, young "Benghazi-gate" had died. It now exists solely as a zombie. It has to. The problem with made up scandals is that they have to be played out to the bitter end, lest the scandal-mongers be exposed as con artists, charlatans, and liars. The problem with "Benghazi-gate" is that it's shambled along in undead pointlessness far beyond even that end stage -- which, for all practical purposes, it entered when Barack Obama was reelected back in November. It continues to lurch around only because the GOP refuses to bury it, as John McCain demonstrated so well this weekend. Steve Benen has the skinny:

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There's No Defending Our Insane Gun Culture

The other day, I pointed out that the things gun apologists are saying in the wake of a Connecticut school shooting make no damned sense at all. My jumping off point was a statement from Mike Huckabee that suggested the shooting was the result of a lack of religion in schools. It's hard to get past how offensive that is, but I managed. There are countries in the world that are more religious and more violent, while barely religious countries exist that are much safer than the US. When you compare the US to the rest of the world, gun apologists' arguments fall apart.

So it comes as no surprise that the hackish George Will offers his own completely illogical take on things.

Raw Story:

[...]

“We ought to bring in Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago,” [Will] insisted. “Chicago is an epidemic of violence with young, largely unparented — that is, no father in the home — adolescent males. That’s a problem quite separate from this.”

The conservative columnist also worried that the massacre of 20 children at an elementary school in Connecticut would be used to “ratchet up the security of schools and elsewhere in public spaces.”

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On Iran Sanctions, Thompson Fails Integrity Test

I don't know what to make of Tommy Thompson performance in the Wisconsin Senatorial debate last night, other than to wonder whether perhaps Tommy is not well. The political lion who was the state's longest serving governor is still in there somewhere -- you can see him at times -- but this is one confused lion. And that became very apparent. It was on the subject of Iran that things started to look a little shaky.

The Thompson campaign had leaked a story to the press earlier in the day that detailed opponent Tammy Baldwin taking $60,000 from an organization that opposed sanctions against Iran. That in itself is no big deal. You can agree or disagree with the sanctions approach to Iran. If you think an anti-sanctions position is worthy of criticism, go ahead and criticize away. It's a foreign policy debate that would be absolutely within bounds. We'll get into all that in a moment.

But consider, if Team Thompson had leaked the story ahead of the debate, that means the candidate spent the day -- at least -- preparing to discuss the issue. The result of that cram session? This:

It is necessary to prevent Iran and Ahmadinejan (sic) — who is an individual that is somewhat mentally impaired, who believes that the Holocaust never existed, believes that Israel should be destroyed, and has threatened America that they’re going to blockade the Gulf of Hormuth (sic), which would block all the oil going worldwide, and it would enter us into a world depression.

He can't remember the name Ahmadinejad or the real name of the Strait of Hormuz (in fact, he can't even picture it in his mind; a strait and a gulf are entirely different things). He'd had to have been going over this again and again -- it was, after all, pretty much the entire strategy to winning the debate -- and Thompson still couldn't get even the most basic facts down. Worse, he kept referring to the organization which made the Baldwin contribution -- Council for a Livable World -- as a "company," prompting an exasperated "Who are you talking about?" from Baldwin.

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Walker's Legislative Steamroller Not Quite So Formidable Now

Tomorrow's the big day. After months of signature collection, petitions to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker must be turned in by Tuesday. The call to wrap things up actually came last week, indicating the kind of comfortable buffer petitioners have achieved. There were no urgent pleas to keep signing until the very last second, no big final push, just the message that it was time to fold up shop, to make sure all your petitions are signed and dated, and to turn that paperwork in on time.

Of course, this is the second round of recalls in Wisconsin, sparked by Republican overreach and a union-busting law. The first was toward the end of summer last year, when Democrats took two seats in the state Senate. Republicans, after launching a counter-recall, gained no seats. Democrats had come within one seat of taking the Senate majority, while Republicans had fallen from one seat to three seats from taking a quorum-proof super-majority.

Somehow, this got spun into a win for Republicans. The Democratic goal, after all, had been to take the majority in the Senate. Democrats had gained two seats and lost no ground, Republicans had lost two seats and gained no ground, therefore Republicans had won. "Tonight’s results demonstrate that responsible budgeting measures and job creating policies can prevail over mountains of liberal special interest money from those fighting to maintain the unsustainable status quo," said Chris Jankowski, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee. "This tremendous victory is a significant step toward returning government to the people and protecting the hard-working American family and businessperson. By beating back countless liberal special interest dollars and paid supporters, the strength of responsible Republican ideals is obvious and foreshadows continued Republican victories in 2011, 2012 and beyond."

Only in the bass-ackward mind of a Republican is losing two seats winning. And not just winning, a "tremendous victory." Why, it was a landslide! A few more "victories" like that and there won't be any Republicans in the Senate at all.

And now we see what their "win" has brought them.

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In Payroll Tax Cut Debate, GOP War on Facts Marches On

There are a lot of things to dislike about the modern Republican Party. There's the attitude they have toward what they consider "the other" -- i.e., gays, lesbians, non-Christians, etc. -- that casts nearly every person who doesn't look like they just stepped out of Normal Rockwell print as an obvious enemy of America. There's the authoritarian bent that would control who you love and what you say, that would listen in on your phone calls and torture you pretty much at whim, that would have even minor offenders in prison and loves the death penalty, and would mark every miscarried pregnancy as a potential murder scene and force women to give birth against their will. But the biggest problem with the Republican Party -- in fact, the problem from which almost all of the other problems stem -- is their hostility to plain, provable fact.

