All Life Is Problem Solving

In spite of the fact that there is much evidence to suggest that it is favored by a majority of Americans, enhanced Medicare for All, Single Payer has been shut out of the mainstream legislative process by Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Max Baucus, Congressional Leaders and a coalition of “Liberal”/”Progressive” organizations and media who either joined in, or acceded to the view of the politicians, that passing single-payer was not politically feasible, and that it was much preferable to advocate for a health care reform that would focus on health insurance and feature a nebulous and ever-changing concept called the Public Option. These leaders and organizations proceeded to take single-payer “off the table,” and to exclude its advocates from Congressional hearings, from substantial media coverage, from many blogopsphere discussions, and, in general from serious consideration as a reform alternative. [Read more →]

For some time now discussions have been going on in the blogosphere about the filibuster and whether or not to get rid of it. Nowhere have these discussions been more frequent or intense than at Firedog Lake, where you’ll find them here, here, here, here, and here. Over time, two positions on what to do about the filibuster have developed. One held by many at FDL, including myself, is that the practice of the filibuster in any form should ended. The second is that the present filibuster procedures should be ended, but that the classical filibuster should be restored because it really would not introduce intolerable delays into the legislative process, and it also would provide a needed focus for open debate in a Congress currently dominated by “ruthless” “top-down” party perspectives. [Read more →]

The corporatist-centrist politicians, such as Judd Gregg, Kent Conrad, Evan Bayh, no longer afraid of a total collapse of the world economy, are using deadly innocent frauds, scare, myths, and lies about the deficit and the national debt to undermine the possibilities of progressive change in the United States. It seems, also, that they’re now being led by President Obama, who has emerged as a full-throated champion of deficit hawkism, while pretending to be concerned about the well-being of the Middle Class, during his first State of the Union speech, where the President treated us to the following statements, about the debt, and the deficit, among others. [Read more →]

For the Democrats in Congress, winning in November isn’t rocket science; it’s about having the will to pursue survival ruthlessly. The key to winning is giving the American people what they’ll like, and not allowing any of the normal Washington obstacles to stand in the way. But, for Dems to act that way depends on them changing both their beliefs and their behavior. Let’s start with the beliefs.

The first belief that has to change is the idea that deficits are a problem for the Federal Government, that Democrats have to minimize to show that they are responsible. This is a myth, a lie, a scare, or a fraud. Deficits are only a problem when inflation begins to appear. If there is no inflation, Democrats should not even give lip service to the idea that deficits are important. [Read more →]

Today, Chris Matthews asked Howard Dean for his interpretation of the results in Massachusetts. Howard told him that it was because voters wanted more than they were getting from Washington and that they were angry at Washington. He also said that Coakley’s defeat was due not only to Independents voting for Brown, but also to progressives who either voted for him, or decided to stay home. And he pointed out that a Democracy for America poll showed that 18% of Brown voters voted for Obama, and that 60% of these wanted a Public Option (PO). He also pointed out that of the Obama voters who stayed home, 80% favored a PO. [Read more →]

Ezra Klein is known as a bright young policy wonk who enlisted in the DC village, by becoming a blogger and correspondent for the Washington Post with a corner on the health care “reform” debate. Many of his writings have been very sophisticated analyses of one or more obscure feature of the House and Senate “reform” bills, which at the same time are careful to remain within the “village mainstream” of acceptable political prescriptions and advice to policy makers. Many people rely on “Ezra” for his factual “take” on health care “reform” politics, whether or not they agree with his particular prescriptive “take” on policy, or with his “frame” for discussing and posing issues. One thing about Ezra though, no one has ever accused or complimented him because he suggested a simple solution to a problem. He has traded in the complex and benefited from his ability to deal with it. But it seems that he has avoided the simple in health care reform, no matter how obvious it may have been to the rest of us. Well, the millennium has come. Ezra has suggested a simple solution for the present quandary of the Democrats about what to do about health care “reform” legislation. [Read more →]

Earlier today, I wrote about “sidecar reconciliation” and the difficulty of passing it, and concluded, in light of Lawrence O’Donnell’s remarks on MSNBC about parliamentary maneuvers, encountered a number of times each day, still needing 60 votes to overcome them, that Republicans can block HCR through reconciliation if they want to. I said, further, that if they do that, the nuclear option would be the only way for the Democrats to pass a positive Main Street agenda that could save them from blood baths in 2010 and 2012.

I’ve thought a little bit more about this since the first post. I now think that reconciliation could still work, if Harry Reid is willing to warn Senators that if they bring reconciliation business to a halt to block an up or down vote, then he would introduce the nuclear option to get rid of the filibuster altogether. [Read more →]

Well, it’s official, or pretty official anyway. Scott Brown has been elected to Teddy Kennedy’s old seat and Martha Coakley has conceded. Some Democrats are blaming Coakley for running an inept campaign, and this may well have accounted for Brown’s margin of victory. But the real question is what allowed him to get close at all. The theory I subscribe to says that the Massachusetts special election for the Senate became nationalized around the pending health care reform bill. Brown dubbed himself the 41st vote against it, and Coakley obliged by calling herself the 60th vote for it, and also, in doing that, reneged on her strong pro-choice position taken in the primary, and then reinforced the narrative that she was part of the industry bailout team by interrupting her campaign to go to a fund raiser in which health care and Pharma industry lobbyists and contributors were prominent. Coakley was clueless about the strength of the anti-Wall Street feeling out there, just as her leader Barack Obama has been. Hopefully, the White House bubble has now been pierced and the President recognizes that an electoral disaster is pending unless the Administration can align against Wall Street and for Main Street. But whether he has or not recognized this, he now surely knows that the 60 votes in the Senate to pass critical legislation he favors, including health care reform, are not likely to be there on Party line votes. So, either he must work on a bi-partisan basis, not a good prospect with this band of Republicans, or he, along with the Senate leadership, must find a way around the 60 vote requirement in the Senate. [Read more →]

Over the past four days two mega-threads appeared at Firedog Lake’s (FDL’s) Seminal web site. The first was created in response to a diary by “realworld” called “Why I won’t be voting for Martha Coakley on Tuesday” received 604 comments, a very large number for that site. And the second responding to a diary by Jason Rosenbaum entitled “To the Pissed Off Progressives, Don’t Be Naderites,” which at this writing has received 851 comments.

The arguments of the two diaries are as follows. Realworld’s stated: [Read more →]

Here’s Cromwell’s Again

Hey, Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd, while both of you have been doing too little good for my taste, Cromwell’s plea:

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

was never meant for you. I can think of many other Senators who deserve it, including: Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, Jim DeMint, every other Republican, and among Democrats, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Dianne Feinstein, Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Tom Carper, Bill Nelson, Mark Pryor, Arlen Specter, and Mark Warner. But you too, at least have shown us some redeeming social value from time-to-time. [Read more →]