I did not watch one second of NCAA basketball this year until the tourney started on Thursday. Nonetheless, I am winning my office pool having guessed 23 of 32 games correctly, and I enter the second round with a large lead in Best Possible Score. So much for expertise.
Timothy Noah lost his job at The New Republic without getting much in the way of an explanation. I hope he lands a better gig.
Here are the Democrats who voted for the Hoeven Amendment that expressed the Senate’s approval of the Keystone XL pipeline: Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Mark Begich (Alaska), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Tom Carper (Del.), Bob Casey (Pa.), Chris Coons (Del.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Tim Johnson (S.D.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Joe Manchin (W. Va.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Mark Warner (Va.). Interestingly, Jay Rockefeller (W. Va.) voted against it. He’s retiring, so he apparently was allowed to vote his conscience.
The Senate also used a voice vote, meaning no roll call is available, to oppose the use of Chained CPI to calculate veterans’ benefits.
The Senate budget passed 50-49, despite Baucus, Begich, Hagan, and Pryor voting against it. Credit Landrieu with having some balls on this one.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced his retirement on Friday.
I love Steve M.’s work, but I just cannot agree with his view that the GOP is as healthy and hale as ever.
Billmon attempts to make a point. I think he largely succeeded.
If you want to geek out, go ahead and spend your weekend reading the transcript of the MLK Conspiracy trial. Don’t know where to get started? Try the testimony of Nathan Whitlock and John McFerren.
What’s on your mind this weekend?
I just cannot agree with his view that the GOP is as healthy and hale as ever.
Well, I’m not the only one who thinks the GOP is in much less trouble than conventional wisdom suggests — see Charlie Pierce’s second paragraph here.
Let me quote it so everyone can see what you are referring to:
We need to be careful to clarify our areas of agreement.
There is a vast difference between arguing that the current situation is a good one, or that Republicans enjoy no power, and arguing that the future of the GOP looks truly grim. I am arguing the latter, not the former.
Personally, I think some of the stuff on Pierce’s list makes my point. The GOP has gerrymandered districts. They’ve won the right to unlimited political donations. They’re passing laws in the states that don’t mesh with the electorates of those states, because (temporarily) they can. They are winning battles in the Courts.
But they’re still losing. The gerrymander is working against them as much as it is working for them, in that their safe seats are preventing them from moving to the middle. They keep plodding ahead even as their approval ratings reach historic lows. All that corporate cash kept losers like Gingrich and Santorum afloat, savaging their nominee and plotting to destroy him. The voter suppression efforts were counterproductive, as will be any effort to exploit a favorable ruling on the Voting Rights Act.
The party is under severe stress and it really doesn’t have a road back to Electoral College viability. They really cannot seem to pivot off their strategy of racial polarization. For now, their ability to gum up the works seems to be a long-term liability. And the Courts won’t remain as favorable to them even if Obama doesn’t get to appoint as many judges as he should.
Finally, the thing I keep returning to is the spectacle of Speaker Boehner’s predicament in the House. That is just a giant clusterfuck. It will not hold.
“But they’re still losing”.
AND so are we– because democrats in congress aren’t actually taking advantage of the massive political power they allegedly have.
It’s totally irrelevant that progressive Bloggo world thinks the GOP has no power, no future, etc.
What matters is what are congressional democrats actually doing for us? and by that I mean economically.
any talk of seriously raising the min wage?
when we ask these sort of “hard questions” the response is “the tea party caucus and/or the GOP is blocking us from getting anything done”.
Uh, so where’s the actual political power some in Bloggo world are crowing about? the power to get a dem POTUS candidate elected? that’s it?
Pretty much. If one wants to be generous. As apparently all the current Democrats/liberals now supporting Clinton 2016 most definitely are.
It’s not really about power right now, although thank God we have it.
It’s about the imminent breakup of the Reagan coalition and the coming fundamental collapse of the conservative movement.
If right now power is distributed in a way that assures a kind death lock where neither side can break free and move forward, the end of this stalemate is not really in doubt.
We can bitch about all the things that are holding us back, but those things will fall before us eventually.
Most of what is propping the GOP is either temporary or artificial, or both.
The GOP will have to drop voter suppression efforts, as they don’t work well enough and they exacerbate their deficit with minorities.
