I believe that Chris Dodd was from Connecticut the last time he ran. Has he moved?

Fools of shit indeed. And yes Cober, hadn’t you heard? CT traded him to VT for two lift tickets and a socialist.

typo

Specter will still be on board. Rep. Sestak just signed the Jared Polis letter circulating in the House. Whatever Sestak does, Specter is right behind him, desperate to stay alive politically.

I guess they only support the will of the people when it doesn’t matter. Once their votes matter, they will vote for the insurance industry. Of course.

“what’s stopping them now” Do you think it is the “Republicans 41 super minority” as Colbert has referred to it?

Jon Stewart “they will never let you into the car? And it is your car”

So, should we conclude that the 51 Democrats in the Senate who said they support a public option when 60 votes were needed were all full of shit, now that the bar is down to 50 and they’re still not moving?

i have, except maybe for bernie sanders. (concluded they were all full of shit, that is)

Thanks for the list. Did not Harkin say that there were 52 votes for a PO in the Senate? All they need is 50 plus Biden. Apparently, some of these folks were/are lying. Imagine that!

Now, as we’ve known all along, that [it takes 60 votes to pass anything] is a self-imposed limitation that the Senate can surmount if they want to.

And now that they’ve run out of excuses, it seems like they would rather do nothing than do the right thing.

Obama’s turning to other issues, and this week Reid said the following:

We’re not on health care now. We’ve talked a lot about it in the past. There’s no rush.

It’s in the past? There’s no rush? Senate Democrats have been avoiding doing the right thing for months. Do they think that Americans will just forget it and move on?

Jane, I get that consultants and ‘strategists’ keep these critters encapsulated in some kind of bubble, but with all that money paid to these charlatans, shouldn’t they at least let ‘em know there’s something called the internet

Pelosi’s not championed the PO in the House, Reid the same in Senate, nor has the WH.

What’s intended is the giveaway to ins/PHArma, and they intend to cram it down the throats and up the butts of the general public, with as LITTLE as they can get away with, to appease the general public.

I don’t find the Senators any less or any more to blame than the Senate/House Leadership, or the WH.

They’re all guilty, guilty, guilty of shilling for the corporations.

That’s a proven fact, hammered home, for more than a year or more now, if only from the HCR efforts.

I’ve called and written SciFi and Boxer till blue in face, same with Rep Matsui. Same old political speak, every time. Talk shit, vote corporate.

We can vote them out, but the next ones are no better.

We need a better way. Mass civil disobedience is the ONLY thing that will move this mountain. It moved LBJ!!!

FDL has reported that 47,000 people die every year from lack of health care.

Reid says, “No rush.”

Their tubes get clogged so they don’t read. s/

Slightly O/T, but is there any credible/serious talk about stripping Holy Joe of his committee chairmanship for his unforgiveable treachery?

I’ve heard here and elsewhere that the PO actually saves money (or reduces the cost of the bill, or something) over time.

Does that estimated savings rely on a certain number of people choosing the PO? Does it assume all 47M uninsured? Would it be greater if more chose to go with the PO?

We’re not supposed to remember what pols said yesterday, since they don’t.

Amnesia is what supporting our leaders is all about.

Jane:

Is there any way you could get Olberman or Maddow to make mention of this? It would help to spread the word. Maybe also post it at HuffPo & AlterNet? I think a lot of citizens are still groggy from the recent dose of soooothing televised hopey-changey. We need to get them back yelling at their legislators.

Sorry, I forget, what were we talking about?

President Obama Is A Big Pussy!

If President Obama has any balls, this is what he would do:

1) End the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

2) Create a monumental Infrastructure Bank to provide millions of jobs building a national high-speed rail system. It would increase productivity in this country dramatically.

3) Expand health care coverage to 40 MILLION people using reconciliation:

Expanding Medicaid to everyone below 215% of the FPL, and expanding SCHIP coverage to all uninsured children, should give roughly 30 million more Americans insurance for a cost of just under $800 billion.
The Medicaid expansion could be structured to also work as a de facto extreme catastrophic insurance policy for people over 215% FPL. This would effectively put an end to medical bankruptcy in this country.
Early Medicare buy-in could be added for people without insurance who are between 47-65.
Expanding Medicaid, Medicare, and SCHIP are all doable under reconciliation.

Robust public option.

