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Monday, January 3, 2011

Pakistan Drones' Success Rate: 2%

Doesn't say much about our waron terrorism what it says is the citizens of Pakistan should take cover, they are the ones getting droned to death and that is not a joke.....

Those fabled remote-controlled defenders of freedom? Turns out they're not terribly effective in Afghanistan.

Doing a Deal on Social Security


| Mon Jan. 3, 2011 11:35 AM PST
Digby reposts a summary today of last year's "Fiscal Responsibility Summit," in which Gene Sperling — now a top contender to replace Larry Summers as head of the NEC — said the Obama administration was interested in cutting a deal on Social Security, and warns against taking the bait:
I know I've posted that too often and regular readers are sick of it. But it's terribly important, I think, to understand that the rationale for liberals in this thing is that they are doing a good thing for the program, taking it "off the table" for the next 50 years and "making it sound." Now, I don't know if they really believe it, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that in the current environment whatever changes they come up with will come at the expense of the elderly because there will be no deal that requires tax hikes.
I don't know why some liberals think that there is some deal, good or bad, which can somehow take the Social Security issue off the table until the end of time. As Ben Bernanke said, that's where the money is and they'll be trying to steal it in perpetuity. Cutting granny's benefits a bit won't change that.
I just don't think this is true. It's possible that Republicans will never agree to a Social Security deal that increases taxes, but keep in mind that Republicans are mainly obsessed with taxes on the wealthy. A small increase in payroll taxes and/or an increase in the payroll tax cap wouldn't affect the millionaire class much and might get a fair amount of GOP support. In any case, the only way to find out is to try. If they won't do the deal, then they won't do the deal.
But assume that a deal is possible. If it is, I think it's wrong to insist that it will come solely at the expense of the elderly, or that it won't do any good because Social Security will never be off the table anyway. On the first point, it's quite possible to structure a deal that requires nothing more than a very modest slowdown in the the future increase of benefit levels that (a) affects only those with fairly high incomes and (b) phases in over a period of decades. That's hardly Armageddon. On the second point, sure, Republicans will probably go after Social Security forever. But that's not what matters. What matters is that if the program is officially in balance then Republicans no longer have the traction to succeed. Benefit cuts are unpopular, after all, and conservatives by themselves don't have either the desire or the ability to buck the public on this unless they also have the support of the Washington Post/Pete Peterson Beltway elite. And they won't have that once the program is officially solvent. A deal on Social Security kicks the legs out of the centrist support they need in order to have any chance of reducing benefits in the future.
Now, again: maybe a deal isn't possible. There's only one way to find out. But if a deal ispossible, it really would take Social Security off the table for a very long time. That would be good for the elderly, good for the country, and good for the liberal project in general. If there's any chance of doing a bipartisan deal over the next two years, Democrats should be open to it.

Monday, January 03, 2011

 
The Good Liberal

by digby

I'll take Brad Delong's word for it that Gene Sperling really is a liberal and concur that in Woodward's book "The Agenda" he is portrayed as being the most liberal of the economic advisors.

But this worries me:

Both Summers and Sperling said there would not be consensus in today's session about how to fix the program. They also said the public was more receptive to the government making hard decisions necessary to keep SS from running out of money in the long run, because Americans are anxious about their private retirement savings and the value of their houses.

Sperling said: "I think there may be a lot more openness than we thought in the past for people to have an honest discussion about the shared sacrifice necessary to have Social Security solvency. That this would be a sure thing they could count on, and they could count on for the next 50 to 75 years."

At the end, Sperling also tried to cut through disagreement over whether the program was in a state of crisis. "I really hate the whole argument about, is this a crisis or is this not a crisis? Why do we not want to preempt a crisis. Why do we not want to do something early? It is a shame on our political system that there has never been entitlement reform without a gun to our head. . .Wouldn't it be a tremendous confidence-building thing to act early and smart?"
I know I've posted that too often and regular readers are sick of it. But it's terribly important, I think, to understand that the rationale for liberals in this thing is that they are doing a good thing for the program, taking it "off the table" for the next 50 years and "making it sound." Now, I don't know if they really believe it, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that in the current environment whatever changes they come up with will come at the expense of the elderly because there will be no deal that requires tax hikes.