From climate to evolution to economics, we see Republicans believing what they'd like to be true, rather than what is true. When Michele Bachmann said that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine (which reduces cervical cancer in women by preventing a very common STD) caused "mental retardation," it wasn't because she had any evidence of it, but because she wanted it to be true. Social conservatives oppose the HPV vaccine because they believe that protection increases sexual activity among teens. Not surprisingly, this isn't true either, for the exact same reason that airbags don't increase car crashes. But Bachmann believes whatever it is she wants to believe, because that's just what Republicans do.

Case in point:

Reuters:

In late-night votes, the Senate, as expected, defeated a Democratic plan that would have extended and expanded the payroll tax cut that is scheduled to expire on December 31.

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White House Begins to Acknowledge Reality that GOP is Sabotaging Recovery

We need to be honest with the public. This election is about them, not us. And we need to treat this election as the first step in retaking the government. We need to say to everyone on Election Day, "Those of you who helped make this a good day, you need to go out and help us finish the job."... The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president...Our single biggest political goal is to give our nominee for president the maximum opportunity to be successful.
-Republican Senate minority leader Mich McConnell, in an interview during the 2010 elections.

Mitch McConnell said that?!?... He admitted that on the record?!? That is embarrassing. Can I just say for the record -- that is pathetic."
-Former GOP congressman and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.

It was embarrassing and pathetic. One election cycle had not yet come and gone and here was the GOP's top guy in the Senate, already working on the next. I can't think of a better example of the Republican Party's "permanent campaign" mode than McConnell's admission. It would be two years before the next election and, rather than focusing of governing, McConnell was concentrating on the 2012 presidential campaign. Want a recipe for disaster? There you go.

But of course the White House, being all post-partisan and above such trifling matters as political reality, pretty much ignored McConnell's confession. They would continue to reach across the aisle to try to work with Republicans and would continue to have their hand slapped back. Like a gambling addict plugging a slot machine, the president seemed trapped by his own losing streak and the belief that if he kept feeding the machine silver dollars, it would have to pay off eventually. Ok, so this time bipartisanship didn't work, but if he walked away, he was walking away from the one time -- perhaps the very next pull on that lever -- that it would.

Maybe it was the debt-limit fight that proved to Barack Obama that the machine he was playing was either rigged or broken. Or maybe there was some sort of Oval Office intervention. But the White House seems to have come to grips with reality; Republicans are only concerned about the elections and, since this is true, they have an actual disincentive to work with the president to solve real world problems for Americans.

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Say it With Me; John Boehner is Just Wasting Everyone's Time

Seriously, what the hell is Sir John of Orange doing? Last night, Boehner finally had to abandon his attempt to get his debt limit bill passed, because he couldn't get enough votes in the House to push it through. But that's OK, because there was no way in hell the Senate was going to pass it anyway. Metaphorically speaking, he was gunning the engine in a desperate attempt to run straight into a brick wall before the clock ran out.

Now, he's actually taking the zero chance his bill had of surviving in the Senate and moving it into negative territory, by tying his bill to a Balanced Budget Amendment to please the crazies.

Politico:

House Republican leaders will tie a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution to their two-step debt-ceiling bill — a move that is all but certain to clinch the necessary votes to pass Speaker John Boehner's proposal a day after it stalled...

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Republicans Filibustering Our Future

Global warming is a hoax. Before you buy that line, it pays to consider which side of the aisle is making that claim. If the fact that these people come from the same side as those who believe that Barack Obama is an illegal alien, that creationism makes more sense than evolution, and that George W. Bush was a perfectly competent president doesn't convince you that they're either crazy or dishonest, then consider that many of the "climate skeptics" are formerly out-of-work tobacco lobbyists. These are not the most level-headed or trustworthy people.

But these people were the winners last week, when the Senate killed cap-and-trade legislation. Opposing the legislation was the minority position in Washington, but in the Senate, the minority rules. "We've always known from Day One that to pass comprehensive energy reform you've got to have 60 votes," said Sen. John Kerry. "As we stand here today we don't have one Republican vote."

Which makes the timing of a report by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pretty bad. A week too late to influence the debate, the new report calls global warming "undeniable."

Reuters:

Melting glaciers, more humid air and eight other key indicators show that global warming is undeniable, scientists said on Wednesday, citing a new comprehensive review of the last decade of climate data.

Without addressing why this is happening, the researchers said there was no doubt that every decade on Earth since the 1980s has been hotter than the previous one, and that the planet has been warming for the last half-century.

This confirms the findings of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which reported in 2007 with 90 percent certainty that climate change is occurring. The IPCC also said that human activities contribute to this phenomenon.

"The new report was released after US Senate Democrats delayed any possible legislation to curb climate change until September at the earliest," the article goes on. "Prospects for U.S. climate change legislation this year are considered slim."

Just great...

The report cites 10 key indicators that show that the planet is warming:


-- Higher temperatures over land

-- Higher temperatures over oceans

-- Higher ocean heat content

-- Higher near-surface air temperatures (temperatures in the troposphere, where Earth's weather occurs)

-- Higher humidity

-- Higher sea surface temperatures

-- Higher sea levels

-- Less sea ice

-- Less snow cover

-- Shrinking glaciers


This was all predicted by the "junk science" of climate researchers. "The seven indicators expected to rise in a warming world rose over the last decade, the report said," Reuters reported, "the three indicators expected to decline did so over that same period." If climate change is a bunch of hooey, how is it that climate scientists always seem to get it right in the end? Weird... It's almost like they're correct or something.

There's a move to reform the filibuster in the Senate right now. It's long passed time for a fix. There is no way that the founders of the nation intended for the Senate minority to be given a de facto veto. The prospects for reform are reportedly mixed, but I don't think there's any doubt that something needs to change. For those who'd make the "what comes around, goes around" argument, I'd point out that the filibuster is currently causing more problems than it solves.