Tax the rich to pay for it all.
(The top 1% in this country take in 29% of ALL income! Taxing the rich on health care (and taxing them substantially to eliminate the deficit) will help bring about a more level playing field for the middle class).

Obama – its time to “man up!”

The only thing that will get us a Public Option is a massive rally in D.C. I mean one of those “million man march” things. A throwback to the 60′s anti-war stuff. Massive, on-going for days, with little people and rock stars and actors and athletes and a few people like, maybe, Howard Dean and Jane Hamsher leading the way.

Too bad it ain’t gonna happen. (The rally/protest or the Public Option.)

I passed the word. Though it would be nice if we could have two Bernie Sanderses in the Senate. Make that twenty.

I wonder about Webb?

Plus, if you only tax the wealthiest 1% to pay for health care and the deficit, that’s only 1% who can get pissy an not vote for you. Who cares?

The US is at war with Eurasia. It has always been at war with Eurasia.

that 1% has 23% of the money

Yep, nothing Newspeak.

Right, tax away 10% or 15%, they’ll still have more than their share.

Don’t forget controlling votes on corporations with even more money.

21st century. Network-based movement. Moving bodies through space is costly and time-consuming, and usually generates loads of unnecessary & avoidable pollutants (fossil fuel exhaust). Let’s keep looking for effective methods of demonstrating for progressive goals which we can pursue from where we live & work (or look for work).

Even if that were literally true I think I’d still bet on the US. I believe our defense spending is way more than all of Eurasia combined.

More than Eurasia and Eastasia combined, even.

Well, you can most likely take Nelson, and probably Webb, off of this list. Maybe McCaskill, too. They just don’t have the stomach for what needs to be done.

As it turns out, more than the world.

Whole world (less US) $500B
US $625B

Between the Republican Court and the Democratic Senate we are totally and permanently screwed. If you have the means, get out of this has been country while you can.

Don’t we need sixty?! Think I heard that SOMEWHERE.

*g*

Too bad we can’t outsource government since it’s wildly expensive and completely ineffective.

ROFLMAO *snort* *can’t breathe* Sorry.

Then we’ve won!!!!

Then we’re number one.

Let us declare victory.

And try our “hand” (“unseen” or otherwise) at something else.

Then, we could export something besides bombs.

But, gosh ding-dang it all! it just wouldn’t be as lucrative as the current no-bid contract on democracy …

We’ve even got a complex about it, alan1tx.

Yea, but Barry doesn’t want a public option it might hurt his pals in the Ins. Industry.

Maybe we can hire Somalia? Sure, they’re not doing better than the US at governing, but at least they would be significantly cheaper.

We need a another Revolution to change the field dynamics here. The Senate was put in place to give the South more power then it deserved according to its population , now the game is Corps. are super people and they deserve more power then blood and flesh people. Whose in charge here “real” people or virtual Corp. people? The Supremes have turned us into a Corp. State where we are merely shareholders and the Corps. are super shareholders. None of this is in the Constitution. Scalia and his wrecking crew are now making this up as they go along. Ok, if thats how it works “WE THE ACTUAL PEOPLE” need to move the goal posts. Enough with this BS game we can NEVER win if we allow these creeps to just continue to move the goal posts every time we win the game! ENOUGH!

I must say (OK, I must repeat) something that has been bothering me throughout this (non)debate: The fact that this administration is overloaded with Clinton-era holdovers. I think there’s a direct relationship, on two levels, between the collosal failure of this initiative, for which Americans provided an unprecedented mandate – yes, MANDATE – in 2008, by electing Barack Obama.

For the first level I will use the technical term: Scaredycats. Emanuel and others (Lawrence O’Donnell for one) lived through the aborted Clinton effort at reform. Trouble is, they are still living through it. They feel they tried – hard – and failed, and so they are willing to cave on issues just to get something done.

But the second level is what has proved truly devastating: Ego and its partner, Jealousy.

Ego, because from day one of this debate there’s been an air about the comments made by Clinton-era people. It says, “If we couldn’t do it, no one can.” O’Donnell said as much, over and over, while guesting and guest-hosting on Countdown last spring and summer. He repeatedly advocated for scaling back the reform effort and warned that even then it was likely to fail.

And Jealousy – as much as I hate to think it, let alone say it – Jealousy, because many of the people who surround Barack Obama still carry a grudge that he beat Hillary. Would they go so far as to sabotage a presidency in order to engineer a Clinton return to the White House? I sure as hell hope not.

