I agree the fears are unjustified--but what I do not agree with are people's abilities to get over fears, misconceptions, hatred, jealousy, envy, sadness, and oh yeah, love for pie and all things pie...

I respect the great hope, but I look at it like this. If it ever came down to feeding my own children or doing wrong by someone else--I know where my loyalties lie... Sorry humanity! Heck, most people wrong each other for far less. At least I have those values...

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^Lawdeedaw:
Hey Net, I agree with you and am in pretty much the same area as you... I would like, however, to point out what runs your opponents' mindset. Fear.
I get that. But...I generally give people the benefit of the doubt about being able to engage their rationality and quash their fears. Get people to think about what they're reacting to a little more, and see if it really makes sense.
Obama has the codes to launch America's nuclear weapons. Obama is, as President, Constitutionally immune from prosecution of crimes -- he could go on a mass murdering spree, and all we could legally do is impeach him. He's allowed to negotiate and sign treaties on our country's behalf (though it won't necessarily have the force of law without Congressional approval).
This has been true of every President since Truman (and before that we just didn't have the nukes).
Presidents wield lots of power, but less than most Prime Ministers from other countries. In other countries, there is essentially perfect party discipline, and flat majority rule. No vetoes, no filibusters, no unanimous consent, nothing.
Being able to use pure influence as the head of state to negotiate a voluntary agreement seems perfectly kosher by any standard. If BP gets denied redress via courts, believe me, we'll hear about it!
Hell, if someone gets screwed by this ICF, we'll hear about it!
It's one of the built-in benefits of having a Democratic president -- their critics always get easy access to a media megaphone. The scary part happens when Republican presidents get the media to systematically silence dissent...

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

Hey Net, I agree with you and am in pretty much the same area as you... I would like, however, to point out what runs your opponents' mindset. Fear.

I get that. But...I generally give people the benefit of the doubt about being able to engage their rationality and quash their fears. Get people to think about what they're reacting to a little more, and see if it really makes sense.

Obama has the codes to launch America's nuclear weapons. Obama is, as President, Constitutionally immune from prosecution of crimes -- he could go on a mass murdering spree, and all we could legally do is impeach him. He's allowed to negotiate and sign treaties on our country's behalf (though it won't necessarily have the force of law without Congressional approval).

This has been true of every President since Truman (and before that we just didn't have the nukes).

Presidents wield lots of power, but less than most Prime Ministers from other countries. In other countries, there is essentially perfect party discipline, and flat majority rule. No vetoes, no filibusters, no unanimous consent, nothing.

Being able to use pure influence as the head of state to negotiate a voluntary agreement seems perfectly kosher by any standard. If BP gets denied redress via courts, believe me, we'll hear about it!

Hell, if someone gets screwed by this ICF, we'll hear about it!

It's one of the built-in benefits of having a Democratic president -- their critics always get easy access to a media megaphone. The scary part happens when Republican presidents get the media to systematically silence dissent...

@Drachen_Jager actually, libertarians still find a way to blame government. See, it's that $75 million dollar liability cap, and the fact that BP knew it wouldn't be held responsible for its damages that led to BP's disregard for the safety of the gulf.

Not that they're going to applaud Democrats for trying to raise or eliminate it, or condemn Republicans for filibustering any attempt to do either...

Is this their new filibuster technique? Really long winded.

So, I got this e-mail from Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty group, literally today. The first paragraph was as follows:

Dear NetRunner,

I'm not sure if you saw my email last week warning you about how dangerously close Congress is to empowering the Fed. Due to a backroom deal between Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, Republicans in Congress have ended their filibuster of Dodd's "Fed Empowerment" Act.

Time is running out to kill this legislation that would dramatically expand the powers of the Federal Reserve.

I sincerely hope you will take a few moments to read my message and take action to demand that your senators kill the Dodd "Fed Empowerment" Act.

The e-mail goes on to implore people to call their Senator to vote against the bill.