This has got to stop.

-Wisco


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Cap-and-Trade is Dead. Now What?

Cap-and-trade is the purest form of socialism. It would be a tremendous destructive force on our market and a hidden tax that would destroy the economy. This is why Republicans and "centrist" Democrats killed it dead, dead, dead yesterday. Common sense conservatives just can't get behind it. This is why George H.W. Bush instituted a cap-and-trade system to fight acid rain -- because Ronald Reagan's Vice President was a Marxist. It's why it was the solution offered by McCain/Palin in 2008 -- because Sarah Palin is a commie. Never mind that Bush Sr's program worked, the economy didn't collapse, and unbridled socialism didn't run rampant throughout the land. Those are facts and facts are for elitists.

As we all know, conservatives hate history. If tax cuts have never worked as a way to reduce the deficit, that's irrelevant -- this time they will for sure. So by the same token, if cap-and-trade as a market-based solution was a success story in the past, this time it won't be. They have the zen of a cow in the field munching grass; always in the "now," without any past or future. The only real difference is that where cows are incapable of learning from the past, Republicans refuse to. The past is filled with facts and facts are the greatest enemy of the modern conservative, so the past is the enemy. Maybe even a lie.

But are Senate conservatives the only ones to blame here? As is always the case these days, the answer is no. By now, you know how they're going to react to something. They're going to react negatively. Without fail. Never mind that cap-and-trade was their own damned idea, Republicans are 100% guaranteed to hate it if it comes from a Democrat. Because they're children. You don't have to be a psychic to see this coming a mile away. What was missing on this issue is the same thing that's been missing on so many issues; leadership.

Andrew Revkin, New York Times:

On a host of issues, Obama campaigned as a voice of reason, willing to listen to all views, amid all the polarized shouting. But on climate and energy, he has not yet, apparently, found the strength to break free of the 20th-century-style left-right fight to forge a positive path that is true to the scope and time scale of the climate and energy challenge and could resonate with Americans, particularly the young generation that will inherit the environment being shaped by decisions, or indecision, now.

Revkin points out that Obama has given no major address on the issue, has not "invited a variegated stream of researchers and analysts of climate science and policy to the White House," and has failed to counter congressional voices of idiocy like Sen. James Inhofe's. In short, the administration has been MIA on this issue -- an issue of the utmost importance to our future.

But that may be the glass-half-empty point of view. As Revkin points out, "Could it be that the White House has concluded what some political analysts have quietly told me -- that only a Republican president could muster the Senate votes to pass a meaningful climate bill?" If that's the case, I wouldn't hold my breath. Given the '12 GOP field so far, they're going to have a hard time offering a serious challenge. And none of the nutjobs lining up for the job seems to be very interested in reality. Even if one were to wake up out of their stupor and admit that global warming was real, they'd probably blame it on illegal immigrants or abortion.

We'll pass it off to Time's Joe Klein now:

[A] Supreme Court ruling, now three years old, [says] carbon dioxide is a poison that needs to be cleaned up. Next year, the Environmental Protection Agency will begin regulating the hell out of CO2. The business community won't like that, nor will many Republicans. "Putting a price on carbon is the only alternative," says Senator Maria Cantwell, who has offered a bill--with Maine Republican Susan Collins as co-sponsor--that would force the 2000 top polluters to participate in an auction to purchase the right to spew; 75% of the income would be returned as a "dividend" to taxpayers, the other 25% would go to alternative energy...

And so, yesterday's death of environmental legislation should be considered a pre-election maneuver. Given a choice between taxes and potentially punitive regulations, the wise--the more elegant; the less expensive--choice is a tax every time.

The administration can use the EPA as a hammer to force a legislative solution and, if that fails, continue to use it as a hammer to force CO2 reduction. Reducing CO2 is not optional, it's not something we can just give up on because Republicans have chosen to be idiots about it. If they need to be forced into a corner, then release the border collies and herd them into a corner.

I just wish that border collies weren't to sweet to bite.

-Wisco


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Who Cares About the Unemployed? We've Got an Election to Win!

As congress returns from the Fourth of July recess, they'll try once again to extended unemployment benefits for 2.14 million citizens whose benefits have run out. The problem here is Republican grandstanding -- with the unfortunate Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson joining in -- on the deficit. But the amount of money the extension of these benefits would add to the deficit is so miniscule and the stimulative effect of unemployment benefits are so great that it's hard to make any sense of the GOP's argument here. It's like saying, "Yeah, we could buy this new tractor and increase productivity on the farm, but it's a penny more than I'm willing to pay, so we're just going to have to lose all that profit." It makes no sense at all.

Part of the Republican defense is that extending unemployment benefits extends the amount of time people remain unemployed. But this is a crazy argument that assumes all situations are equal and that there are plenty of jobs out there waiting to be filled. There aren't. Economist Paul Krugman explains:

Do unemployment benefits reduce the incentive to seek work? Yes: workers receiving unemployment benefits aren’t quite as desperate as workers without benefits, and are likely to be slightly more choosy about accepting new jobs. The operative word here is "slightly": recent economic research suggests that the effect of unemployment benefits on worker behavior is much weaker than was previously believed. Still, it's a real effect when the economy is doing well.

But it's an effect that is completely irrelevant to our current situation. When the economy is booming, and lack of sufficient willing workers is limiting growth, generous unemployment benefits may keep employment lower than it would have been otherwise. But as you may have noticed, right now the economy isn't booming -- again, there are five unemployed workers for every job opening. Cutting off benefits to the unemployed will make them even more desperate for work -- but they can't take jobs that aren't there.