I think there's ample reason to be skeptical of the administration's negotiating skills, so the Grand Bargain is very likely to be an agreement to sacrifice social security in exchange for the Republicans agreeing to sacrifice something they don't really care about. (See: tax cuts for the wealthy in exchange for unemployment insurance.) Huckleberry Graham already framed the deal as agreeing to raise the debt ceiling and cutting social security. Considering that raising the debt ceiling is normally a symbolic, pro forma vote (which the Tea People have helpfully turned into a "cause") you can see how easily the administration could get rolled in this. There has never been a more inauspicious moment to put social security on the table than now.

Let's hope Sperling is a bit more realistic about this today than he was two years ago when he made those comments. And let's hope he's not one of those liberals who has decided that the only way to influence the economy is by sending "signals" to a bunch of sociopathic Masters of the Universe who have demonstrated their myopia and incompetence over and over again. They are not going to save us.


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We're Still at War:

 Photo of the Day for January 3, 2010

Mon Jan. 3, 2011 2:30 AM PST
U.S. Army Sgt. Michael L. Zickefoose, a team leader assigned to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, provides security while keeping an eye on a recent avenue of approach Taliban used at the Charkh bazaar Dec. 11. Zickefoose, a Warren, Ohio, native, recently volunteered to leave the battalion’s scout platoon to lead troops in Charkh. Photo by U.S. Army Sgt. Cooper T. Cash, Task Force Patriot