You might wonder why I quote this. It's because the "Dodd 'Fed Empowerment' Act" is the exact piece of legislation they're hoping to amend with the Audit the Fed language.

That's either hypocrisy or incompetence.

For comparison, here's an e-mail I got from Alan Grayson's campaign, also today:

Dear NetRunner,

Last year, I asked the Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board who received $1 trillion in funds that the Fed handed out to domestic banks and financial institutions. He said, essentially, "I'm not going to tell you." More recently, I asked the Chairman of the Fed who received the half trillion dollars - that's $500,000,000,000 - that the Fed handed over to foreign central banks. He said he didn't know. Half a trillion dollars, and he doesn't know!

That kind of ignorance and arrogance must end. We need to audit the Fed. And now we're closer than ever.

The House passed our bill to conduct the first independent audit of the Fed in its 96-year history. Now it's time for the Senate to act.

A bipartisan group of Senators is pushing for an amendment to audit the Fed. This amendment is similar to the legislation that we passed in the House last year. It's called the Federal Reserve Accountability Amendment. It will ensure that the American people know to whom the Fed is lending our money.

The e-mail goes on to implore me to call my Senators and ask them to support the Audit the Fed amendment.

This is part of why all warm feelings I once had for Ron Paul are long since gone. I'm on his e-mail list, so I know what he's asking people to call their representatives about. I know that he parroted Republican scare stories during the debate on health care. Now he's literally asking people to phonebank against reforming Wall Street, even while he's going on TV to blow his horn about how he hopes to amend the bill he's campaigning to keep from being brought to a vote (aka filibuster).

He should be embarrassed.

I like how he tries to sound bipartisan, but the upshot of what he said is that we need to eliminate Medicare and Social Security immediately or the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket.

That's a pretty minority viewpoint, even among rightwing economists.

The main thing that would cause a US default was if a) you needed 60 vote supermajority in the Senate to pass any laws in the US, and b) one political party was doggedly committed to filibustering any and all attempts by the majority party to raise taxes, or cut entitlements.

That sort of thing would be a good sign to investors that we can no longer manage our fiscal situation, unlike us running up a high debt/GDP ratio in an economic crisis which is completely normal.

Yeah, I saw it. I think that Rachel should have had at least one question that wasn't fundamentally "I found evidence that someone who worked for your organization said something sympathetic to white supremacists no less than 10 years ago, what's your response?"

However, Stein's response was "you're making that up" to all of it, and he'd just impugn her motives and credibility. She was operating on a tenuous guilt by association tactic, but he never had any response to it other than ad hominem.

Rachel had some long questions, but he definitely was trying to do a "filibuster" style interview, where he just tries to talk the whole time, without letting her ask follow ups. For the first 3 minutes or so, she didn't really get a word in edgewise until she started getting pushy.

IMO, all I really need to know about this FAIR organization is that they proudly support the new Arizona legislation -- to me, that makes me highly dubious about their motives and integrity. Moreso when their president comes on Maddow's show to basically just say she's a liar and a fraud, and BTW so is the Southern Poverty Law Center.

That's the kind of shit you expect from highly partisan organizations, not from some sort of reasonable, centrist organization.

It was painful to watch, but I don't think Rachel's really to blame -- everyone she brings on is some sort of political activist of some sort, and usually when she brings on anyone even slightly right wing, they haul out the trope about her being an unreliable partisan journalist, and just repeat that through the whole interview with increasing loudness.

It seems to work out well for them, because a lot of people come away from the interview going "wow, that was just a shouting match, I guess Rachel is just like BillO", even people who normally think Rachel is worth listening to.