But I wouldn’t be surprised. In view of their statements and actions – and the degree to which Obama’s actions have been in direct opposition to the tenets of his campaign – one can’t help but wonder.

Is there any credible/serious talk about stripping Holy Joe of his committee chairmanship for his unforgiveable treachery?

No. Reid’s the worst Senate Majority Leader ever.

A little counter point here. to do with
well I agreed with 90% + of the snyde and pessimistic content, but to get into the head of the president, to see the picture he sees at SOTU. one thing. The Republicans condenced on the right/ or his left. Placid, droll, complete discipline of no show of affirmation on anything. In that field of view, in a fleeting microsecond registering a quick subliminal inkling of something in the ordered rows of heads and penguine bodies. A glimmer of a field of green… a grassy knoll? go on… go on champ… read… read..
He must see what is a sinister thing, an evil aglomeration.

From day one the White House did not want either the single payer or public option. One should know where the buck stops.

No. Reid’s the worst Senate Majority Leader ever.

Typo “minority leader” Don’t you know 41 is the new super majority.

I’d be interested to hear what those in the know think: whether having more time to debate this will work in favor of (or against) the odds of a more progressive piece of legislation. Is no bill at all better – meaning a shorter route to expanded Medicare – than a bill with a weak public option?

and there all afraid to do the right thing at anytime, as was said, ” when it matters.” Then they scurry off and get gone. Posture, make a big show of support, and hide. All of em. It is a national discrace, from too much… TV. etc. Too much political correctness while your at it. People can’t say what they mean. Too much “moral suasion.”
The congress and leaders are a symptom of the times.

Why call him a pussy? It sounds militant but it fits with revolutionary rhetoric that devalues women and things that get defined as feminine (like war resistance). Why not call him a dick for not having a principle he’s willing to stand up for, or good causes and people he’s willing to defend? Even better, why not call him something less gendered and more accurate to describe his lack of principles and backbone? How about a jellyfish or a worm? There are a bunch of us with pussies and dicks who mind sexist and homophobic language to do politics.

day one he was out there for it, and all the other changes, that no longer be believed.
I’m no fan of this bait and switch technique.

There needs to be a concerted push to change the current pseudo-filibuster Senate “rules,” and unite the entire progressive agenda under that banner, which serves as a symbol for a larger, populist message:

http://insideoutthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/01/in-perfect-world.html

If you go all the way to the most junior of Demorcrat Senator that clamed thay were for the Public Option or Medicare buy in if The People want it. He would say can’t do it.Example Al Franking.Al was given a bill to introduce that made him look like a decent man so he would have cover when he voted for the insurance industry.All the incumbents need to be voted out of office.There not working for The People.

You might have something there, and I agree about your “take” on Lawrence O’Donnell this summer on Countdown. Usually I like him more, but he was really grating on me with his negativity, fingernail biting, second-guessing & general nay-saying throughout the process. I can grant some “devil’s advocate” commentary, but it seemed to me as if Lawrence wasn’t interested in this happening at all. That may not have been his intent, but that’s how it seemed.

However, I think the bottom line is: MONEY. Those of us who watched this three-ring circus this summer have some idea of who’s gotten money from whom, and IMO, the Senate is not doing “it” because they are being paid off.

Yes, I think the Senators know very well that there’s an Internet, and frankly, my dear, I don’t think they give a damn. The may excoriate us DFH as being some kind of “bad lot,” but they count on the general low information voter to get back into office.

At one point we needed 60, and we couldn’t get something decent. Now we need 51, and we still can’t get it. They simply don’t care about their constituents, while their pockets are being filled by Big Ins, Big Pharma and so on.

I stand corrected – President Obama Is A Jelly Dick!”

When it gets down to choosing between “the people” and the corporations who pay the bills, our Senators always go with the money.

I watched a history of New York City from about 1990-1911 last night. The dawn of the Progressive Era in the US. Know what it took to get any action from Albany to improve working conditions in the sweatshops of the NY garmet district? The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, where approximately 140 teenage girls were either burned to death or jumped to their deaths from the 10th floor. To use the legal term, that event “shocked the sensibilities” of even the hardened politicians and converted Al Smith, a Tammany Hall functionary, into a raging progressive beloved by New Yorkers and progressives everywhere.