Further, Krugman argues that unemployment benefits help the economy for obvious reasons; if more people have money, more people spend money, and if fewer people have money, fewer people spend money. And no one is as guaranteed to spend money as the person who needs it. Fewer people spending money results in decreased demand, which results in even fewer jobs. This facet of the Republican argument has everything bass-ackward.

The problem here is that the Republican Party has lost their mind. Remember, on the day that Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, pundits were openly wondering if the GOP was going the way of the Whigs. Things had seldom seemed darker for them. Then came the Town Hall mobs, which grew into the Tea Party. Combined with growing impatience over economic recovery, the GOP -- so recently written off as dying -- was suddenly in a sort of ascendancy. They've grabbed onto this small but vocal group like a drowning man grabs onto a floating log. And, as a result, they've become as incredibly stupid as their new base.

A new Gallup poll shows that only among teabaggers and Republicans is the size of the federal debt a huge concern. Only in those two demographic groups does a majority say debt is an "extremely serious threat" to America's future. The poll has a massive flaw in that it doesn't include the economy as a possible threat, so the numbers will be a little weird. But otherwise, it's telling.

Another major concern of tea partiers is "the size and power of federal government" (49%), with 80% believing that "government is doing too much that should be left to individuals and businesses." This would be a lot easier to take if they didn't also hypocritically agree that "Government should promote traditional values" (57%). We all know what "traditional values" means by now, so we can translate these results as, "Big government extending unemployment benefits and guaranteeing healthcare -- boo for big gummint! Big government making sure that men only sleep with women, women only sleep with men, and some women remain pregnant against their will -- yay for big gummint!" The group who argue that the government that governs best governs least would be a lot easier to take seriously if most of them actually meant it.

But to go back to unemployment, these inconsistent tea party geniuses are the ones blocking debate. And make no mistake, the majority is one the sane side -- just not Republicans. Nor their teabagger brain.

To my knowledge, no poll has asked what I consider to be a central question; how many tea partiers are unemployed? From their positions on the issues, I'd say that very, very few are. And those few are stupid beyond words. The entire movement is idiocy run amok, driven by selfishness and ignorance and fear. This is today's Republican Party; terrified of everything, unwilling to sacrifice, and ignorant of both facts and the hypocrisy of their own positions. It's become an unhinged, drooling fool of a party, driven not by its brightest minds, but by the loudest voices in its head.

And this monstrous idiot of a party, this collection of so-called "rugged individualists" who think with one collective hive-mind, has decided to set economic policy for the nation. They are, not surprisingly, doing it wrong. But that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is winning in November. Who cares if it helps the nation? Reelection is all that matters and the tea party nuts are key to that. The party that was once declared dead has risen from the grave and now, zombie-like, shambles off to do the bidding of its own teabagger zombie-plague.

-Wisco


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Republicans Fail Economics

Let's take a moment and pretend that the common political idea of running government like a business makes any damned sense at all. And let's not wonder which business we should model our government after; Enron, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, BP, etc. Let's just take it at face value and assume this is the best idea anyone ever had. Now, ask yourself this question; is debt a bad business plan?

If it is, then American business is screwed. One of the first problems we had in the Great Economic Unraveling of 2008 was that banks weren't lending money -- to businesses. And this was bad, you'll remember. Businesses relied on credit to keep things rolling. If they couldn't get loans, they wouldn't be able to make payroll or meet other obligations. It became clear that American business, like businesses all over the world, relied on credit. This shouldn't be all that surprising. If your profits are x and the interest rate is y, then it makes good business sense to borrow money if it means the value of x will exceed the value of y. In other words, if credit allows you to make investments in your business that result in profits that exceed the what you have to pay back -- interest included -- you'd have to be a fool not to borrow money to make that investment. We know that debt is good for business, because we witnessed a period when credit wasn't available and we know that it was really, really bad. If our government is running like a business, there will be times that running a debt will be not only necessary, but the wisest course of action. The "government as a business" types like to pretend that businesses don't carry debt, but they're just plain lying. In capitalism, debt is not only good, but crucial -- one of the factors in the creation of wealth are interest payments.

So, in our "government as a business," we can't automatically argue that debt is bad. Before we can do that we have to show that the borrowing won't pay off in the long run. For example, leading causes of our current debt are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Bush's top-heavy tax cuts. In terms of investment, our "government as a business" was shoveling money into a hole with the wars -- we still are -- and the tax cuts were a gamble that didn't pay off. Despite Bush promises that we'd "grow our way out of debt," we never actually did. In this government business, war and tax cuts have turned out to be pretty lousy investments.





But, given all this, we still see Washington and the media freaking out about debt. Not bad debt or bad investments, but just debt -- as if it's all the same. Debt and deficits are bad for the economy, they say -- without ever explaining how, exactly -- and this is the big problem we have to address now, now, now. Never mind that, as a business, there's no reason for us to give a crap about how we influence the economy (think Lehman Brothers did?), but I guess this whole "government as a business" thing requires that we ignore a lot of obvious facts. We're apparently in the Good Economy business.

Part of the problem here is that the media has joined in on this "government as a business" idea. It's suddenly become the consensus. Everyone in America agrees that government really is a business and that debt and deficits are always bad. Period. End of story.

This is what you call "accepted wisdom" and, as is so often the case, the accepted is just plain wrong.

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR):

In the June 21 New York Times, John Harwood wrote, "The same polls that show voters upset about joblessness also show them upset about deficit spending, which Democratic leaders consider their only short-term method of reducing joblessness."