I've never seen her make a factual mistake on these kind of things without issuing a correction. She's definitely got a partisan editorial stance, but I generally share her editorial viewpoint on the events of the day. I think a lot of politics these days is played on the grounds of "who's a credible voice in the media", and anyone to the right of center has a strongly vested interest in trying to diminish her credibility. It's why they never even try to really respond to her facts with anything other than "you're making that up", because it's an accusation they wouldn't dare level at a more firmly established member of the press, and that kind of shocking disrespect makes casual observers think "wow, nobody talks to real reporters that way!" and has the side effect of making people doubt her credibility.

Eh, enough with my little rant. I think the guy from FAIR is a tool, and the way he acted is what made that interview look so ugly, not what Rachel did.

In reply to this comment by lampishthing:
Hey NR, did you see Rachel Maddow's interview with Dan Stein on Thursday night? What did you think? He made some points that have been bothering me about Rachel's methods recently.

E.g. taking information from 25 years ago about one person and applying it to an organisation they are a member of today. People's views can change over that length of time and she never seems to take that into account. She also alternated between berating Stein for interrupting her (lengthy) questions and talking over him when he was trying to rebut. It was very disappointing how much it reminded me of O'Reilly.

It seems to me that she provides very discontinuous reports on organisations and people she disagrees with for the sake of making her viewers disagree with them to.

Again, I'd really appreciate your views,

James

>> ^Nithern:

Until November rolls around, Republicans are automatically oppositing ANYTHING the Democrats propose or vote on, without question or hestiation.


Yep, but we don't want to let them do it without liberals like me calling them on it and reminding people what craven hypocrites they are.

Oh, and the news tag is for stuff that calls itself news, I'm not enforcing journalistic standards on it. I mean, if newspapers and 24 hour news channels don't enforce standards, why should I?

How is this news? Do we get updated on news programs when a congressman goes to the bathroom? When he eats his lunch? Whether is car keys are in his left or right pockets? Of course not, its not news-worthy, because it happens all the time. Likewise, whether the Republicans will filibuster or not, isn't news-worthy. They will automatically filibuster, regardless of the subject or person being voted on.

Now, if they came forward, and didn't filibuster, and actually had some good things to say of the person or bill, THAT, would be news-worthy. If they came up with bills that actually help all Americans, and not just the upper 3%, THAT, would be news-worthy.

Until November rolls around, Republicans are automatically oppositing ANYTHING the Democrats propose or vote on, without question or hestiation.

Actually, he says they will not rule out filibustering. Misleading title, but otherwise lock-in-step GOP talking points.

@gwiz665, I agree, but you probably missed the level of hue and cry from Republicans when Democrats talked about filibustering Bush's SCOTUS nominees. Basically their argument then was that according to the Constitution, the President should have the ability to select whoever he wants, that the voting standard should only be about competence and not ideology, and that it should always be a straight up or down vote.

Now that the shoe's on the other foot, their principled stand on all three is completely washed away, and they want to blame it on the Democrats for having been so partisan in the past that now they need to be just as partisan.

I didn't really expect anything else, their original stands weren't principled, but instead partisan. This is just one more piece of evidence towards showing they have no principle other than trying to defeat Democrats, no matter what they're doing, and that their avarice drives them to start talking about filibustering the Democratic nominee on the day the retirement is announced.

@marinara, sometime you gotta explain to me how you identify yourself politically.

The DemRapidResponse channel is the DNC's channel. That's why at the end of the video there's fine print saying "Paid for by the Democratic National Committee".

I'm a little surprised Reich wrote an article raining on the parade, but he's been all kinds of doom and gloom throughout so maybe I shouldn't be. He's right, this is no time to trot out the "Mission Accomplished" banner, and stop worrying about the economy...but that's not what anyone's planning on doing. He also seems intent on diminishing the fact that this is an important milestone on the road to recovery. The economy grew the number of jobs last month -- more than it has in two years, in fact -- which is what you need if you're going to start bringing the unemployment rate down.

He's right that this particular amount of jobs is still not enough to start lowering the unemployment rate, but if you look at the all the other positive indicators, it looks like the upward trend will continue.