So what’s it going to take to “shock the sensibilities” of our corrupt politicians 100 years later? Children starving to death in the streets?

Do you think the Clinton supporters are behind the Obama bus pushing it off the cliff.Not the first time a Democratic Senate did that 1977-1981.

There needs to be a concerted push to change the current pseudo-filibuster Senate “rules,” and unite the entire progressive agenda under that banner, which serves as a symbol for a larger, populist message

from your link:

I say “pseudo-filibuster,” of course, because the new way of business in “the world’s greatest deliberative body” is that the minority party need not actually filibuster with speeches and debate aimed at slowing down or reconsidering proposed legislation, but can kill legislation outright by doing nothing more than threatening a filibuster, resulting in the current de facto rule that 60 votes are “required” to pass Senate bills as a matter of standard procedure.

A recent poll showed that only 26% – a mere quarter – of Americans even realize that this is how the Senate is being run by the Republican minority

it’s the way the senate is being run by DEMOCRATS. please see powwow’s research and analysis (links here).

… 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.

my idea of populism does not include helping the dems cover up their own malfeasance. let the light shine on them too.

The HCR effort, or HIR effort as Obama would have it, has demonstrated one very useful thing to the American people: we have been played by both parties. The game, as it turns out, has always been to give us the illusion of a two party system, while behind the scenes the Repubs and Dems work as good cop and bad cop to push forward the agenda of large corporations who write their legislation for them. Unless the Senate Democrats prove me wrong and pass a PO through reconciliation (I wonder if Nate Silver has handicapped this outcome yet?), then I think a lot of Americans will finally have the veil lifted from their eyes. The Democratic party as now constituted must have its head cut-off so that at least some populist opposition can be effected in our political system.

My feelings exactly.

I agree, but I think there may be a way to walk and chew gum at the same time.

If the GOP is consistently going to invoke the filibuster on every single piece of legislation, it’s being used as something it was never intended for. I’ve been looking at it closely and I think it’s possible to hold Reid’s feet to the fire and scale back the potential abuses of the filibuster at the same time.

I’m not suggesting that the Democrats don’t share in the blame, or that they don’t have means, short of changing the rules, to end the reign of the threatened filibuster.

An alternative strategy could very well mean forcing Republicans to actually filibuster, and allow resulting public outrage to eventually end it. However, for a variety of reasons, Senate Democrats (and their staffers) are actually under the illusion that a cloture vote is the only real answer to a threatened filibuster. That is, the mores of the Senate have become such that the actual filibuster is regarded as outmoded and old-fashioned.

That being the case, it might actually be more realistic to call for a change in the rules, especially as part of a broader rallying cry for the Senate to work on behalf of ordinary people. Also, it may be easier for the White House to lead the charge on changing the rules and ending the current pseudo-filibuster practice than for it to demand that Senate Democrats make Republicans actually filibuster with speeches and debate, a much more obscure and less-easily marketed message.

Jane,

I’m not asking for credit or suggesting the idea is wholly original, but in your efforts, please consider the importance of framing changes to filibuster practices or rules as part of an overall “theory of the case” that fits in with the actual substantive legislation that would be helped by the change. Per this, once again:

Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of both parties in Congress (the GOP only slightly more so), while approving much more of President Obama, due to this lurking and accurate sense that Congress is where good ideas go to die or be pumped full of special interest garbage. Having the more popular, executive branch President Obama lead the charge against the filibuster would galvanize and direct this frustration into a productive solution that directly targets a critical cause of these widely known problems. This would then dovetail perfectly into the narrative behind particular pieces of financial reform and jobs legislation, which is that wealthy, corporate interests have for too long hijacked our economy and political process at the expense of middle class Americans.

Combined together, this procedural and substantive package would constitute the ultimate “populist” framework from a liberal perspective, countering the current anti-majoritarian arrangement in the Senate, while simultaneously championing middle class-friendly legislation that would itself most benefit from abolishment of the pseudo-filibuster.

In trials, a winning strategy is to settle on an overarching theory of one’s case, and then tie all the particulars into that unifying theory. This works because the theory of the case acts as a heuristic aid for jurors and judges to remember the specific details, as the human brain remembers things more effectively when they connect under a single, coherent message. In a perfect world, Democratic leaders would borrow this page from the trial strategy playbook and focus on a unifying, populist “theory of the case,” as exemplified and spearheaded by a crusade against the pseudo-filibuster.

http://insideoutthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/01/in-perfect-world.html

…Although, considering FDL’s opinion of White House “leadership,” I imagine your argument would not involve demanding Obama spearhead the effort.