Gays Remain Minority Most Targeted by Hate Crimes

By Mark Potok, SPLC Intelligence Report
Posted on December 31, 2010, Printed on January 3, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/149378/
Four teenagers commit suicide in a three-week span after being bullied, taunted or outed as homosexuals. Seven students — at least four of whom had endured anti-gay bullying — kill themselves over the course of a year in a single Minnesota school district. In New York, 10 suspects are arrested for torturing three gay victims. In Covington, Ky., a series of violent anti-gay attacks shock a trendy neighborhood. In Vonore, Tenn., a lesbian couple’s home, its garage spray-painted with “Queers,” is burned to the ground. A rash of attacks hits Washington, D.C. And in Michigan, a prosecutor harasses a local gay rights student leader for months.
All of this is only a sampling of the anti-gay attacks occurring around the nation, most of it drawn from just the last few months. Although the rash of student suicides drew major media attention for a few days, the reality, gay rights advocates say, is that the LGBT world has been plagued by hate violence for years.
But that’s not the way a hard core of the anti-gay religious right sees it.
Responding to the wave of teen suicides — including, most dramatically, that of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University student who leaped off the George Washington Bridge in New York City in September — anti-gay leaders instead blamed those who sought to protect students from bullying.
Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association said gay rights activists “pressure these students to declare a disordered sexual preference when they’re too young to know better, [so] they share some culpability.” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a key critic of anti-bullying programs, said gay activists were “exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda.” He said that gay kids may know “intuitively” that their desires are “abnormal” and that the claim, pushed by gay activists, that they can’t change “may create a sense of despair that can lead to suicide.” Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel said those activists want “to use the tragedies to increase pressure on the real victims: Christians.”
In fact, the chief target of these anti-gay ideologues — the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) — has been working to get protection from school bullying for a wide range of racial, religious and sexual minorities, not only LGBT students. It’s extremely hard to see how their efforts are exploitative, or how the “real” victims of bullying are Christians. GLSEN’s mission statement says that it “strives to assure that each member of every school community is valued.”
What’s more, bullying is only the beginning of the violence experienced by gays in American society. The reality is that homosexuals or perceived homosexuals are by far the group most targeted in America for violent hate crimes, according to an Intelligence Report analysis of 14 years of federal hate crime data. The bottom line: Gay people are more than twice as likely to be attacked in a violent hate crime as Jews or blacks; more than four times as likely as Muslims; and 14 times as likely as Latinos.
A Changing Landscape
Remarkably, most Americans today seem to have a sense of the violence that the LGBT community is regularly subjected to, or in any event are increasingly rejecting extreme religious-right narratives about the alleged evils of homosexuality. An October poll by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute found that 65% of Americans believe “places of worship contribute to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth” (33% said “a lot” and 32% said “a little”). Seventy-two percent said places of worship “contribute to negative views of gay and lesbian people” (40% said “a lot” and 32% said “a little”). (At the same time, the survey found that 44% of Americans still view same-sex relations as a sin.)
This was not always so. In 2003, the legalization of same-sex marriage in most of Canada, plus the U.S. Supreme Court’s striking down of anti-gay sodomy laws in 13 states and a court decision in Massachusetts against gay marriage bans, produced a major backlash. By 2008, fueled by the anti-gay rhetoric and political organizing of religious-right groups, at least 40 states and the federal government had adopted constitutional bans or laws against same-sex marriages.
Since then, the record has been mixed. But it’s clear that public support for same-sex marriage — and opposition to its religious opponents — is on the rise.
Five states now allow same-sex marriage, and another three recognize such unions from other states. California allowed them for some months in 2008, but the Proposition 8 referendum ended that — until a federal judge this fall overturned the proposition, saying it discriminated unconstitutionally against homosexuals. A 2006 federal bill that would have prohibited states from recognizing same-sex marriage failed. By this August, according to a Roper poll, a majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage for the first time. The poll found that 52% said the federal government should recognize such marriages (up from 46% in 2009), and 58% said same-sex couples should be entitled to the same benefits as other couples.
An earlier Gallup poll, released in May 2010, had similar results. It found that Americans now see gay relationships as “morally acceptable” by a 52% to 43% margin — compared to a 55% to 38% unfavorable view just eight years earlier. Every demographic group within the data set grew more accepting — Catholics, for instance, polled as 62% favorable, compared to 46% four years ago.
This fall’s mid-term elections were the first since the 1990s with no measures to ban gay marriage on any state ballot, according to The Associated Press. And although same-sex marriage was an issue at press time in four gubernatorial races, the AP reported, Democratic candidates in Rhode Island and California were vying to become the fourth and fifth openly gay members of Congress.