I'm glad he's raising the concern that we're nearing the peak of the stimulus, because my real concern is that they'll let it drop off right as it starts to really pay off. The Democratic strategy seems to be to pass smaller "jobs" (don't call it stimulus) bills every couple of weeks, which seems to be able to sneak past the perpetual Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Grayson was saying the whole movement has been about stoking fear and promoting a mindless environment completely out of touch with reality that's pushing people into violence. The other guy's trying to use a defense of the the guy who finally tampered with the propane tanks at the senator's house is now kicked out - not taking responsibility for stoking that fear that caused the murder attempt. They're both playing the same game of make your point over and over to win the interview on these news shows, Grayson just did it better. People who try to politely make their point when the other side doesn't do the same courtesy just lose on these shows.

>> ^RedSky:

If Grayson wants to make the accusation that Republicans are inciting violence he needs to provide examples, and yes there are plenty to make the case. As far as the interview goes, he really only provided empty rhetoric, and effectively filibustered the other guy.

If Grayson wants to make the accusation that Republicans are inciting violence he needs to provide examples, and yes there are plenty to make the case. As far as the interview goes, he really only provided empty rhetoric, and effectively filibustered the other guy.

I gotta say, I have a real love/hate relationship with the way liberals refuse to unify.

Psychologic is right. Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson deserve the credit for what became the final demise of the public option. They're the ones who committed to joining a Republican filibuster of the Senate bill until it was stripped.

It's true that if there had been even one Republican who came out in favor of it, it would've been passed (probably only 61-39, but it'd pass), but that's a fantasy universe where good policy ideas on the left attract votes from the Republican side of the aisle.

I'm not sure that Obama being more engaged about the public option would've gotten it through. Maybe if we had some way of making Obama angry, and getting him to turn into The Rock Obama, he could have played hardball with Democrats, and threatened them with primary challengers, stripping them of chairmanships, etc. Ultimately though, I'm not convinced he really had any stick to wield against either Nelson or Lieberman. There's no other Democrat who could hold onto a Senate seat in Nebraska other than Nelson, and Lieberman seems to have simply been looking for an excuse to join the Republican party ever since the netroots successfully helped Ned Lamont beat him in the Democratic primary in 2006.

I'm honestly not sure there are 51 votes for it in the Senate. That campaign to get signatories to a letter for passing the public option under reconciliation petered out around 40 or so Democrats, and that was counting a lot of people who didn't actually sign the letter, just people who made approving noises about the idea. That makes me think that whether or not there are 51 Democrats who wanted the public option, there weren't 51 willing to try to use reconciliation to pass it.

It's my opinion, as a really, really avid follower of all this, that we just didn't have the votes for the public option.

I'm shocked and pissed about that, and I definitely think the nearly 20 Dems who were only for the public option when it was subject to the filibuster need to be ran through the wringer, but we go into these things with the Democrats we have, not the ones we wish we had. I'm all for a Congress entirely composed of Graysons, Weiners, Sherrod Browns, with a couple Sanders and Kuciniches, but we're a long way from that now.

I think this bill was the best deal we could have gotten in the 111th Congress.

It does not implement any level of government price setting (i.e. its 0% socialist). However, it does collect taxes from the rich, and uses the money to buy insurance for the poor.

It puts lots of new restrictions on insurance companies to make sure their profits come from serving their customers well, not from denying them care. Same for doctors and hospitals, it will make an attempt to change their incentives towards being based on patient outcomes, and not number & size of procedures done.

It does not, and will not solve every health care problem in the country, but it's going to vastly improve the state of our health care system, and provide care to a huge number of people who didn't have access to it, or who couldn't afford it until now.

It's not perfect, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

I think the main effect this bill will have is that we'll keep reforming our health care system as we go. The public option isn't dead, it just didn't get baked in from the start. We can keep pushing for it, and working to elect people who will fight for it, and working to defeat people who helped kill it...like Joe Lieberman.