DCLaw1:
Rule changes (such as abolishing the filibuster) must be taken up at the beginning of the session. You’re either a year late, or a year early. Please try again later.

As for the 51…
I’m not so sure we claim Baucus a ‘yea’ because I believe his 60-vote excuse was ONLY that, an excuse. He just wasn’t in a position to say he was against the option at the time he said that because his constituency was quite LOUD about his apparent opposition to it.

That means there’s plenty of time to build popular outrage over it, and frame the midterm elections themselves under the theme.

Gotta go now…

I’ve been looking at it closely and I think it’s possible to hold Reid’s feet to the fire and scale back the potential abuses of the filibuster at the same time.

the next potential “abuse” may be trying to defeat “entitlement reform.”

the only reason i can see that there are abuses is because the dems don’t just let them happen, they practically beg the Rs to block them from legislation the dems apparently only want to pretend to support.

i like the filibuster (the real thing) because it’s an opportunity to speak also to the public and give us a chance to weigh in before deals made behind closed doors are quickly dispatched with.

Has anyone from the Senate or the House explicitly claimed that a public option would not be qualified to pass under reconciliation rules?

That means there’s plenty of time to build popular outrage over it, and frame the midterm elections themselves under the theme.

i understand it’s the strategy the dems want to use for midterm elections. i just don’t like it.

as for popular outrage, try focussing on a senate rule change that doesn’t actually need to be changed while the country has real problems that need real solutions and i’m sure i won’t be the only person outraged with progressives as well as the Rs and Ds of deecee. if this is the what progressivism is, count me out.

i can just hear it now…. “damn pointy headed ivory towered elitist liberals arguing over minutia while the country’s unemployment rate is xxx”

If any of our leaders and misfit halfwits AKA TeaPartiers cared about this country we would be already beginning Single payer. But the thing is that no body in power cares about this country any more. They don’t care if we are competitive in trade with countries that do have Single Payer and do not tack that cost on to their goods and services. They don’t care about the underemployed which number in the millions upon millions who have never been extended health care. They don’t care about the young college students and twenty somethings that have to limp along without health care for the better part of a decade until they are deserving, through the eyes of an employer, to get health care if their lucky and “special” enough.

These people have theirs and they simply don’t care. In fact, having health security is like driving a fancy car. It’s a status symbol and if you are waiting for the bus in 10 degree weather, all those that drive by in their Hummers think is “stupid losers”..end of thought.

This country is run on the jungle motto which is “Survival of the fittest”. Why anyone plays by the rules any more is beyond me. I do know that office politics are brutal and seriously corrupt everywhere Ive worked. Health care is a tool for black mail and the list goes on.

I’m seriously feeling that being a good moral decent person is a ticket for early death and poor health. No wonder Americans are so ruthless. But I’ve got news for the sociopaths that easily take advantage of the good moral people in this country. It’s easy to be a lying stealing blackmailing indifferent jerk. It’s not a talent or a skill. Any jerk with an IQ over 50 can do it. Maybe the nice people should just stop allowing themselves to be served up and used to make rich people richer. Believe me, over my 50 years there’s been plenty of opportunity to better myself through lying or to sue doctors who have continued to misdiagnose my illnesses causing years of needless troubles. Im wondering, why be easy going and not want to hurt others when you pay for it with a reduced quality of life.

Jane, I generally root for you, but I’m worried that you still take the “public option” card too seriously and literally.

I realize that the “public option” is still valid and real in current political discourse, but that’s about it. I view it as a “place holder”: a card, a marker, a chess or board-game piece to anchor superficial discussion.

Ever since the “robust public option” meme was introduced as the absolute minimum standard distinguishing true “health care reform” from mere tinkering around the edges, it has been whittled down to an eviscerated buzz-phrase in a death of a thousand cuts.

In a manner reminiscent of radioactive “half-life”, but quicker, the Robust Public Option promptly deteriorated into a Not-So-Robust Public Option, on down through the Half-Assed Public Option and the rest of the *-Assed subdivisions, and now exists on an atomic level.

Now there is the prospect that the institutional political cyclotron may cough up a new, improved subatomic “Public Option”.