The GOP will lose their majority on the Supreme Court, possibly in the next four years, but certainly in the next 12 if they can’t compete in the Electoral College.
Losing their majority will mean the end of Citizens United, and their corporate cash bonanza.
The gerrymander is only assured through 2020, and will be undermined as more states follow California’s example and move to independent boards for redistricting.
The filibuster is probably doomed after this last-ditch effort to save it failed so spectacularly.
The GOP is also coming apart as it struggles with gay rights and immigration, and as it’s anti-tax and pro-business wings continue to diverge in their interests. Even their pro-defense blank is under obvious strain, as evidenced by Rand Paul’s popularity and their willingness to let the sequester go into and stay in effect.
The Southern wing waged war on the northern wing over Sandy relief, opening up another seam in the coalition.
The GOP absolutely relies on unity of message to be effective. That is breaking up visibly at the moment. The radio format is becoming unprofitable.
There are so many ways and signs that the GOP, as it has existed, can no longer exist.
And when they break up, that’s when we move forward.
The GOP will lose their majority on the Supreme Court, possibly in the next four years, but certainly in the next 12 if they can’t compete in the Electoral College.
LOL!! And when will Goodwin Liu get his seat on the Supreme Court? Hahahahaha!! That’s right, Obama doesn’t give a shit about getting judges appointed to the most important courts in the land. Hell, Harry Reid couldn’t even secure an up-or-down vote for any judicial appointees.
I appreciate your response but:
“If ifs and buts where gifts and nuts, we’d all have a happy Christmas”.
Not sure who you mean by “we”.. if you’re referring to democrats in congress having power, why don’t they use it to accomplish something, particularly on the economic front?
The GOP is on the ropes to be sure, but they are hardly dead and buried. You may recall after Obama won his first election, more than a few talking bobbleheads like James Carville were stating the GOP was dead, and heralding a “40 year democratic dynasty”.
Then came the 2010 mid term “shellacking” which brought the tea party mob into congress, and ten or so states which had democratic governors (WI, MI, etc.) were flipped to GOP governors. Worker’s rights were promptly crushed in some of those states. The effort to “recall” Gov. Walker in Wisconsin failed, with the voter breakdown for the recall vote being more or less exactly the same as the 2010 election.
The main problem with yours and many in progressive Bloggo world is your timeframe. “Things are going to get much better” but it’s going to take 15-20 years.
That’s a pleasant thought, but does nothing regarding the numerous crucial issues facing us now and for which we are out of time in regard to resolving.
My generalized view of your comments over the years is that you’ve been mainly focused on the shortcomings of the Democrats. I just feel like I don’t have the luxury of making that my focus.
For me, your question: “if you’re referring to democrats in congress having power, why don’t they use it to accomplish something, particularly on the economic front?” is a bit like asking Franklin Roosevelt why his budget has all this money for the Pacific Fleet that could be going to building infrastructure at home. Maybe it’s more like asking Eisenhower on D-Day why he isn’t rebuilding bridges in Germany.
We may have power, and we may be winning, but that doesn’t mean we are free to do whatever we want. We’re winning but we haven’t won. There are things that need to be accomplished before we will have the power and freedom to do things on the economic front. We need progressive redistricting reform. We need to overturn Citizens United. We need to tweak the filibuster. We need to win more presidential elections. We need to take back the House. We need to continue to build the progressive bloc in the Senate (which has grown by about 400% in the last six years). We need demographics to continue to move in our favor (which means we need time).
My point is that all of these things are either happening or going to happen.
I’ve been saying this all along. While so many people are celebrating the demise of the GOP, the rest of us are stuck dealing with how the GOP is still very much in control of this country at every level. So yeah, they have issues with one election every four years, but the rest of the time they win far more than Dems do and have far greater power.
Considering that they still control our politics, you are clearly closer to the mark.
I think the issue is time. Many are writing as if the end of the GOP is a matter of 3-6 years. And they DO rely too heavily on presidential politics.
Like you point out though, I also think they grasp too much power right now for it to be so soon. And it is still a helluva battle for us to reverse the actions they’ve succeeded with in the last 6 years. They still succeed in getting many Dems to behave like Repubs (like Feinstein on Iran).