“We’ve reached a tipping point this year,” said Wayne Besen, founder of TruthWinsOut.com, which monitors the anti-gay right. “The religious right is losing some of its steam. We’re going to win this issue quicker than people think.”
It may not be only gay rights advocates who think so. Last February, after founder James Dobson retired and pastor Jim Daly took over, Focus on the Family — for years, the powerhouse organization of the anti-gay religious right — markedly softened its anti-gay rhetoric. Daly began meeting with gay rights activists, ended the ministry’s controversial “reparative therapy” for gays and lesbians, and even suggested that legalized same-sex marriage might not be a disaster.
“I will continue to defend traditional marriage, but I’m not going to demean human beings for the process,” Daly told an interviewer. “I want to express respect for everyone, all human beings. It’s not about being highly confrontational.”
Digging In
It is in just such situations — when long-held societal notions about blacks, Latinos, Catholics, homosexuals or other minorities are shifting — that violent backlashes often set in. As groups like Focus on the Family have moderated their positions on homosexuality, a hard core of anti-gay groups, sensing they are being politically marginalized, seem to be growing angrier and more radical still.
The reaction of Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute, may be illustrative. Upon hearing of Daly’s moves, she said the Focus on the Family leader was showing “surprising naïveté,” adding that he instead “better figure out how to stop the pro-homosexual juggernaut.” As to his comments about refusing to “demean human beings,” Higgins said, “The language employed by Mr. Daly here is the kind of language commonly employed by … homosexualists.”
“True conservatives,” Higgins added tartly elsewhere, “need to rethink their cowardly refusal to address the inherent immorality of homosexual practice and their deeply flawed strategy of calling for a moratorium on ‘social issues.’”
A leading criminologist and sociologist of hate crimes, Jack Levin of Northeastern University, sees evidence of the growing radicalization of the fringe in other ways. He says perpetrators of anti-gay hate crimes appear to be getting older. No longer are they dominated by teens engaging in thrill-seeking with predatory gangs of their peers. More and more, he says, lone adults are committing what Levin calls “defensive hate crimes” — crimes carried out in reaction to sweeping social changes that they see as threats to their home, family, religion, culture or country.
The shrinking size of the most virulent parts of the anti-gay religious right was much in evidence at the August “Truth Academy” staged outside Chicago by Peter LaBarbera and his Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. The three-day gathering immediately followed what to many anti-gay activists was a kind of nuclear disaster — the overturning by a federal appeals court judge of Proposition 8, which had temporarily ended gay marriage in California.
And what better motivator than a “homosexual judge” canceling out some 7 million votes against same-sex marriage? But that turned out not to be the case. Subtracting speakers, family members, volunteers and at least four interlopers who attended only to monitor events, the tally of those who paid to hear LaBarbera and the others speak during the first day was almost certainly fewer than 15.
Nevertheless, for many hard-liners, fighting homosexuality is a biblical imperative. They regard being forced to accept uncloseted gays as tantamount to being persecuted as Christians. If same-sex marriage becomes universally legal, the Family Research Council’s Perkins told the “Call to Conscience” rally held in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 4, “In one generation, we will have gone from banning the Bible in public schools to banning religious beliefs in society.”
As a result, the hard core of the anti-gay religious right is digging in. They have gravitated toward three particular tactics: “love the sinner” rhetoric; secular validation; and depicting gays as a global threat.
The Hard-Liners’ New Lines
Not long ago, anti-gay propaganda was remarkable for its vulgar and wild-eyed tone — depicting homosexuals as immoral, feces-eating, disease-ridden pedophiles. And some of that tone, particularly the idea that gays seek to “recruit” children in school, remains in certain quarters. But that kind of approach doesn’t resonate much with younger audiences, who grew up with positive images of openly gay actors, musicians, artists, politicians and business leaders. As gays came out of the closet, others increasingly found they had gay friends and relatives.
Now, more and more groups on the religious right are framing their arguments with words that are meant to show respect for gays and lesbians. There is no better example of that than the Manhattan Declaration, drafted in 2009 by Watergate conspirator-turned-evangelist Charles Colson, Princeton University professor Robert P. George and Beeson Divinity School Dean Rev. Timothy George.
The declaration framed opposition to same-sex marriage as part of seeking an end to the “glamorizing” of promiscuity and infidelity generally. It emphasized that “our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners.” It conceded that “there are sincere people who disagree with us … on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage.” “And so,” it concluded, “it is out of love (not ‘animus’) and prudent concern for the common good (not ‘prejudice’), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage.”
That kinder, gentler language drew the support of many, but not as many as the religious right was used to getting. After setting a goal of obtaining 1 million signatures within 10 days of its Nov. 20, 2009, release, organizers said this Aug. 3 — almost nine months later — that they had amassed 463,000 signatures.