I hope for her own sake that you haven’t backed yourself into a corner in which you’ll feel bound to champion any atrocious No Insurer Left Behind legislation that has something called a “public option” dragging from its bumper.

At this point, given the appalling intransigence of all of our Elected Misrepresentatives, and their universal aversion to even the appearance of undermining health care corporations or placing them at a disadvantage, I find it impossible to consider the “public option” to be anything but a Trojan Farce.

ratfood and SD, i’m not even a fan of the PO, but i despise pols who lie to their constituency like this.

and yes, i do remember.

In response to revolutionary1, that Medicare scheme is complicated. Let’s have Medicare for Everybody — simpler, single-payer, universal coverage, all in one reconciliation-friendly package.

I had health insurance I was told by the insurance Doctors for the last 20 plus years that I had to learn to live with my cronic illnesses misdiagnosed as far back as 1974.The lack of Health Care will criple you and kill you.When I was no longer able to earn a liveing I lost my health insurance.I’m a Veteran and started receiving Health Care.The Veterans Health Care has improved the quality of my life.I’m alive today because of the Health Care I received from the Veterans Health Care.The Insurance for profit doctors had to know that without proper treatment I would end up criple and unable to keep insurance.Thay did not allow for the test of any of my ongoing problems.With insurance for profit your best hope is a prayer and don’t get sick with any cronic disease.

It is amazing and telling to watch the Democrats throw themselves on their swords to protect corporate profits at the expense of real legislation and reform and with the real possibility of losing their seats.

Either they believe that what happened in Massachusetts can’t happen to them or they, not having the political cover of being a minority to Republicans, have no choice but to side with the people they truly represent–knowing that if they do lose their seats there will be plenty of consolation in the job offers that will flow their way to work as a representative of these corporations from the outside.

In short–at worst it’ll be cash-in time.

I’ll be very curious where some of these people go when it’s all over.

The show is over but the acting must continue because we need the appearance of two opposing parties representing the population of this nation. If they seem awkward lately, it’s only because they know they’ve been exposed but they still have to pretend that this particular act of democracy is real.

America has had a good run–but it couldn’t overcome greed.

Exactly right! Follow the money. [Baucus] We are all being played for suckers with, staged reform by both the parties. There is an element of truth to it.[Look at what is being spent!]Corruption is running deep in Congress because they have been paid for with what looks like campaign financing from special interests.People are watching closer than ever before and will learn from it. Nothing is more frustrating to a voter than the feeling that neither party represents their interests, but its been the norm in Washington the last decade or so.

The American people asked where they could find a job. That takes precedence.

At this point in the legislative process, and wow what a process it has been, it is probably a lot easier for Senators to vote for a Public Option using reconciliation since they would then know it could be voted on again in 10 years (as Bush’s tax cuts will have to be at the end of the year). If you introduce a lot of people to the Medicare system it would be nigh on impossible to end that down the road.

No public option, no madate. It is not a negotiation chip or placeholder, it is the bottom line. If a mandate is passed without a public option the dems will be ejected from congress en mass, and the president two years later. This is the lesson of Massachusetts. They know it, they’re just trying to convince the electorate to forget about it. We just won’t do that, boys and girls. We know your names, and see what you do.

See ya in November.

Too much analysis over nothing.

It’s all about corporate feudalism, facism.

Corporate ownership and partnership of and with government.

Don’t complicate the simple, it distracts from the issue at hand and how to battle it.

Never mind that the role of reforming Congress should belong to Congress, DCLaw1, if we want to try to start re-establishing the separation of powers.

Thank you for focusing on this subject, which obviously needs both tackling from outside the Democratic Party leadership/loyalist perspective, and clearer explanations of the existing rules [your "pseudo-filibuster" being a good choice of words to describe the Rule 22 cloture motion process, for example, though your unspecified recommended change to that optional supermajority "pseudo-filibuster" rule needs closer examination.]

I think your point in Comment 64 is a good one with regard to how people think, and how to explain the situation. But, echoing selise, I’d ask you to be sure you are explaining the situation as it is, rather than simply as it’s portrayed to be by partisans of either side.

With regard to those Party partisans – especially Congressional incumbents, and, I contend, the President as well – they are the least trustworthy spokesmen for the case you want made (by them) to the American people: That it’s the other Party’s fault that the Senate, and thus their majority Party, “isn’t working” to enact good legislative product into law:

With popular anger at Congress at an all-time high, and so much of that frustration having to do with the perception that wealthy interests are subverting democracy and Washington is being prevented from “getting things done,” I think a high-profile campaign against the pseudo-filibuster would pay substantial political dividends.

