Dog and pony show

A political analyst in Rolling Stone writes that the disappointing performance of Congressional Democrats since they took power isn't just a symptom of the unified Republican opposition, but the result of insincere dedication to the very issue that brought them into the majority:

In and around the halls of Congress, the notion that the Democrats made a sincere effort to end the war meets with, at best, derisive laughter. Though few congressional aides would think of saying so on the record, in private many dismiss their party's lame anti-war effort as an absurd dog-and-pony show, a calculated attempt to score political points without ever being serious about bringing the troops home.

It's certainly felt that way from the outside, but hearing it confirmed by insiders is still very disheartening. Perhaps Markos is right that the only way to make this party pay attention to the demands of their constituents is to hit them with viable primary challenges until they start to follow through on their promises. That's certainly a lot harder for everybody than just doing the right thing because you have the opportunity now . . .

Also disturbing is this charge:

Rather than use the vast power they had to end the war, Democrats devoted their energy to making sure that "anti-war activism" became synonymous with "electing Democrats." Capitalizing on America's desire to end the war, they hijacked the anti-war movement itself, filling the ranks of peace groups with loyal party hacks. Anti-war organizations essentially became a political tool for the Democrats — one operated from inside the Beltway and devoted primarily to targeting Republicans.

I think there are plenty of avenues of anti-war activism that are running full throttle, but if the media gets distracted by some high-profile sham efforts, it definitely makes everything harder there too. Bitey bite bite!!

(via local Drinking Liberally troublemakers)

Fending off the idiots

I haven't been thrilled with every aspect of Harry Reid's leadership in the Senate, especially when it comes to holding the line on Iraq funding/deadlines, but he seems like a master of procedural tricks, including this plan to avoid a Thanksgiving recess and thus prevent Bush from sneaking another crappy candidate into office via recess appointment. The real shame here is that the Bushies have so little respect for the Constitution and its instructions that they try to work around Congress at every turn, but at least Reid isn't sitting still for it.

Turning over some rocks

Senate Republicans have been filibustering a huge number of measures, relying on media favoritism to keep their hijinks out of the public eye. Well, Harry Reid is letting some sunlight in, saying he'll keep the Senate running overnight tomorrow, if need be, to force a vote on Iraq withdrawel -- this means that the GOP will actually have to keep up a running filibuster, Mr. Smith-style, rather than relying on an invisible "hold," if they want to prevent going on the record on this bill. Spectacular.

Update: Digby notes that the last time Republicans were willing to stage an all-night obstruction was over Jim Crow laws (you know, overturning them). Will see if this rises to the same terror level...

Look who's giving up now!

Harry Reid created a bit of a kerfluffle last week by stating the obvious expressing the common perception that "Iraq is no longer winnable" (and he perhaps chose his words to spur debate). Turns out, not only do most Americans agree, but even such a stalwart of Endless Conflicts as Henry Kissinger agrees that military victory is now beyond us...

More than just posturing

Machismo is mostly lost on me, but I'm completely gratified by the latest show of spine from our Democratic leaders (on the notion that more war funding should carry requirements for demonstrated progress).

"Reid made it clear to the President that he understood that the President and Vice President after the veto would come after him and Speaker Pelosi with everything they have. Reid said that he and Pelosi would respond just as aggressively. He said he was convinced that they were on the right side of the issue."

The American people certainly agree. Hope the "war room" has great strategic ideas for what the response will be -- I can't imagine a veto working for Bush at all, so there's lots to be said, and I'm starting to trust that Reid and Pelosi have good plans brewing...

Another score for Harry Reid

The GOP filibuster of the minimum wage was brought to an end by a combination of threats, not least the declaration by Senate Democrats that Congressional pay-raises would be put on hold until the minimum wage hike passed. (I note with some satisfaction that the same linkage was used to excellent effect in Pennsylvania last year.)

Ouch!

Harry Reid lets Lieberman know he's out in the cold.

Joe is a fine man, he has strong feelings, but he's just alone. Even Republicans don't agree with Joe.

Yowza! run for cover!

(via kos)

It's sad what passes for bold and clear-sighted these days

Like, um, do your job and take some responsibility along the way.
eesh. Well, at least somebody's saying it.

Reid weighs in on Alito

Harry Reid planned to give a speech today expressing concern about the nomination of Alito, particularly the fact that Senators were not consulted but right-wing crazies were, and that there are reasons why the latter are so gleeful (including many positions on which the Supreme Court disagreed with Alito's rulings/interpretations).