Republicans seem to find ways to bludgeon things forward for them. I can also remember many Dems grasping defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s too early to call this the collapse.
billmon’s point from May 15, 2005 Scenes We’d Like To See reminds us just how stuck we are.
So, billmon and a few other DFHs back in 2005 saw and understood where the housing bubble would lead. Shouldn’t he apologize for that as well?
Gore and DFHs might as well begin penning their/our mea culpas for the climate change disaster that won’t be averted. To be released when the “who knew?” “I was duped,” “everybody thought global warming was a hoax,” and “the DFHs are still dirty and impolite” op-eds are released by Presidential Medal of Freedom winners:
Baucus (D-MT)
Begich (D-AK)
Bennet (D-CO)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Coons (D-DE)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Hagan (D-NC)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Johnson (D-SD)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Manchin (D-WV)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Nelson (D-FL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Tester (D-MT)
Warner (D-VA)
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/the-hard-math-on-fossil-fuels/
Look at it this way: the world’s carbon intensity — the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere for each dollar of economic production — fell about 0.8 percent a year over the last decade or so. According to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, avoiding a 2-degree rise requires a decline in emissions of 5.1 percent a year — every year until 2050.
As the PricewaterhouseCoopers study suggests, it might be “too late for 2 degrees.”
Wtf is Chris Coons doing on that list? Carper makes sense despite being from the same state because he’s a conservadem.
Good question. I kind of assume that the state dictates some of these votes more than the man. Kind of like Biden on Bankruptcy Reform.
Yeah I get that…but it’s Delaware. What interest do they have in the pipeline? Carper, despite being a conservadem, has supported increasing the federal gas tax, too. Is it because the Delaware River is such a polluted mess that they need to oppose all environmental efforts? What gives?
You forget something. Delaware has beaches, as does North Carolina. So Coons and Hagan are selling out the tourism industry in favor of the oil/energy companies.
Delaware City has one of the largest heavy sour crude refineries on the east coast.
Thanks for mentioning Julius G. I had the pleasure of meeting him and he’s the kind of person that we need in government.
So we need more corporate tools? 🙁
so I guess you’ve given up on trying to persuade people to your point of view at this point
What has he done as FCC Commissioner? Do you really think letting Comcast buy NBC helps anything? What has he done that’s been good for the consumer? Why was praise heaped on him by corporations when he left? Is that really a good sign?
That’s not what I’m talking about, I really don’t give a crap what he’s done or hasn’t done.
Racer X said he was appreciative of a mention of someone that they met and thought was a good guy. You proceeded to attack.
That’s not exactly they way to get people on your side.
So I figured you’d completely given up persuading anyone to your point of view because what you’re doing isn’t persuading anyone.
Why should I sing his praises when he’s done nothing to move the ball towards a good outcome? Would you prefer I say nothing? Is that it?
If you are just going to say what you said, then it’s probably better for your position to say nothing.
It’s not enough to be right, you have to have the power to do what’s right. If all you do is attack people who don’t agree with you 100% of the time then you’ll never get what you want. I guess that assumes you’d actually like to implement some of the policies you believe in or is that an incorrect assumption?
Recent poll has Congressional Republicans level with Obama on who is better at handling the economy.
This with the Dow at record highs, employment up, housing starts up, GDP growth up…
Good solid signs of recovery, and the GOP goes up, Obama goes down.
anything about the pollsters?
Just the usual(ABC, NBC/WSJ) stuff. It was basically coming back from a post-election bounce.
Here’s another sign of the current crackup of the GOP:
Virginia’s Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, the likely GOP candidate for Governor in 2014, came out with two legal opinions as the weekend began. This nutball claimed that the State’s contemplation of Medicaid expansion as provided in the ACA and the recently passed State transportation bill’s funding mechanism are both unconstitutional.
Here’s a GOP State Legislator responding to the second opinion by Cuccinelli:
“S. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, who carried the revised transportation bill that included taxes for regional initiatives in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia, disagreed with the opinion but said he was not surprised by it.
“With all due respect to the attorney general, it’s just one attorney’s opinion,” Jones said.”
I’ll repeat: Cuccinelli is the top attorney for the State of Virginia and is also the likely GOP candidate for Governor in 2014. Take that in, and reread Jones’ statement.
Oh, and pass the popcorn.
Did anyone bother to read that MLK testimony?