The Washington Post (6/19/10) put the same narrative on its front page under the headline, "Election-Year Deficit Fears Stall Obama Stimulus Plan." Reporter Lori Montgomery acknowledged that many economists see a greater threat looming if the government doesn't provide additional stimulus. But, she countered, "a competing threat--the exploding federal budget deficit--seems to be resonating more powerfully in Congress and among voters." The piece went on to note that the first stimulus package does not appear to poll very well, and that voters "are sending mixed signals about whether Washington should spend more on jobs or start minding the national debt."

But most recent polls show far more public concern over unemployment than deficit spending or the federal debt. As FAIR noted (FAIR Blog, 5/19/10), recent surveys from CBS/New York Times and NBC/Wall Street Journal asked voters to rank problems facing the country. Unemployment was more important by a spread of 49 percent to 5 percent in the CBS/NYT poll, 35 percent to 20 percent in the NBC/WSJ survey, and 47 percent to 15 percent from a recent Fox poll. Blogger Ben Somberg raised similar questions (6/19/10) in response to the Post story.

So the people know something that the "government as a business" types in Washington and the media don't; deficits aren't the problem, unemployment is. And we're right. The problem with the economy is that no one's spending money. And if we have a big pool of people without money, then that just makes things worse. Our economy, like all economies, is consumer-driven. If people aren't spending money, the economy isn't healthy.

What you want to do is get money to people who don't have it. Why? Because there is no one on earth so certain to spend money as the person who needs it. They're going to stop buying rahmen noodles and start buying something a little more real. And, if they have money while they're looking for work, they aren't going to take the first crappy job that comes along. Reducing unemployment isn't necessarily good in itself; if everyone's being paid less now, you really haven't helped things much. In our Good Economy business, we've done a pretty lousy job.

Which means that, last night, government was a very bad business.

The Hill:

By a 57-41 vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) failed for a third time to advance legislation that would have extended unemployment benefits through November and resuscitated scores of individual and business tax breaks that expired last year.

Today's vote marks the third time that Reid has failed to advance the legislation.

And you know what's craziest about this? It's not going to reduce the deficit. It's not going to pay off any debt. In effect, the senate has turned down a loan that would've been a very good investment -- and they did it in favor of nothing. To further wear a threadbare phrase, they'll bend over backwards to bail out Wall Street, but they won't do a thing to bail out Main Street. A Republican filibuster just hamstrung our recovery.

Here's the thing; it's a Republican myth that business creates jobs. It doesn't. No business is ever going to hire someone they don't need to do a job that doesn't need to be done. Demand creates jobs. If I want a bunch of widgets right now, a business would hire more widget-makers to keep up with demand. On the other hand, if the business hires a bunch of widget-makers, people aren't going to magically start needing them. And if no one has any money, no one needs any widgets. No consumers=bad for business=bad economy=bad job by the Good Economy business.

If this is running government like a business, these businessmen suck.

-Wisco


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Primaries Don't Tell Us Much

Normally, primary midterm elections would be about as newsworthy as the weather; everyone would report on it one day and then it stops being news. But this year is different. The media has set up a narrative about this election cycle -- gonna be a big year for Republicans -- and anything that happens from here until November will serve that narrative. Part of this line lies in some simple math; it's a bad year for incumbents, Democrats are in the majority, therefore Democrats will bear the brunt of a big anti-incumbent sweep.

And last night we saw incumbents do very poorly, for the most part. In Arkansas, Sen. Blanche Lincoln is forced into a runoff for her party's nomination and, in Pennsylvania, long-time Sen. Arlen Specter lost to Rep. Joe Sestak. For their part, the New York Times is sticking with their story:

The results were sobering for both parties, amounting to a rejection of candidates selected and backed by leaders in Washington who found themselves out of step with their electorates.

Republicans and Democrats alike are now left to learn the lessons from the frustration being expressed by voters, and to unify behind nominees who face daunting general election campaigns.

But using Blanche Lincoln as representative of all incumbent Democrats is crazy and doing the same with Specter is even more so. Specter switched parties just last year -- admitting that he stood no chance of winning as a Republican. Democrats were cheered by the math -- Specter helped seal the 60-seat majority at the time -- but weren't so happy with or trusting of the man. Sestak, on the other hand, is a real Democrat and, as a former two-star admiral, the highest-ranking former military officer in congress. Sestak is by no means a lightweight. Yes, the White House backed Specter, but what else could they really do? He'd jumped the Republican ship and, if Obama had left him twisting in the wind, that'd be a real disincentive for other Republicans to do the same. In any case, as Specter's chances became weaker, White House support for his candidacy did the same. That election is a unique case and treating it as representative of anything other than itself is a mistake.

As for Lincoln, her determination to be a speedbump on the road to healthcare reform cost her big. She is not the favorite of national Democrats and certainly not of Democratic voters. Like Specter, Lincoln has establishment support, but only because of the advantage an incumbent holds. And using this election as evidence of an anti-incumbent mood is even farther off-base -- under almost any other state's rules, Lincoln probably would've won. The last count I could find was 45%-43%. In Arkansas, a majority -- 50%+ -- is needed to avoid a runoff. It's a good law and one I wouldn't mind seeing nationalized (imagine a world without Bush v. Gore), but the "Voters Reject Lincoln" headlines are just plain wrong, no matter how you look at it.

Yes, the teabaggers have rejected Utah Sen. Bob Bennett and Rand Paul won over the GOP establishment choice in Kentucky, but the Tea Party isn't everyone -- no matter how hard the media pushes that meme. In all of the cases, looking at party primaries for clues about the general election seems silly. In the Republican primaries, the craziest candidates seem to be winning -- which probably isn't excellent news for the GOP. And the Democratic primaries are a mixed bag -- just like they usually are.

