Thank you, Sen. Brown (MA)

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Thursday April 22, 2010 · 1:41 PM PDT

2010/04/22 · 13:41

During the great long healthcare debate, everyone kept asking why the Dems didn't use cloture, even though they could, in principle, win one. Now, when they can not, in principle, win a cloture vote -- they Just Do Not Have The Votes(TM) -- they file for cloture, and suddenly it works. Doesn't that seem bizarre?

It isn't, though. Reid did it this time because it's great politics, and we can thank Scott Brown -- or, at least, the people of Massachusetts -- for that.

demimondian

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Tuesday March 02, 2010 · 8:42 AM PST

2010/03/02 · 08:42

Let's get something straight right away: Bill Halter, decent fellow that he may be, is not going to win in November. The only Democrat in Arkansas who could possibly hold that seat for us it is named Mike Beebe, and he ain't running.

But let's get something else straight right away: Blanche Lincoln, undependable Dem that she may be, is also not going to win in November. She's toast; down 30-plus to a generic Republican in a state which is a natural home to the revanchists, where the miracle is that we haven't lost both seats already.

And that's why we need to primary her, and kick her out early.

demimondian

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Sunday January 24, 2010 · 2:49 PM PST

2010/01/24 · 14:49

[T]here is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong -- H. L. Mencken

I've been trying to convince people that the filibuster must be fixed through the rules, and that those rules aren't going to be easy to repair, because that's the way it's set up. I've talked about the power that each House of Congress has to set its own rules, and about what the Senate's rules are. Throughout all of this, I've ignored one of the more bizarre and frankly inane alleged routes to changing the rules, a parliamentary trick which could allegedly be perpetrated at the beginning of a session to change the rules with a mere majority. Ignoring the question of whether that would even be a good idea -- I personally think it isn't, but one can argue -- it's a zombie lie which I'd hoped would be content to stay safely in its grave. Regrettably, it hasn't, and, in the interests of not being accused of arguing in ill-faith, this diary attempts to explain why it's self-serving misrepresentation to continue to argue for it.

demimondian

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Friday January 15, 2010 · 7:39 PM PST

2010/01/15 · 19:39

I've posted a couple of previous diaries about the Senate rules in the last few days. In the first one, I talked about what the Senate rules are, and how they can be changed. In the second, I talk about one frequent misconception about the Senate rules, that there's an opportunity to change them with each new Congress.

If you've read both of those diaries, then I hope you've absorbed that changing the rules within the Senate itself really requires the 67 votes that people keep talking about, and that if you want to "fix" any of them within that frame, you just need to elect a lot of better Democrats. In this diary, I want to talk to another frequent idea: that the Supreme Court, the President, or, perhaps, the House of Representatives can change the Senate rules without the Senate's cooperation.

They can't. It's that simple. There's no equivalent of the 67 vote rule; the only body on Earth that can change the Senate rules is the Senate itself.

demimondian

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Tuesday January 12, 2010 · 12:50 PM PST

2010/01/12 · 12:50

One of the associate editors has a post on the front page today in which he talks about Reid [doing something at] "the beginning of the next session of Congress when the Senate adopts its new rules".

I understand that many Kossacks would like to believe that is what happens, but, as a few minutes' investigation would have shown, it isn't. As the Senate's own official site says, right here:

The rules of the Senate shall continue from one Congress to the next Congress unless they are changed as provided in these rules.

That is, the rules change only when explicitly modified.

demimondian

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Monday January 11, 2010 · 7:56 PM PST

2010/01/11 · 19:56

During the most heated part of the dKos ~~pie fight~~debate over the Senate HCR bill, I promised someone that I'd write a diary about "fixing" the filibuster, provided that he or she would agree to not HR my tip jar into oblivion about it. Here's the diary -- but remember, too many more hidden comments and MB will take away your ability to give me gift subscriptions.

Seriously, I don't actually support ending the filibuster -- but I do strongly support weakening it. This diary will be the first of two, in the course of which I wish to cover, first, what the filibuster actually is, and, second, how I think it should be reformed.

This one concentrates on the first of these: it covers what the standing rules are, why they're there, why people talk about them the way they do, and what, exactly, cloture is.

UPDATE: Quick edit to correct some grammar fluffs.

demimondian

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Wednesday December 30, 2009 · 8:32 AM PST

2009/12/30 · 08:32

I wish people would stop making "art therapy" jokes about the leaders of Al Qaeda in Yemen. Yes, they were released to inadequate supervision, and that shouldn't have happened. The problems with the "art therapy" jokes are two-fold, though, and I don't think we should be reinforcing either of them.

