Reid is about to go down in history as the worst, most ineffective majority leader of all time. How the heck does a majority leader with 60/59 seats FAIL to pass signature pieces of legislation on the party’s platform? It is outrageous. The members of his caucus should be reading him the riot act at this point. I can’t wait to hear how Senate Dems explain to the voters that they are too pathetic and weak to govern. That’s gonna be entertaining (in a depressing infuriating sort of way).

The House Dems need to tell the Senate Dems (and Pelosi and Hoyer if need be) to shove it.

Incredible. Remarkably stupid. An act of egotism beyond description. Insane.

It looks like Lieberman wasn’t the only a$$hole sellout in the Senate Democratic Caucus and like the Caucus of Corruption included more than four senators.

Death throes of American democracy? If it’s this bad now, what happens after the fall elections give us (thanks to SCOTUS) absolute government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations?

There was some talk among Senate leadership on Thursday of putting together a letter signed by 51 Democratic senators pledging to pass a cleanup bill if the House would pass the Senate bill. But that effort fizzled when support for it didn’t materialize, insiders said.

if this report is true, it means either

1) there aren’t 51 senators willing to go so far as to pass a slightly less crappy bill (which means that even if one could wave a magic wand and make passage of cloture dependent on 51 votes, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference as to what kind of hcr bill they pass — iow, the “kill the filibuster” idea is just another shiny object to distract the base. imo, we should have already known that, but that’s another story).

or

2) the senate is playing cutout for the administration. (and that means the same thing as above re filibuster)

If this is true, which I believe this report to be despite Politico being politico and all, then maybe paul Krugman needs to temper his rhetoric towards the Senate instead of saying “House Democrats need to be courageous.”

Democrats treating the 60-vote myth as sacred

it IS a myth. a FALSE myth.

powow says:

… the Democratic Senate has a fall-back position available to it, without need for a rule change or anything else save a simple determination to act: Force the real filibuster back into the Senate, to preserve simple majority rule and the filibuster’s protection for the airing of a passionate minority’s position in that body.

i say:

if our senators are too damn lazy to make the Rs actually filibuster — poor D senators would have to stay near the senate floor for quorum calls — then they should resign immediately so someone willing to do the work of governance can take over.

As I wrote in the other thread, this is a large misread of the vibe in the Senate:

It’s naive to think there are 50/51 votes in the Senate to make the Senate bill *better* via a sidecare reconcilliation when there probably aren’t even 50/51 Senators left who would vote for the *current* Senate Bill if it went to the floor today.

Seriously, I don’t think people grasp the level of freakout. It’s not even the Usual Suspects of Lying Lieb, Ben-Ben, Senator Wellpoint, Blanche & Marry… which five right there along with Brown take you down from 60 to 55. Then add in guy like Webb would punt on it, saying we need to Slow Down, go smaller, etc. Or guys like Bennet who have been all over the place on healthcare, but see their polling looking for shit in the state. Or Specter pulling a “slow down” because he’s starting to think he can slide by Sestak which means he’ll try to find ways to craft his positions for Toomey as an opponent. Even the ultra safe DiFi is saying “slow down”.

You think the Admin is having a tough time getting the House in line? Senators don’t give a shit about the Admin. We’ve seen that explicitly for the past year.

The Senate no longer has the will to do what they’ve already voted on. It literally is the best any of us are getting out of that horrid body. And we’re not going to get anything better from them in the coming years thanks to the freakout and the coming flood of Citzens money.

John

Look at the machinations to kill Dorgan. I think those Democrats who voted against Dorgan would give a general idea as to who is owned. Also wouldn’t they only need 50 instead of 51 with Biden’s vote? It would seem that the WH is subtly saying “don’t pass it!” if they were again putting up fake requirements (like pretending that Biden can’t vote in the case of a tie).

“senate moderates.” Those guys are not Democratic moderates – they are Republicans who are too “liberal” to win a Republican primary; thus they run as Dems, but they don’t support the majority of Dem beliefs.

Of course, I’m not sure anybody in the Senate does, but those guys sure as heck do not.

The only conclusion is that our political process is broken.
The only question is whether the appropriate adjective for “broken” is “irretrievably.”

yes (at a minimum, when there were enough votes to kill it, the leadership might have let other “no” votes off the hook so those senators could pretend to their constituents that they were really in favor of it. even if they would have voted “no” if need be to get it killed). yes. and yes.

guess i agree with everything you wrote.

The only remaining question is this:

How can the Senate D caucus’s failure to come up with the 51 signatures be blamed on the hippies?

Mr Walker asks:

“Do we live in a constitutional democracy, or unrepresentative, spoiled bratocracy?”

The answer is certainly not a constitutional democracy (whatever that might be). Unrepresentative: definitely. Spoiled bratocracy: yes, as evidenced by the behavior of the members of the Senate and their constituents. But more importantly: hopelessly corrupt.

This has been evident to true progressives for decades. The health care reform process is just the most obvious proof, so far, that our system is irredeemably broken.

Late to this but maybe someone will see it; see here and think about how States with so little in terms of population have so much power in the Senate.
(scroll down to the map)

It’s not ego. It’s money. In the data I have from opensecrets.org, 81 senator have received only PAC money.

Only 3 senators have received more in individual contribution than PAC money, Harry Reid, Al Franken & John Cornyn.

Harry Reid receieved 1,485,774 from individuals, and 1,451,521 from PACs
John Cornyn receieved 474,050 from individuals, and 56,400 from PACs
AL Franken receieved 1,298,255 from individuals, and 70,496 from PACs

Harry Reid’s bought, John Cornyn is incompetant, and Al Franken is to be bought.

No, we live is a state where the special interests (PACs) have bought and paid for our representatives.

If the special interests are corporations, then we live in a fascist state.