Another emphasis has been in seeking secular validation for anti-gay arguments — scientific evidence of the alleged pitfalls of homosexuality. Many on the religious anti-gay right now frame their arguments almost entirely around the idea that homosexuals present various dangers to children, that they will live short and unhappy lives, that they are more vulnerable to disease, and so on.
The clearest statement of this may have come in late 2008 from Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute: “We can no longer rely — as almost all pro-family organizations do today — on gleaning scientific ‘bits’ from those in liberal academia… . [W]e must subvert the academy by doing original, honest research ourselves and use this to advance the historic Christian faith.”
There’s just one trouble with this approach. Almost all the “facts” trotted out by the religious right about gays turn out to be false or misleading. And no one does more to create these myths than Cameron, whose work has been repudiated by three scholarly associations. (Others who are commonly cited as “researchers” by the anti-gay right include Joe Dallas, John R. Diggs, Joseph Nicolosi and the late Charles Socarides.) In addition, many scholars who do serious work in the area of sexuality say their work is misused by anti-gay groups. In fact, at least 11 legitimate scientists have recorded video statements saying their work was being mischaracterized by the religious right.
Related to this effort has been the creation of “ex-gay” therapies — programs run by the religious right that claim, against the weight of scientific evidence, to be able to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals. The problem is that so few people seem to have made the change — and so many who supposedly did later repudiated it.
A final new emphasis being used by many of the hard-core anti-gay groups is the charge that homosexuals make up, in effect, an active conspiracy whose agenda includes the destruction of Christianity and, ultimately, Western civilization. Sometimes, their propaganda sounds noticeably like Nazi descriptions of Jewish plots.
In a Feb. 6 column headlined “The bitter fruit of decriminalizing homosexual behavior,” for example, the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer paraphrased another writer, agreeing that decriminalizing homosexuality had left society facing “a powerful, vicious, and punitive homosexual cabal that is determined to overthrow completely what remains of Judeo-Christian standards of sexual morality in the West.” Fischer adds that, “as [the writer] points out,” gays have received “special protections … which come at the expense of religious liberty, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and freedom of association and lead to the punishment, intimidation and harassment of any who oppose their agenda.”
For his part, reflecting on “the rise of gay power in the culture,” Americans for Truth About Homosexuality’s LaBarbera sounded a similar theme during a radio broadcast last summer, saying, “The homosexual activist movement has very strategically insinuated itself into every sphere of power in our society.”
And at the Chicago-area Truth Academy, Robert Knight of Coral Ridge Ministries cited a 2008 Time magazine article that he said “makes the case that the Democratic Party is a fully owned subsidiary of a group of homosexual billionaires.” (In fact, the article discussed a group of wealthy gay men and their effect on pro-gay politics.) Knight then went a few steps further, saying that homosexuals in the nation’s capital have “blackmail power.”
How is that? So many gays work in the hospitality industry, Knight claimed, that “they see congressmen dallying with their secretaries. They see them with their mistresses, and they let them know if they step out of line on the gay issue, it just might find its way into the wrong hands.” He offered no evidence.
“The gay Mafia in Washington,” he concluded. “It’s very real.”
Facing the Future
In the end, many legal observers have suggested, same-sex marriage — or “marriage equality,” in the words of its backers — may well be legalized across the United States, whether through the actions of the courts or the legislatures. But that doesn’t mean that the hard core of religious resistance is about to disappear.
Frederick Clarkson, an independent journalist who has written about the American religious right for a quarter of a century, notes that the social conflicts set off by Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education continued for decades after the Supreme Court ruled. Moderating public attitudes toward homosexuality, he says, are viewed by the religious right as “symptoms of a society that has fallen away from God’s laws, seriously enough that God is ready to smack the country down.”
After all, to the hard core of that anti-gay religious right, Clarkson says, “homosexuality is a profound capital offense against God’s order.”
The upshot, in all likelihood, is that violence, hatred and bullying of those perceived as homosexual will continue into the foreseeable future. Although leaders of the hard core of the religious right deny it, it seems clear that their demonizing propaganda plays a role in fomenting that violence — a proposition that has sparked a number of Christian leaders to speak out in the wake of the latest series of tragedies.
“The recent epidemic of bullying-related teen suicides is a wake-up call to us moderate Christians,” the Rev. Fritz Ritsch, pastor of St. Stephen Presbyterian Church, wrote in October in the Fort Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram. “To most unchurched Americans — meaning most Americans — the fruit of the church is bitter indeed. … [T]he bullying crisis has put a fine point on the need for moderates to challenge the theological bullies from our own bully pulpits. We cannot equivocate. Children are dying. We need to speak up. If not now, when?”
Mark Potok is the editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report.
© 2011 SPLC Intelligence Report All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/149378/
[w1]