Harriet Miers was forced to withdraw by conservative activists who want to change the legal landscape of America. They decided she was inadequately radical or insufficiently aggressive for their purposes, so they gave her the boot.
. . .
Even in the first two weeks of the confirmation process, a picture of Sam Alito is emerging that may explain why the right-wing is popping champagne corks. ...

Perhaps a little too much about the court-diversity angle, for my tastes, but on the whole a pretty strong speech. Some mutterings about the filibuster too. Will be interesting to see how it gets covered in the media (tomorrow?).

Update: quick gloss here catches the high points. I guess that's about all you can expect, with hearings still two months off...

Dramatic rumblings in the Senate

Senator Harry Reid pulled a dramatic power play on the floor of the Senate yesterday, catching the GOP leadership by surprise and scoring a major victory. Apparently Reid made an impassioned speech about the stalled investigation into intelligence about Iraq and how it was used to justify the war -- the committee in charge got as far as assessing the CIA's performance, but didn't look at Administration use of the information (the intended second phase of the undertaking). Reid claimed that the Libby indictment gives new impetus to examining the actions and motivations of the Bushies, and he invoked a rare procedural maneouver to get his way: in the middle of other business, he used "Rule 21" to call for a closed session of the Senate, which meant chasing out all the staff, cameras, and observers, and waiting for all absent Senators to arrive for the mandatory event. I'm not entirely clear on what went on after that, but apparently the threat is that Senate Democrats would continue to shut down normal business until the investigation was reopened. And it worked:

Senators haggled behind closed doors for a bit over two hours, then emerged with a deal: Frist and Reid each will appoint three senators to a task force to review the status of the Intelligence Committee's investigation into prewar intelligence.

A report is due in two weeks.

Amazing. The Republicans were apoplectic over this move, so Democrats have to walk carefully lest they find they've waked the sleeping giant. However, Reid and co. clearly sent a message here that

1. they want the investigation completed,
   
2. they're not going to let the Alito circus preempt the scandal about Administration misuse of intelligence and critics, and
   
3. they're prepared to use disruption as a source of power.

This last one is particularly important, as a "shot across the bow" in anticipation of upcoming Senate wrangling. The Democrats are not excited with Alito for Supreme Court, and they may decide to filibuster his nomination; if the Republicans think that countering by ending the filibuster option would be without cost, they've just seen otherwise. A "nuclear option" (see prev. discussion of that term here) would mean nothing getting done by anybody...

There's discussion of this dramatic show all over the place, but probably some good places to start are the analysis by Hunter at dailyKos of the significance of this event, and the CultureKitchen summary of what happened, which has links to video, transcripts, and tons of other bloggy goodness.

Update: Tristero at Hullabaloo expresses some pleasure and caution about this gambit.

Top ten filibuster falsehoods

Media Matter upacks and/or documents the falsity of these claims commonly made by Frist and other opponents of the filibuster, from historical precedents to recent polling data.

(via Follow Me Here)

Q: anybody know how the action in the Senate went yesterday?

A: Well, Reid is bringing his game now!!

More feistiness from Senate Democrats

Apparently there's some obscure rule that allows legislation to be introduced directly on the Senate floor (see here), and Reid's troops have lined up some doozies that they'll bring to a vote if the GOP axes the filibuster: funding for family planning and vetrans benefits, and new proposals on education, jobs, fiscal responsibility, and energy (among others). Make the Republicans vote down this stuff that looks like taking care of Average Citizen.

"Abusing power is not what the American people sent us to Washington to do. We need to address real priorities instead -- fight for relief at the gas pump, stronger schools and lower health care costs for America's families," said Senator Reid.

Yeowch. I think that filibuster is looking stronger and stronger. As is the Opposition Party.

Nice!

The Dems are finally going on the assault on current issues, linking the (widely unpopular) Congressional action around Schiavo's death (and subsequent assault on the judiciary) with the threat of a "nuclear option" rules change in the Senate. It's all part of an "arrogance of power" that leads the GOP leadership to go on the attack "whenever they don't get what they want," says Reid. Right on.

(via kos)

Sometimes the best defense...

Senate Democrats aren't sitting around waiting to find out whether Frist will follow through with his threat to eliminate the filibuster (in order to force through the handful of judicial nominees that the minority has blocked in this way). Instead, they're putting the GOP on notice that exercise of the so-called nuclear option will bring an end to Senate business.

Reid and his fellow Democrats, in effect, called Frist's bluff on Tuesday by issuing a preemptive strike, saying that Democrats would respond to any Frist action by continuing to work with Republicans only on matters that affected U.S. troops or that ensured the continuity of government operations.