First, there's the denigration of art therapy, and denigrating art therapy as a tool simply buys into the broad frame of counseling as touchy feely nonsense. There are classes of individuals for which a non-verbal expressive form of therapy is quite effective. Worse, what the Yemeni terrorists got wasn't art therapy; it was a sham to get them out of the Saudi prisons.

And that's the real problem. When we ship people who haven't been convicted of a crime out, we can't monitor their subsequent handling. Guantanamo itself was the threat which created these men, and that's what we need to keep hammering home.

EDITED to fix typos.

demimondian

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Saturday December 19, 2009 · 8:36 AM PST

2009/12/19 · 08:36

OK, the battle is over. We didn't get a public option, and we're going to be stuck with a hideous abortion amendment. We did get a much better bill than we would have if we hadn't been willing to walk away, however -- the re-inclusion of the Wyden exchange voucher amendment will strengthen things considerably.

I don't think that the compromises are so bad that the bill isn't acceptable -- I think I can live with it, but I want to hear what other people have to say. What I want to focus on is "what now?"

First, realize that an incomplete win is, in a certain sense, better than a complete win. It gives you something to improve, and that's important. If you want better democrats elected and re-elected, you need to have a reason for them to be elected; solve a problem completely, and the reason goes away. Gratitiude is not a good reason to elect someone who's become deadweight.

So, let's assume that this outline is basically what we're going to get. How can we incrementally improve it over the next few years so that it gets better? I have some ideas.

UPDATED to fix typos.

demimondian

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Monday December 14, 2009 · 8:40 PM PST

2009/12/14 · 20:40

I supported Clinton in the primaries until it became clear that she could not run a campaign. Then, I moved to the candidate who I felt was best able to run a campaign, and, I hoped, the White House: Barack Obama. I don't regret that decision; it was the right political decision then, and, frankly, it's the right decision now.

I guessed right. Barack Obama is exactly what he seemed: an extraordinary political operative with the capacity to get things done, and to deliver results. Make no mistake about it: we're seeing a very effective political operation on HCR, one that future generations will study. A President with a fractious majority and a unified opposition, with barely enough votes to win -- and at least one of those votes from an avowed traitor to the party -- is about to make history. LBJ had a far greater majority, as did FDR, and neither of them had a unified opposition; Obama, with a far weaker hand, has gone further and done more.

demimondian

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Sunday November 08, 2009 · 11:11 AM PST

2009/11/08 · 11:11

Two things struck me as I was looking as the Washington Post's summary of the vote last night. The first was that, whatever the reports may have said, mandatory insurance works: the eleven districts with the lowest number of uninsured residents are in Massachusetts and Hawaii. The second, however, was more interesting: the name of the four most vulnerable Representatives in the House.

They are (from most to least vulnerable): Pete Sessions (R, TX-32), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R, FL-18), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R, FL-21), and Mario Diaz-Balart (R, FL-25). Follow me over the jump to find out why.

demimondian

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Tuesday October 06, 2009 · 12:38 PM PDT

2009/10/06 · 12:38

Today, I got an email which reminds me why I fight for health care for all. It was sent out by the Lake Washington Youth Soccer League as an email blast entitled "Midnight Maddyness - Opportunity to help a LWYSA family."

Follow me over the jump for the contents of the email.

demimondian

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Tuesday September 08, 2009 · 7:56 PM PDT

2009/09/08 · 19:56

You've seen them before -- they have the sign which says "God Bless. Every little bit helps." There are more of them in my neighborhood every day. Today I saw one which perfectly captured the Bush Crash.

His sign said "Will work for Chocolate Chip Cookies."

Obviously, from looking at him, he hadn't been homeless long -- his face wasn't weathered enough, and his clothes were too clean. More than that, in my neck of the woods, there haven't been visible beggars in years; the trickle down from MSFT has been too rich. But now, even the might Mister Softie is laying people off, and, where it isn't doing that, it's cutting back on contractor hirings, and generally tightening its belt. Things aren't too bad for most blue badges, at least among the SDE's, but the pain is definitely spreading through the rest of the community.

Chocolate chip cookie guy is a new sign of those hard times.

This diary is about a dirtier measure of how rocky these times are, though. Follow me over the jump for more...

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Thank you, Sen. Brown (MA)

Why we should primary Blanche Lincoln

Fixing the filibuster (5 of 2)

Getting around the Senate rules

What the rules say.

Fixing the filibuster

"Art therapy" and right wing frames

What now?

A conflict

The most vulnerable Representatives in the House

Why I fight for health care...

A dirty story about our rocky times.