Reform and the Filibuster

January 2, 2011


The new Senate will face one of its most momentous decisions in its opening hours on Wednesday: a vote on whether to change its rules to prohibit the widespread abuse of the filibuster. Americans are fed up with Washington gridlock. The Senate should seize the opportunity.
A filibuster — the catchall term for delaying or blocking a majority vote on a bill by lengthy debate or other procedures — remains a valuable tool for ensuring that a minority of senators cannot be steamrollered into silence. No one is talking about ending the practice.
Every returning Democratic senator, though, has signed a letter demanding an end to the almost automatic way the filibuster has been used in recent years. By simply raising an anonymous objection, senators can trigger a 60-vote supermajority for virtually every piece of legislation. The time has come to make senators work for their filibusters, and justify them to the public.
Critics will say that it is self-serving for Democrats to propose these reforms now, when they face a larger and more restive Republican minority. The facts of the growing procedural abuse are clearly on their side. In the last two Congressional terms, Republicans have brought 275 filibusters that Democrats have been forced to try to break. That is by far the highest number in Congressional history, and more than twice the amount in the previous two terms.
These filibusters are the reason there was no budget passed this year, and why as many as 125 nominees to executive branch positions and 48 judicial nominations were never brought to a vote. They have produced public policy that we strongly opposed, most recently preserving the tax cuts for the rich, but even bipartisan measures like the food safety bill are routinely filibustered and delayed.
The key is to find a way to ensure that any minority party — and the Democrats could find themselves there again — has leverage in the Senate without grinding every bill to an automatic halt. The most thoughtful proposal to do so was developed by Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, along with Tom Udall of New Mexico and a few other freshmen. It would make these major changes:
NO LAZY FILIBUSTERS At least 10 senators would have to file a filibuster petition, and members would have to speak continuously on the floor to keep the filibuster going. To ensure the seriousness of the attempt, the requirements would grow each day: five senators would have to hold the floor for the first day, 10 the second day, etc. Those conducting the filibuster would thus have to make their case on camera. (A cloture vote of 60 senators would still be required to break the blockade.)
FEWER BITES OF THE APPLE Republicans now routinely filibuster not only the final vote on a bill, but the initial motion to even debate it, as well as amendments and votes on conference committees. Breaking each of these filibusters adds days or weeks to every bill. The plan would limit filibusters to the actual passage of a bill.
MINORITY AMENDMENTS Harry Reid, the majority leader, frequently prevents Republicans from offering amendments because he fears they will lead to more opportunities to filibuster. Republicans say they mount filibusters because they are precluded from offering amendments. This situation would be resolved by allowing a fixed number of amendments from each side on a bill, followed by a fixed amount of debate on each one.
Changing these rules could be done by a simple majority of senators, but only on the first day of the session. Republicans have said that ramming through such a measure would reduce what little comity remains in the chamber.
Nonetheless, the fear of such a vote has led Republican leaders to negotiate privately with Democrats in search of a compromise, possibly on amendments. Any plan that does not require filibustering senators to hold the floor and make their case to the public would fall short. The Senate has been crippled long enough.

The Morning Plum


Posted at 8:39 AM ET, 01/ 3/2011


By Greg Sargent
* First question of the new year: Are Dems really going to go on offense against health reform repeal? And we're off and running! With the new House GOP leadership vowing to vote to repeal health reform before Obama's State of the Union address, the looming question is: How aggressively will Dems respond?
The New York Times assures us Dem leaders plan to go on offense in a big way, viewing the debate over repeal as a second chance to make the case for health reform:
Democrats, who in many cases looked on the law as a rabid beast best avoided in the fall elections, are reversing course, gearing up for a coordinated all-out effort to preserve and defend it.
Good news, if true. Another reason Dems need to be aggressive and proactive in pushing back against repeal: Obama will make health reform, his signature domestic achievement, a centerpiece in the case for reelection. In this sense, the repeal wars -- which will stretch far beyond this one vote into battles over GOP efforts to defend the law -- represent the first real skirmishing of the 2012 presidential race. So Dems need to fight this one on all cylinders.
* But will some "moderate" Dems play footsie with repeal?: A key House GOPer leading the repeal charge says Repubs may secure a veto-proof repeal majority for repeal with the help of Democrats who voted against reform -- though as Sam Stein points out, this is a rather "optimistic consideration of the congressional landscape."
Either way, "moderate" Dems flirting with the GOP repeal push is definitely something to keep an eye out for.
* Meanwhile, the fabled "government takeover" proceeds apace: Amid all the talk of repeal, creeping socialism continues to creep: Two of the most frightful provisions of health reform begin to take effect this year.
* Boehner to avoid pitfalls that claimed Gingrich? Perhaps mindful of the perils of throwing too much weight around early on, new House Speaker John Boehner plans to keep a low profile, setting a tone of austerity and modesty by reading the Constitution aloud and undertaking a symbolic 5 percent cut in Congressional office spending.
* Darrell Issa's choice: Will the GOP Congressman leading probes into the Obama administration avoid partisan bomb-throwing and focus mostly on accounting and government waste, or will he become the Don Quixote of the House GOP leadership, tilting his lance at "scandals" in every direction?
The early signs are mixed: He claims he'll focus mostly on ways to save taxpayers $200 billion, but he also continues to describe the Obama administration as "one of the most corrupt."