"Beyond that, we will be reluctant to enter into any consent agreement that facilitates Senate activities, even on routine matters," Reid said in a letter to Frist. Nearly all Senate business requires unanimous consent; for example, one senator can prevent committee meetings from taking place simply by objecting.

Frist's response? "To shut down the Senate would be irresponsible and partisan." Well, yes. Think twice before making it happen.

(via How Appealing)

Side note: There is a strange secondary dynamic at work here. Senate Republicans are in a bit of a panic over the President's hugely unpopular Social Security proposal, which most of them oppose but would prefer not to have to openly vote down. If Senate business grinds to a halt, it ironically lets them off the hook. Both the SS plan and the possibility of ending legislative progress are likely to make the GOP look bad, so this is some high-stakes calculation...

More from Reid, the unexpected bulldog

This time it's a slam on Alan Greenspan, who looks less an less like a wise nonpartisan financial czar and more and more like a politician with every passing cycle.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan generally gets accolades for his public pronouncements. Yesterday he got a brickbat from Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who blasted Greenspan as "one of the biggest political hacks we have here in Washington."

Reid ripped Greenspan during an interview on CNN's "Inside Politics." He said the Fed chairman has given President Bush a pass on deficits that have built up in the past four years and should be challenging Republicans on their fiscal policies, rather than promoting Bush's plan to introduce personal accounts into Social Security.

About right. For more on Greenspan's hackery, see this bit from Krugman.

. . . Until the 1970's conservatives tended to be open about their disdain for Social Security and Medicare. But honesty was bad politics, because voters value those programs. So conservative intellectuals proposed a bait-and-switch strategy: First, advocate tax cuts, using whatever tactics you think may work - supply-side economics, inflated budget projections, whatever. Then use the resulting deficits to argue for slashing government spending.

And that's the story of the last four years. In 2001, President Bush and Mr. Greenspan justified tax cuts with sunny predictions that the budget would remain comfortably in surplus. But Mr. Bush's advisers knew that the tax cuts would probably cause budget problems, and welcomed the prospect. In fact, Mr. Bush celebrated the budget's initial slide into deficit. In the summer of 2001 he called plunging federal revenue "incredibly positive news" because it would "put a straitjacket" on federal spending.

To keep that straitjacket on, however, those who sold tax cuts with the assurance that they were easily affordable must convince the public that the cuts can't be reversed now that those assurances have proved false. And Mr. Greenspan has once again tried to come to the president's aid, insisting this week that we should deal with deficits "primarily, if not wholly," by slashing Social Security and Medicare because tax increases would "pose significant risks to economic growth." Really?

Keep tellin' it, boys!

Score one for Reid

When Harry Reid became Senate minority leader, many progressives and activists were dismayed at the mild-mannered and uninspiring leader that they had been given. But he has proven himself better for his time than his detractors ever imagined, and been a credit to the colleagues who elected him. First, he put together a war room to enable quick responses to Republican maneouvers (and it proved its merits with flashy counter-moves on several recent issues and the introduction of some excellent framing, such as a debt-derived "birth tax" introduced after the State of the Union), and now he's made a touching and pointed speech at the close of the Gonzales confirmation hearings yesterday.

If we fail to oppose an evil as obvious as torture -- it is an evil and it is obvious it is wrong--then as President Thomas Jefferson said, I will "tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

To the 36 Democrats who stood up for their principles and our national reputation, kudos. And to those like Joe Lieberman who couldn't be bothered, beware the volcano . . .

Senate Dems come out swinging

Well, Harry Reid promised that his "war room" would be just the start of creating a genuine coherent opposition for the next few years, and the Senate Dems appear to have followed through: they've compiled a panel of 10 bills to be introduced this session, which cover topics from better treatment of veterans (and a Nationa Guard Bill of Rights) to improving education (including funding No Child Left Behind) and reforming the voting system. Maybe most impressive is the complete absence of any legislative suggestion about Social Security in this top-10 list, because Reid says "there is no crisis"! Look out, we may be seeing early signs of spine!!

You can become a citizen co-sponsor of this legislative agenda. Encourage your Senators to get the debates on issues underway!

Senate Dems: bark or bite?

A sign of life from the Democrats in the Senate:

New Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said Monday his party will launch investigative hearings next year in response to what he said was the reluctance of Republicans to look into problems in the Bush administration.
...
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who heads the Democratic Policy Committee, said the first hearing will be at the end of January and he suggested it might focus on contract abuse in Iraq. He said the policy committee, which has held occasional investigative hearings in the past, planned to convene at least one such hearing a month.

Only time will tell what this means...
What next -- media fact-checking? Be still my beating heart!

(via Hullabaloo)