That argument amounts, coming from those partisans, in the perception of most of the country, I think, to typical Party finger-pointing and blame-casting (unless the Democrats point fingers at their own abuse of the cloture motion in denouncing the pseudo-filibuster), which is pretty much all we’ve heard from the Democrats since long before the 2006 elections. I really don’t think the American people are in the mood for any more of that stuff, whether they can see through it or not (the less clear-cut the case, the more disgusted they get). Especially given that the Democrats at least technically had their 60 votes half of last year, and still managed to concoct a dreadful health reform bill all the same.

You don’t have to shift very far from what you’re saying, though, to get into the Ed Rendell camp of focusing on and pressuring the Democratic majority for an end to the “pseudo-filibuster.” Because it is within the Democratic majority’s power to do that now, whenever it chooses. And if you understand that [or can't dispute it - I've been asking for my argument to be specifically debunked as misinformed, so far to no avail], you’ll immediately see that the whole approach and purpose of the idea in your linked post will never appeal to the majority Democrats (or at least to their leadership). Because it would only risk exposing their own complicity in the Republican obstruction. [All a Republican Senator has to (rightly) say is: "The Democrats filed all those cloture motions last year that set the Senate record. All we ask is that they allow the Senate minority to participate in the work of the Senate, instead of trying to roll over us by abusing Rule 22."]

There’s much more in earlier comments and diaries of mine that selise has kindly provided links to, as well as in this comment I posted today late in a dday thread from yesterday, where I point out that the “real” filibuster even solves the alleged problem of how to change the Senate rules by simple majority, without first directly violating, or seeming to play games with, those rules.

In short, I’m on a “crusade against the pseudo-filibuster” of sorts, and the result is that I’ve identified and am challenging the practices of the Senate majority as the real problem, rather than just condemning the current Republican Senate minority for merely “objecting” (for whatever unknown, usually privately-stated reasons) to various pieces of legislation or nominations. Whereas I read you as saying that it should be to Democratic majority/Obama advantage to (coherently) launch a “crusade” to condemn the pseudo-filibuster, as Obama and Axelrod have started disingenuously doing, even as that majority continues its record-breaking deployment of, again, optional Rule 22 supermajority cloture motions.

[By the way, it's nice to see some more longstanding Glenn Greenwald commenters chiming in here - especially because I haven't been able to read or even speed-read the comment threads there much lately.]

If you were Connecticut, would you want to own up to both Dodd and Lieberman? Allow them a little propagandist face saving, for heaven’s sake! It’s just for a little while until they can completely disown him.

We left in 2003. We immigrated to Canada, along with about 400,000 other Americans.
eecummings: A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man. (or woman)

The only redeeming quality that I can see in Congress nowadays is that it provides a place of employment for so many of our village idiots.

Seriously folks, it looks like we’re on our own and the congress doesn’t really represent the views of the majority (they have their own masters for the most part). We’ll keep signing the petitions and will vote for the best progressive candidates. But we should also start looking after ourselves (the people) and stop supporting corporations and stop throwing money indirectly or directly at them and at Wall street. I have many progressive friends who think like I do, but they still have their money in the market in one form or the other…take these resources away from Wall Street and the corporations that are using us and killing us and invest them in your family and in your direct community. Learn about finance and about small business and find ways to help your immediate family/community. We do not need GM cars/insurance companies/Fast food/IRA & 401K accounts, etc…These were imposed on us with the multitude of things that we were born to support. Find intelligent ways to simplify and clarify your lives and go forward (live close to work; start a garden; start a small business). I am not a hippie (love them though) and we’re lucky in my family to have what we do. We prepared and worked for it and so can most Americans. This is not a resignation comment…just an opinion and we will continue to pester these silly people in congress till they listen. But I am starting to rely on them less and less every day. Regarding the PO, listen to this CA people in congress: since you tax me, I want my money spent on PO or even on a single payer system and a compassionate gov that takes care of its people, NOT on war mongering corporations and wars that make us less secure and less human. Thank you!

I agree if u apply Occam’s Razor to this whole game its obvious FASCISM is here NOW , so how do we combat it, again?