If you want some sort of a glimpse at how the general is going to go, you need to look at the one actual election that was held last night. In Pennsylvania, voters chose Democrat Mark Critz over Republican Tim Burns for the late John Murtha's seat. RNC chairman Micheal Steele had predicted a win in that district and laughed off the idea that a Democrat had any chance at all. "What are you talking about?" Steele told the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza when asked about the possibility of a loss. "Oh, come on. We're going to win."

Now granted, there was no incumbent in that race, so we can't use it to measure any anti-incumbent mood. But that doesn't mean it's meaningless. Pennsylvania's 12th is exactly the sort of swing district that Republicans will need to take in order to win big in November (it went to McCain in 2008). And they didn't. Whizbang statistician Nate Silver explains:

[I]f the Republican Tim Burns were to win by about 5 points, that would give us one indication that the cycle was shaping up to be more like 2004, from which the Republicans emerged with 232 House seats. And if Democrat Mark Critz were to win by, say, 8 points, that would give us one indication that the cycle was shaping up to be more like 2006 or 2008.

Critz won by eight points. While it's clear that Silver was throwing out a rough estimate on the fly, the weather's looking slightly better for Democrats than Republicans here. Silver says we can read something from this race, but "not necessarily very much." Personally, I agree, although I'd argue that even that "not very much" is more than any party primaries will tell us. Kentucky and Pennsylvania both have closed primaries, meaning only people registered with the respective parties vote -- i.e., only Democrats vote in the Democratic primary and only Republicans vote in the Republican primary. Using these to read the minds of the voters in the general election is more than a little crazy. And, if you had to declare a winner in Arkansas -- the open primary of the night -- you'd have to give it to Lincoln, the incumbent.

I guess in the end what I'm saying is that a lot of people are going to be saying a lot about what all the primaries last night meant and that you should probably not put too much faith in that analysis. We can see that Democrats seem to like real Democrats, Republicans like real crazy people, and voters in one swing district went blue. Add it all up and I have to give the night to Democrats. Just not by much.

Wisco



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I Guess Because Fear is Fun

Let the insanity begin. We now officially have a Supreme Court nominee. Solicitor General Elena Kagan is President Obama's choice to replace the retiring John Paul Stevens. An unnamed Republican aide previews part of the GOP game plane from here; "A third of the Senate said she was unqualified for the [solicitor general] post," the aide told Politico. "It will be hard to ask them to turn around and say she now qualified, for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land. And we'll be busy in the coming months looking over her whole year of courtroom experience."

See, Kagan -- like former Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- has never served as a judge. This explains the snide "whole year of courtroom experience" remark. A former Dean of Harvard Law School, there can be no doubt that understands the law well enough. And if a third of the senate thought she wasn't qualified to be solicitor general, two-thirds thought she was. Hell, if two-thirds of Americans voted for a presidential candidate, it'd be a historic landslide. Suddenly, being confirmed by a filibuster-proof majority is a bad thing. Apparently, unless someone was confirmed unanimously for another post, there's no way they're being confirmed for the Supreme Court.

Of course, this is just the right seeing the opportunity to pry open the wallets of their gullible and panicky base. It's all a big show, a pretend outrage, a phony fear campaign by a party that has no plan to offer any real opposition to Kagan's confirmation. "Barring extraordinary circumstances," reports the Associated Press, "Solicitor General Elena Kagan should have a relatively smooth confirmation to the Supreme Court if nominated by President Barack Obama."





"But there could still be a substantial culture war dust-up over her actions at Harvard to exclude military recruiters because of the ban on gays in the armed services," Politico reports. "Conservatives have indicated that one line of argument against Kagan is that her tireless efforts against the military recruiters shows Kagan is more activist and advocate than fair-minded judge – and such an argument could also nick Obama, who has had to defend his toughness on national defense matters from attacks by the GOP."

Now there's a bonanza; siding with those perverted gays against the military in a time of war. If I wanted to, I could write a whole "hates America" screed right now and probably not be too far off the "hates America" screeds we'll see from the right. Maybe she's even a closet lesbian -- as an Obama nominee, we can be sure she's a closet commie. Oops, my bad, the "closet lesbian" rumor is already spreading.

For the vast homophobic wing of the Republican Party, to be gay is to be literally insane. Homosexual behavior is a mental disorder than can be cured. Of course, that "cure" has an awful track record, sometimes with hilarious consequences. But more often, the consequences are tragic. 90% of so-called "ex-gays" -- people who've undergone this "cure" -- reported "depression to the point of attempted suicide or strained relationships with family and parents," according to a 2002 study.

But complete and utter failure has never been an impediment to belief among the right before and it's not going to start being one now. The right believes whatever it is they want to believe and the facts be damned. So Elena Kagan will be a horrible anti-American lesbian pervert -- which means she's insane. I guess because that's the most fun to be terrified of. I'll admit, I don't get this whole herd mentality that goes with falling for fearmongering. I assume it's fun, but I don't know. There has to be some sort of emotional reward associated with it, but I don't understand what that is. Being constantly terrified of things that never actually materialize would just be tiring otherwise. I don't understand how you could answer the call to panic again and again and again, only to find out every time that the Boogieman isn't really under the bed. Unless it's fun, it makes no sense.

Whatever the fear consumers' emotional itch is, Republicans are sure to give them reason to scratch it. At least their motivation here is easy to understand. If you give the base something to wet their pants over, they throw money at you. Of course, it won't be the Senators themselves who do all this hysteria whipping, it'll be their surrogates in the media -- Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, etc. GOP Senators will just go to great lengths to avoid agreeing or disagreeing with these surrogates. As always, the rightwing media will be the freelance, de facto press office for the GOP.

