Isn’t the problem once again a few democrats who want the “security” of the super majority to protect them from imagined transgressions?

Hmmm. I wonder. It’s a very good question. I wish I had some idea of what they’ll do. We just have no precedent to try to figure this out. *sarcasm font off*

Let’s get real. They had a chance last session to completely reform the filibuster and essentially did nothing. Expect more of the same. Or worse.

I chose “Or What” for $500, Jon.

So Do Democrats Actually Want to Govern or Not?

That’s a trick question, right?

If Democrats don’t change the Senate rules at the beginning of the next session it will mean they believe having a go-to excuse for broken promises is more important than having a semi-functioning government system. It will be a telling moment to determine if Democrats are serious about governing or they just really like playing the part on TV.

So will FDL come out strongly against Democrats not just on this issue but in future elections if they don’t make this change?

Since 1970 US wages have declined by 7% while US productivity has doubled – wages should have doubled also.

Democrats are fine with this transfer of wealth.

It will be a telling moment to determine if Democrats are serious about governing or they just really like playing the part on TV.

I choose the latter. What goes on in Washington has deteriorated to the point that it is just the same old, very obvious R/D kabuki played by terrible, terrible actors.

Democrats want Republicans to govern. That way, they’ll always have bushels of ready-made scapegoats to bitch about (as opposed to manufacturing them) but not until they’re out of power. In the meantime, they’ll reward, enable, shield, defend, and negotiate with said Republicans while relying on the short attention spans and Ever-Quest lives of the voters to keep falling for their Glen Beck/Stan Laurel act. Oh, and there’s always the “Villain Rotation Wheel” …

No, they just want that post-Senate lobbying gig.
Just ask Tom Daschle. Or better yet, ask Matt Taibbi.

Here’s how it will go down:

1. Harry Reid will talk a lot about how important it is to reform or eliminate the filibuster.

2. Other Dem Senators will nod their heads and say “Yeah, absolutely – let’s do it!”

3. Before anything actually gets done the WH will, in public, offer either weak support or will refuse to endorse the reform efforts while in private they will strong-arm Reid and the Senate Dem leadership to back off.

4. The press and “liberal” think tanks will opine on how reforming the filibuster is a really, really bad idea.

5. Reid will gradually back off after being offered some meaningless reassurances from Mitch McConnell and some kind of political deal by Obama.

6. Business will go on (or not) as usual.

To me, this is not the issue. The real issue is the staffing of the federal government. One thing that I find amazing is that is takes the Dems far longer to staff than the Republicans. Granted the Republicans will hire anyone. It is these regulators that do the real business.

The cost of labor’s health,education and preparation for the work force has also gone up. What has capital investment done over that time period: gone up, stayed the same or gone down?

Clearly labor needs more if consumption is to stay high.

If you want a democracy you’ve got to have majority rule. The only question after that is whether you have that majority rule vote on every single thing the Senate does or just on final passage of a bill.

Details details details.

I do not recall elected Democrats in Congress, or Obama, blaming Republicans for lack of a public option. I heard Obamabots do that, but not elected officials.

Obama and the White House were chiding Democrats for wanting a public option by the town meeting stage in the summer of 2009. By that time, Obama, who campaigned on a strong public option was the only way to control insurance costs, was testily claiming a public option was only a “sliver.”

And Obamacare did pass by reconciliation. The Senate passed it in December 2009 because a special election for Kennedy’s seat was about to be held. However, the bill was not even in its final form then.

So, “amendments” were passed by reconciliation in 2010. March, I believe.

The final pen to touch the bill was that of Obama himself, who made the last revisions before the reconciliation vote.

The Democrats could have done anything they wanted to that bill and it still could have passed by reconciliation. We got the bill that the President and the Democrats wanted us to get and, again, I don’t recall any of them saying otherwise.

I do remember a lot of Obama apologists message board posters saying otherwise, though.

No.

How many Dems did FDL raise money for and support in the last election?

We’ll have that test this year.

PREDICTION: The tax rates on the top two brackets will not go up. Obama will let Boehner dictate what loopholes can be closed and then Obama will boast that he simply used other means to raise taxes on the rich. Promise kept.

Republicans are the Democrats’ disablers and Democrats are the Republicans’ enablers. Symbiosis. The plutocrats own both parties and always win.

Or ask Chris Dodd.

How soon can we expect your district by district diary on how we’re going to build a Green party in the 2014 midterms, when ad rates and turnout is low?

Can you just start with the heavy D+ districts?

Please disabuse yourself of any notion that this recent election changed the dynamic in D.C. Still owned by big corporations and D’s and R’s are their servants not ours. This question is a non-starter.

Majority rule?

Nah, this system is Money rule, with the presididn’t acting as the main foil to persuade the clueless masses he’s working for them. “It’s SO HARD to make anything happen for you guys… pay no attention to the immediate, intimate, tongue-carressing service I provide the moneyed interests.”

Democracy, feh. People are too gullible.

“…..If Democrats don’t change the Senate rules at the beginning of the next session….”

Boy, that sounds familiar.

“…it will mean…”

Well, whatever it will mean now, didn’t it mean that some time back, maybe every time they had a chance to do so? But hey, I just had a thought. Maybe they will change the rules this time – and you know why? They just may wish to forestall a push for impeachment, should one arise. I don’t know if changing the rules would accomplish that, but it would be the one change condition that would merit the thought, not for the good of the country but to save themselves if possible. These have not been the good guys, folk. This is the pro-corporate-war side, folk; the let-Obama-play-emperor side. They will not be the ones going down in history as heroes unless they really stick their necks out now, especially the ones that are in the last gasp of their service to our country. And that’s really stretching my optimistically patriotic envelope, but it’s always worth a try.

And it did happen once before.

Then what are you going to do about it?

For the umpteenth time, and it needs to be graven in stone:

Coming off that landslide in 2008, and with that mandate and those big congressional margins, all that Barack Obama had to do was confront the assholes; run REAL reform legislation up to the hill and keep running it up and daring them to filibuster. They would have folded in a matter of days, and Obama would have been Captain America.

Instead, he bent over and spread cheek, and the rest, as they say, is bipartisan history. Whatever incremental change he can effect now, will be crumbs on the floor, for us to eat.

The House impeaches (indictment), the Senate conducts the trial (convicts or acquits).

Nice Jon. As many of us have long believed, the answer is no. This is the worst class of dems I’ve seen in my lifetime. Because they have bought into a conservative agenda while taking big bucks from the same people as repubs, they simply can’t govern on the populist agenda they spew for their supporters. They think, and perhaps they do given the recent election, believe they have the recipe down. Talk populist, scare people about the satanic repubs, win, do nothing other than maintain the feudal order, repeat.

One thing I won’t be doing is projecting progressive or democratic motives on the Senate, Congress, or the WH. I support Green Party and constitutional amend to overturn Citizens United, Greenpeace and ACLU. But D’s can go take a hike til they do something right (meaning correct not Right of center)

Well, the first thing we have to do is continue to vote for them and then later we should vote for them again and then vote for them again . . .