* Dems already gearing up for 2012 Congressional elections?New DCCC chairman Steve Israel says Dems are already targeting 68 GOP-held House districts won by Barack Obama in 2008, and predicts "buyers remorse" will enable Dems to take back at least the 25 they need to recapture the House. But: Redistricting!
* Political constraints on GOP majority? Relatedly, E.J. Dionne notes this morning that House GOPers in Obama districts will be reluctant to follow the Tea Party brigade over a cliff, suggesting some political constraints on the new GOP majority, at least in theory.
* Dem leaders to cut deal with GOP on filibuster reform? ICYMI, Jonathan Bernstein has a useful roadmap to what lies ahead, including the possibility that Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell could privately cut a deal on more modest measures than those sought by younger Dem reformers.
Atrios gently suggests that perhaps Dem leaders should be wary of reaching such a "deal," since so doing would inevitably be more in the interests of Republicans.
* Meanwhile: One of those reformers, Senator Tom Udall, insistsmomentum is building for a package of reforms that would eliminate "secret holds" and force senators to actually filibuster.
This will be a big story this week; we'll be blogging it right here.
* Public workers are the new welfare queens, ctd: Michael Powell has an interesting look at the national war on public workers, including the reality check that "public salaries, even with benefits included, are equivalent to or lag slightly behind those of private sector workers."
* Reality check of the day: For all the recent optimism about various indicators suggesting an economic turnaround, Paul Krugman warns that it won't amount to diddly, politically or otherwise, if unemployment doesn't come down significantly, which looks unlikely.
Also key: With Republicans and even some "moderate" Dems insisting that government spending is our main problem, "the best we can hope for from fiscal policy is that Washington doesn't actively undermine the recovery."
* Coming political skirmish of the week: The debt ceiling! Tea Party chieftain Jim DeMint is demanding a "big showdown" with Dems over increasing the debt ceiling, suggesting the Tea Party is dead serious about making this happen.
But top Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee is warning that "playing chicken" with the debt ceiling risks the "first default in history caused purely by insanity."
* Media dynamic worth watching: Steve Benen wonders when commentators will venture a few suggestions to the new GOP majority in order to reach compromise with Obama and Dems, rather than the other way around.
* And the public still favors higher taxes on the rich: A new 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll finds that a solid 61 percent favors higher taxes on the wealthy as the best means to curb the deficit. So let's hope Obama makes good on his vow to refight this battle in 2012.
Apparently the silly American public still hasn't gotten the memo explaining that tax cuts for the rich don't cost anything.
What else is happening?
By Greg Sargent  | January 3, 2011; 8:39 AM ET

Senate Dems to Boehner: We'll block your repeal push

Posted at 1:33 PM ET, 01/ 3/2011


By Greg Sargent
Game on!
In the first official response from Dems to the House GOP plan to repeal health reform, Senate Democrats have penned a sharply worded letter to House Speaker John Boehner vowing that repeal is a dead letter in the Senate, the Associated Press reports.
Here's a copy of the letter itself, and it's well worth reading, because it provides the first clear glimpse of how Democrats will mount their political pushback against the GOP's repeal campaign. The crux of the argument is that repeal would deprive "middle class Americans" of a major reform, i.e., the closing of the Medicare "donut hole":
The new law provides that seniors will receive a 50-percent discount on the brand name drugs that they purchase while stuck in the "donut hole" and thus will save them thousands of dollars starting in 2011. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, seniors who have high prescription drug spending will save as much as $12,300 over the next 10 years and seniors with low drug costs will save an average of $2,400 over 10 years.
This is no minor reform. But almost as soon as it has taken effect, it is already in jeopardy.
The incoming House Republican majority that you lead has made the repeal of the federal health care law one of its chief goals. We urge you to consider the unintended consequences that the law's repeal would have on a number of popular consumer protections that help middle class Americans. The "donut hole" fix is just one measure that would be threatened by a repeal effort. Taking this benefit away from seniors would be irresponsible and reckless at a time when it is becoming harder and harder for seniors to afford a healthy retirement.
If House Republicans move forward with a repeal of the health care law that threatens consumer benefits like the "donut hole" fix, we will block it in the Senate. This proposal deserves a chance to work. It is too important to be treated as collateral damage in a partisan mission to repeal health care.
This is another sign that Dems view the GOP's push for repeal of reform as an opportunity of sorts. The debate sparked by the GOP's repeal push, Dems hope, will allow Dems another chance to educate the public about what's actually in the health care law, by pointing to the specific provisions that would disappear in the unlikely event that the Affordable Care Act were somehow to get repealed.
One assumes Dems will make this case about other provisions in the law, such as the restrictions on discrimation against people with preexisting conditions. More when I learn it, but for now, this is moderately encouraging -- it suggests Dems are gearing up to mount an aggressive response centered on informing the public about what's in the law by emphasizing what repeal would take away from people.
By Greg Sargent  | January 3, 2011; 1:33 PM ET

