Sorry For Raining on #StandWithWendy

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Wednesday June 26, 2013 · 5:38 PM PDT

2013/06/26 · 17:38

Last night in comments I was unduly cynical about the Texas SB5 filibuster. It wasn't that I didn't think she (and others) were sincere in opposing the bill, but I really didn't think it would ever work, and expressed disappointment in fellow liberals who were themselves shocked by GOP/conservative willingness to flout the obvious intent of the rules by ruling her filibuster out of order.

My basic point was that liberals always seem to be caught off guard by conservative willingness to ignore all obstacles on their path to victory. This has frequently been a tremendous disadvantage, our implicit faith that the rules will be adhered to. In the 2000 Election, the "nuclear option" fracas of 2005, Wisconsin in 2010 and many other places we rely on the rules to protect us and have no back up plan when they don't.

I'm very glad to be wrong about the outcome last night (though no one likes being wrong or admitting it).

Scientician

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Thursday December 13, 2012 · 4:42 PM PST

2012/12/13 · 16:42

It's probably appropriate that in the debate about Senate procedural rules, it turns out that the procedure followed to change those rules is far more important the substance of the actual changes brought to the rules. No, really. If Democrats manage to hold together and force a rule change on a simple majority of Senators a century plus long fever-dream delusion of the US Senate will have finally been broken. A Rubicon will have been crossed. The rules will have been changed by 51, and this can now happen again. It won't matter anymore if the specific scheme they adopt works. If it doesn't, they (or a new majority) can change it again in the next Senate (or during one, but let's break down one imaginary Senate Les Nessman office wall at a time).

Scientician

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Saturday November 17, 2012 · 7:55 AM PST

2012/11/17 · 07:55

I'm no racism scholar, so to ensure there's no confusion about how I'm using the term "institutional racism" I am referring to effective racism in results, whether designed as such or not. This diary is to demonstrate the inherent and inescapable racial bias of the filibuster. It only really works for white people. If you are still inclined to defend the notion that the legislative process should have baked-in "minority" protection mechanisms, I won't argue with that here, but you should walk away understanding that the filibuster is a remarkably poor means to such an end given that it can only really be relied upon to protect one kind of "minority" (who aren't even actually a minority - white people).

Scientician

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Wednesday November 07, 2012 · 9:47 AM PST

2012/11/07 · 09:47

I think this diary on filibuster reform is well intentioned and I'm happy to see the issue have some prominence, but progressives really really need to get a simple fact through their head so they stop enabling Senate delulsions: The filibuster can be ended any time by a simple majority.

Once you understand and accept that fact, you realize that the only reform that really makes sense is to completely end the filibuster and let the Senate revert to true majority rule. That should be the starting point demand for progressives, and if we get something less than that, but still better than the status quo, well, Ok. Let's not pre-compromise to one of the various Rube Goldberg schemes on the table. Ask for a majority rule chamber, and go from there.

Scientician

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Wednesday October 17, 2012 · 6:07 PM PDT

2012/10/17 · 18:07

It's amazing to me that Mitt Romney is dissembling about the fact that his tax plan entails a significant tax cut for upper income Americans, but last night he claimed his tax cut wasn't a tax cut for the "top 5%" in a mathematically impossible way. Per the transcript (NPR link, solidarity Big Bird!):

[...] because I am not going to have people at the high end pay less than they're paying now. The top 5 percent of taxpayers will continue to pay 60 percent of the income tax the nation collects. So that'll stay the same. Middle-income people are going to get a tax break.

Scientician

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Friday October 05, 2012 · 3:46 PM PDT

2012/10/05 · 15:46

PBS is by far the most trusted TV news source, NPR listeners show up as the best informed or the second-best informed, and a majority of Americans watch or listen to PBS or NPR on a weekly basis. Americans, as is their habit, dramatically overestimate the amount of money public broadcasting costs them and yet remarkably still want that funding maintained or increased. Most importantly, PBS is not just the most trusted source of news, it is by one reputable study, repeatedly the most trusted institution in America by a country mile. This is a phenomenal success story. PBS and NPR are educating the public (their mission), the public trusts them, and for pathetically little money in both absolute terms ($1.35 per American per year) and in comparison to their international peers (most of whom get at least 10 times the amount of per-citizen funding, and some far far more).

This is not a fluke. Public broadcasting is a great success story of modern governance. Not just in America, but the public broadcasters in Canada (CBC), Australia (ABC), Britain (BBC), Ireland (RTE), the Netherlands (NPO) and many other nations are popular, informative and even entertaining. They bring programming that for-profit broadcasters do not. Off the top of my meagre head, I can name Doctor Who (BBC), Degrassi High (CBC), Little Mosque on the Prarie (CBC), Nova (PBS), Top Gear (BBC), Frontline (PBS), The Fifth Estate (CBC), The Nature of Things (CBC), Four Corners (ABC), Panorama (BBC) and of course Sesame Street (PBS) as internationally renowned and popular programs brought to the world by public broadcasting. I listen to a lot of podcasts on my MP3 player in the car and the ABC and Radio New Zealand put out some fantastic informative programming. Public broadcasting works well basically everywhere I have ever paid attention to it (admittedly I'm mostly limited to English speaking countries). All of this serves to explain why Movement Conservatives want to kill PBS, and so far as I am aware, want to kill public broadcasters in every nation where they hold power.