If Republicans won't offer anything but token opposition to Kagan, they'll certainly be rewarded by the phony opposition in their media. It worked that way during the Sotomayor confirmation and there's no reason to think the same thing won't play out now. Things are going to get very stupid, yes. But unless Kagan has a bona fide crime in her background, you wouldn't go broke betting her nomination will be confirmed.

-Wisco


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Will Republicans Self-Destruct Over Wall Street Reform?

The ad pretty much writes itself. It opens with news headlines, while bass and cellos saw a low, dark note; "U.S. charges Goldman with subprime fraud," "Goldman Sachs fraud case stunning in its indictment of Wall Street culture," "Goldman Cited 'Serious' Profit on Mortgages," and the kicker; "Goldman Sachs Bonuses: Bank Paying Staff Over $5 Billion For Just Three Months Work."

"We could've reformed Wall Street," that voice-over guy who does all the political ads says. "We could've reined in corruption. We could've ended huge bailouts and said, 'Too big to fail is too big to exist.' We could've regulated or outlawed risky and exotic investments schemes that have turned our economy into a failing casino. We wanted to do it. You wanted to do it. We could've done it. But Republicans wouldn't even allow the debate.

"All we needed was one vote."

At this point, you show a black and white image of the Republican incumbent. "One vote," the narrator continues. "One independent-minded Republican. One Senator willing to put the good of the nation above petty partisan politics. One politician who knows that fighting Wall Street corruption is more important than their party. Just one Republican with courage.

"One vote... We didn't get it." Flash the opponent's name and McCain/Feingold disclaimer; "I'm _____ and I so approve this message."





This ad has a chance of playing in states across the country, as Democrats bring Wall Street reform to a vote today. As of this moment, Republicans are standing together, threatening to filibuster the bill. While it's hard to believe that Democrats aren't willing to give up something to get this through, the signals they're sending are that they're not willing to give up much. The New York Times reported yesterday that Democrats "had bridged internal party differences and coalesced around a plan to tighten regulation of derivatives" and had "raised the pressure on Senate Republicans" to drop the filibuster threat.

Writing for the Huffington Post, Robert Kuttner reports that the White House has rejected the idea of a bipartisan compromise.

Although Senate Banking Committee Chair Chris Dodd and his sometime Republican ally Richard Shelby continued to make noises on the Sunday talk shows about a possible bipartisan deal, both President Obama and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank have personally urged Dodd not to cut a deal with Republicans. I asked Frank point blank why Dodd would want such a deal, and he said--on the record--"I have no idea, but both President Obama and I have urged him not to."

For those of us who remember the healthcare non-debate, this can't be taken as anything other than good news. Republicans have murdered bipartisanship as a public lynch mob. Even those Republicans who'd engaged in negotiations used it as a delaying tactic, with no intention of ever voting for any bill. After months of bipartisan negotiations, the bill passed the Senate without a single GOP vote. The moral of this story: negotiating with Republicans is a waste of time -- by GOP design.

What we have now is a stand-off. And it's one that Republicans can't possibly win -- not in a political sense, anyway. That's not to say that we won't get some sort of deal after the initial procedural vote fails. But Democrats should go ahead and cut that ad now, then email it to incumbent Republicans running for reelection. You want to run on how much you hate healthcare reform? Knock yourself out -- we're going to run on this.

Someone's going to blink here and, unless they're bent on self-destruction, Republicans will blink first.

-Wisco


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GOP Hypocrisy -- Again

Over the weekend, the media and the blogosphere were abuzz with the story that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens may retire. With the justice being 89 years old, this shouldn't surprise anyone. And, given recent history, it also won't surprise many to learn that things will probably get very stupid. It won't make any difference who President Obama nominates to replace Stevens, that nominee will be painted as a terrorist and/or (probably "and") a communist.

If we've learned one thing in recent years, it's that elected Republicans are reactionaries and that the reactions their jerking knees lead them to is always completely out of proportion to the facts. We've also learned that Republican voters, aided by talk radio blowhards and lunatic conspiracy theorists on FOX News and the internet, are panicky grandmas who are afraid of their own shadows and, worse, are almost eager to be frightened into a stampede of sheep. If Glenn Beck or Michelle Malkin say that the Obama nominee wants to kill everyone, then they'll be more than happy to believe what confirms their own paranoid fantasies.

Wait, did I say that "things will probably get very stupid?" I guess I misspoke. There is no nominee and things have already begun to get stupid.

Huffington Post:

The second-ranking Republican in the Senate suggested on Sunday that the party would filibuster the next appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, if that nominee were deemed to be outside of the judicial mainstream.

"It will all depend on what kind of a person it is," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) declared during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." "I think the president should nominate a qualified person. I hope, however, he does not nominate an overly ideological person. That will be the test, and if he doesn't nominate someone who is overly ideological, you may see Republicans voting against, but I don't think you will see them engage in a filibuster."

What makes for an "overly ideological" judge? We got a little preview of that. Arlen Specter was interviewed at the same time and told Chris Wallace that maybe we needed someone to balance out the court.

"I am a little troubled by what Arlen said," Kyl countered. "Don't have somebody coming in with preconceived attitudes. I'm going to be tough on the executives or I'm going to be for the little guy, we've had too much of that."

We've had too much of judges "standing up for the little guy?" Really? If Democrats don't grab that quote and run with it, someone's just not doing their job. It's about the dumbest damn thing I've heard in a while, as well as being nowhere near true.