Filibuster Reform Week

MONDAY, JANUARY 3, 2011


I've spent much of last week talking about Senate rules over at Greg Sargent's place...and again, thanks to Greg for the opportunity.  Still, I guess I can look forward to another filibuster week over here, as the Senate prepares to consider procedural reform at the beginning of the new Congress.  So, here's a reset of how I see the issues.

1.  In the historic 111th Congress, we finally saw the triumph of the complete 60 vote Senate.  Nothing passed without 60 votes (and, because minority Senators often fully exerted their rights under Senate rules, many things did not pass despite having more than 60 votes because Senate floor time is scarce).  It's important to realize the context for this development: the filibuster is not Constitutionally mandated, and it has not been employed on most routine legislation and nominations until very recently.

2.  I believe that the current situation is unstable.  There simply is no way that majorities, over the long run, will put up with the full 60 vote Senate.  I agree with Walter Mondale and others that current Senates can change Senate rules by majority vote, but in particular I disagree with those, such as the New York Times today, who claim this can only be done on the first day of a new Congress.   Near as I can tell, there's a consensus among political scientists who are students of Congress that, one way or another, the only real obstacles to changing the rules by majority vote are political, not legal or Constitutional.  

3.  I think there are good reasons in both the construction of the Senate and in democratic theory to expect, and to justify, something beyond simply majority party rule in the Senate.  So I'd like to see careful reforms to return the Senate to what it had traditionally been -- a place where individual Senators retained considerable influence, but without an absolute 60 vote requirement to do anything.  My guess is that without careful reform, we'll eventually get a blunt elimination of the filibuster, and the Senate will then look a lot like the House does now.  I believe that would be a loss.

4.  From that perspective, I think that the Udall/Merkley proposals that the Senate will probably consider this week are underwhelming at best.  The emphasis on sunshine -- eliminating secrecy in holds, trying to devise a way to force filibusterers to act publicly -- is, in my view, unlikely to really change anything.  (Eliminating one procedural step -- the possible filibuster on the motion to proceed -- is probably a minor gain).

5.  On balance, I do think the reform package as I understand it wouldn't hurt, and might help a little, even though it wouldn't be the way I would go.  So I suppose I hope it passes.  However, the real key here is that Democrats should think of this as a first round of reform, and spend the next couple of years being ready to go with a more comprehensive package should the 2012 elections go their way.  Republicans, too, should be ready if they wind up with unified control of Congress and the presidency in 2013, although things being as they are it's somewhat more likely that the GOP will be slow to act because they will have spent six years defending the filibuster. 

6.  Democrats should also be ready to threaten drastic actions if Republicans insist on 60 votes for nominations in the 112th Congress, and then have the party unity to block numerous confirmations.  I don't want the Democrats to actually go full nuclear and unilaterally eliminate minority party rights -- but that's the only meaningful weapon they have to prevent chaos.  Remember, we've never had the combination of a true 60 vote Senate along with a minority party that can easily produce 41 votes for almost everything.  In legislation, it's always possible to find compromises (and given the Democrat in the White House and Republican control of the House, we're going to get compromises whatever the Senate does with its rules).  But there's a fair chance that Republicans are simply going to shut judicial nominations down, and play havoc with executive branch nominations, and the majority Democrats need to be prepared to fight back by threatening to use their ultimate weapon.

OK, I think that's enough to start with.  I suppose I'll finish up by referring those who are interested and new around here to what I think rules reform in the Senate should look like.

Aftershocks:

 Welcome to Haiti's Reconstruction Hell

Dispatches from the tent cities, where rape gangs and disaster profiteers roam.