Scientician

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Sunday September 30, 2012 · 3:26 PM PDT

2012/09/30 · 15:26

Hat tip to Digby who quoted this section, and I know there's already a recommended diary about this interview as a whole, but I just wanted to highlight a particular section of the Chris Wallace/Paul Ryan Fox News Sunday morning interview:

Scientician

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Thursday August 16, 2012 · 6:25 PM PDT

2012/08/16 · 18:25

In 2011, news broke that notorious libertarian/objectivist Ayn Rand had accepted Social Security and Medicare in the 1970s after she was diagnosed with lung cancer (unsurprisingly she was a cigarette-cancer connection denier). Among liberal circles, a lot of attention was paid to the hypocrisy angle of all this (and much more to taking SS cheques than enrolling in Medicare). A person who spent her life railing against collectivism and dependency accepting the benefits of the very programs her beliefs called "evil."

Hypocrisy isn't the important thing here. Ideological failure is.

Scientician

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Wednesday September 21, 2011 · 7:26 PM PDT

2011/09/21 · 19:26

As I write this, people of conscience around the United States await the likely wrongful execution of Troy Davis for a crime that there is most certainly reasonable doubt that he committed. It got me thinking back to the Tea Partiers openly cheering for the death penalty, when the moderator questioned Rick Perry during that recent Republican Presidential primary debate:

WILLIAMS: Governor Perry, a question about Texas. Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times. Have you…
(APPLAUSE)

There's a lot wrong with this, even aside from the supposed "pro-life" crowd cheering for death, it turns out that Perry has very little to do with Texas' rate of executions, and it's even quite arguable that Texas does not lead the nation in the pace of executions; Oklahoma has a strong claim to that title.

Scientician

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Friday August 05, 2011 · 9:46 PM PDT

2011/08/05 · 21:46

You know what I'm talking about. The claim that a bunch of liberals were so pissed off at Obama that they stayed home and this caused the 2010 rout. It's pervasive. I won't link to examples because it comes up so regularly I see no point singling anyone out.

So I went back to the exit polls and the picture I see shows nothing like that. If you are a proponent of this claim, I challenge you for empirical proof that some set of activist liberals "took their ball and went home" or whatever metaphor you prefer to make Obama's leftward critics appear childish and immature. Inside, the evidence I found that shows this just ain't so.

Scientician

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Friday July 08, 2011 · 7:55 AM PDT

2011/07/08 · 07:55

Often, at moments where Democratic leaders have done or signs suggest they might do something that is distressing to liberals/progressives, someone in that group will suggest that if the Democrats really do X, they will stay at home, or vote for a third party or what have you out of protest.

Inevitably, when someone says anything like this, the rejoinder here is "This site is for electing Democrats!" The implication is, "shut up, no talk of liberals withholding their votes for Democrats is ever allowed."

I'm going to suggest that the mandate to "elect Democrats" does not forbid, and in fact requires members of this site to consider when denying votes to Democrats is in fact in service to the Democratic party. It is a larger mandate that obliges us to consider times when Democratic leaders are engaging in selfish, short sighted or just well intentioned but wrong policies that will seriously harm the Democratic party in the long term.

Scientician for Warming Wednesdays

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Wednesday March 02, 2011 · 3:30 AM PST

2011/03/02 · 03:30

This week, I found a couple pleasant suprises coming out of Australia, so the post is a primer on what I know of the climate fight there.

First and most important was the announcement by Prime Minister Julia Gillard (Labor party, the centre-left big-tent party of Australia) that her government was going to pass a law implementing a national carbon tax:

Announcing details of the scheme today, Ms Gillard said the price on carbon would be fixed for a period of three to five years before moving to a cap-and-trade system.
"I'm determined to price carbon," Ms Gillard told a joint press conference with Greens leader Bob Brown and Senator Christine Milne well as independent MPs Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor.

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Sorry For Raining on #StandWithWendy

Any Rule Change on 51 Votes is The Victory That Matters

The Institutional Racism of the Filibuster

Ending the Filibuster is the only sensible "reform"

Yes Mr. Romney, That is a Tax Cut for the 5%

PBS Must Be Killed Because It Shows Government Works

Ryan: "Torture" Statistics and They'll Confess

If Ayn Needed Medicare, How Can We Do Without?

Even Rick Perry's capital punishment record doesn't stand up

Did liberals really stay home and cause the 2010 rout?

Yes, this site is for electing Democrats

Warming Wednesdays: A carbon tax Down Under