And is Kyle actually threatening to filibuster a judicial nominee? Here's Kyle in 2005 on eliminating the filibuster when voting on judicial nominees (the "nuclear option"):

For 214 years it has been the tradition of the Senate to approve judicial nominees by a majority vote. Many of our judges and, for example, Clarence Thomas, people might recall, was approved by either fifty-one or fifty-two votes as I recall. It has never been the rule that a candidate for judgeship that had majority support was denied the ability to be confirmed once before the Senate. It has never happened before. So we're not changing the rules in the middle of the game. We're restoring the 214-year tradition of the Senate because in the last two years Democrats have begun to use this filibuster.

"[W]hat would occur as a result of the question that will be asked to the presiding officer in this debate is basically, is it the tradition of the Senate to have an up or down vote to give these nominees an up or down vote with the majority vote prevailing or is the last two years the real precedent of the Senate to require 60 votes?" Kyle said on the same program. "And I think that the presiding officer will say no the tradition of the Senate has been that a majority vote prevails."

By the way, all the Republicans called filibustering judicial nominees "unprecedented" and all the Republicans were wrong.

But more important is that Kyle is basically arguing that when Democrats filibuster a judicial nominee, it's a disaster of historic proportions. But when Republicans filibuster a judicial nominee, it's democracy in action. I'm getting awfully damned tired of typing out the word "hypocrisy" every other time I write about Republicans. It's tiring. I wish they'd just knock it off and try honesty for a change.

I'm torn over which offends me more, the Republican belief in my stupidity and inability to remember five years back or the idea that the American public needs to be protected from someone who'll "stand up for the little guy" -- i.e., the vast majority of the American public.

I guess in the end I can combine the two -- and a lot more -- by saying I'm offended by the shamelessness of the Republican party. Because Sen. Jon Kyle, Republican of Arizona, just announced he'd filibuster any nominee who'd promise to protect the American people from getting screwed.

And he said it as if it was a good thing.

-Wisco


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The GOP Tantrum Over Being the Minority

"Eleven months ago, I wrote you to share my expectations for the coming health reform debate. At the time, I expressed Democrats’ intention to work in good faith with Republicans, and my desire that – while we would disagree at times – we could engage in an honest discussion grounded in facts rather than fear, and focused on producing results, not playing partisan politics.

"Obviously, the opposite has happened..."

Obviously.

That's Harry Reid, in a letter sent to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell yesterday. In it, Reid lays it all out. Republicans have spent the last year "mischaracterizing the health reform bill and misleading the public." The majority leader writes, "Though we have tried to engage in a serious discussion, our efforts have been met by repeatedly debunked myths and outright lies. At the same time, Republicans have resorted to extraordinary legislative maneuvers in an effort not to improve the bill, but to delay and kill it." As a result, Reid concludes that "these Republican maneuvers are rooted less in substantive policy concerns and more in a partisan desire to discredit Democrats, bolster Republicans, and protect the status quo on behalf of the insurance industry."





In the oh-so genteel chamber that is the United States Senate, this is about as close as you'll ever come to a bitch-slap. And all it is is the truth without sugar-coating. From "death panels" to "government takeover" to "socialist nightmare," Republicans have been remarkably unserious in their approach to healthcare reform. In fact, "childish" is the word that comes to my mind; the teabaggers and town hall mobs aren't about actually policy. If they were, then they'd have some sort of basis in fact -- unless all those people are quadrennial millionaires, no one's raising their taxes. The teabaggers and the town hall mobs and the birthers are about having a national right wing tantrum and holding your breath until you turn blue, because there's a Democrat in the White House. You can't have a fact-free debate. It just can't be done and it's an abuse of language to call the right's reaction to Democratic policies "debate." It's the foot-stomping, fist-waving, shrieking fit of a two-year-old refusing to eat her broccoli. As Reid describes it:

[T]he attacks on the health care bill are part of a broader pattern. As has been well documented, your caucus conspicuously shattered the record for obstruction last Congress by demanding gratuitous procedural votes on even the most non-controversial matters, and by stalling the work of the Senate despite the urgency of the serious problems facing our country. Senate Republicans are on pace to again break their own record this Congress, illustrated by Sen. Bunning’s effort to prevent the Senate from acting to extend families’ unemployment and health benefits even after those benefits had expired.

While Republicans were distorting the facts in the health care debate and inflicting delay after needless delay, millions of Americans have continued to suffer as they struggle to afford to stay healthy, stay out of bankruptcy and stay in their homes. Thousands of Americans lose their health care every day, and tens of thousands of the uninsured have lost their lives since this debate began. Meanwhile, rising health costs have contributed to a rising federal budget deficit.

So, Reid informs McConnell, reconciliation it is. For the GOP, "bipartisan" obviously means "strictly Republican policies that Democrats vote for."

"I know that many Republicans have expressed concerns with our use of the existing Senate rules, but their argument is unjustified," Reid wrote. "There is nothing unusual or extraordinary about the use of reconciliation." It seems that, if you take a gander at the Constitution, you won't find the word "filibuster." What it does say is "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided." If sixty votes are needed to pass anything, why would the VP have to break ties? Despite Republican claims to the contrary, the framers of the Constitution clearly envisioned majority rule in the Senate. To argue anything else is to lie. This isn't some arcane parliamentary trick, some weird loophole that's being exploited, this is democracy. If you find the idea of majority rule disturbing, you might look into finding some other place to live, because this country is just lousy with it.

So take your bawling fit someplace else. In a democracy, there are winners and there are losers. You can't always win. And, when you lose, it isn't some catastrophe -- the nation isn't being destroyed -- it's just voting. If Democrats have the votes to pass this, then they will -- and they'll do it legally, ethically, and in a way that the founders intended.

All the crying and stomping of feet in the world won't change that.

-Wisco


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