I don’t understand why there isn’t a party rule – if you join a Republican filibuster you lose everything – committee assignments, even your parking space.

Yeah, I don’t get that either. And it’s not like Joe can threaten to walk – if he can’t be counted on to vote with Democrats on a filibuster, then his “60th” vote is meaningless.

Unfortunately, the moderate republican is extinct. They evolved into conservadems.

They never even have to filibuster. I wonder how effective the threat to filibuster everything would be if they kept being forced to do it, so that the public could see them actually causing gridlock. Make Joe Lieberman stand up and explain why he doesn’t want you to have healthcare.

We don’t have enough money to buy our own Senators. Can’t think of one I’d want to own anyway.

If we could pool enough money to buy Lieberman, we could send him to some country we didn’t like as a “gift”. Not sure I can think of any country I dislike that much, though.

Has anyone come up with a list or a percentage of our Congressmembers that are millionaires? Would simplify things, even, perhaps, for the trolls.

I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere between 99 and 100.

In Lieberman’s case he should have lost all those things when he started campaigning for the Republican presidential candidate, or after the election, or at any point in time since then.

Weasel that he is, Joe has more backbone than Dem Senate leaders, or Obama for that matter.

OR… and I am becoming increasingly convinced this is actually the case, Joe provides cover (by being a scapegoat) for Dem leaders to pursue their real objectives, i.e. enable their corporate sponsors to loot and plunder.

5) Reconciliation? Is that even a real word? I think the liberals just made it up.

Them pesky Liberals…! What ever shall we do with ‘em…?! ;-)

Aloha, Eli…! ;-)

Cloture. Sounds like one of those female maladies.

NIce post, Eli. Cloture is not the only thing that is meaningless now.

Israel?

Dave, these are very stately, important and collegial people. Threats of losing perks are not allowed! That would be pedestrian.

Okay, maybe not quite so bad as that:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/overview.php

Even if they were forced to actually fillibuster, I don’t think the majority of people would see it. Most news outlets don’t mention it and when they do, it’s in that horrible both views are equally valid style.(How’s that for a horrible sentence?)

Eli, this is a terrific piece, especially recognizing that each and every “democratic” senator now enjoys veto power

I think we need to point that out to the progressives, they need to leverage the very same power the not democrat from Connecticut leverages

In the Maddow video clip at the top of the post (which is from October), Jane points out that Harry should have extracted a promise to stay with the caucus on procedural votes in return for letting Joe keep his seat.

Harry is such an ineffectual loser.

Guys, I have been saying you need to sweep the congress clean with

TERM LIMITS

and then the response is something like… the sky is falling we will lose institutional memory.

Get real.

Clean house – all of them out

Congress is broken. It refuses (1) to prevent outright bribery of its members, (2) to constrain its procedural rules to the Constitution [e.g. cloture preventing up or down vote], and (3) to perform its duties to impeach and try Presidents [like Bush] who break the law. We live in a time when corporations can outwardly bribe Senators to derail critical legislation, and Presidents can break the law with impunity.

How can we fix this? A constitutional convention, invoked by the states, is the only way to fix our government. Many fear a constitutional convention because they believe it could radically change our Government. However, we need not fear the constitutional convention, because it can only *propose* amendments. The whole point of a constitutional convention is to get around the fact that a modern Congress will never propose amendments that limit the powers of Congress.

For example, Congress alone has power over its own rules under our current constitution. Rules like cloture. Congress *cannot* be expected to propose a constitutional amendment that requires an up or down vote. Senators love to be able to hide behind cloture. They will not cede this power.

By organizing on a state by state basis, and lobbying our state legislatures, we have a chance of meeting the threshold of states required to call a constitutional convention. We must use this mechanism to bypass Congress. Our nation is at stake.

It’s what has to happen to get the bleeding to stop.

Aloha, CTut!

Roll out those cots already…! dagnamit…! ;-)

Haven’t we all. Been drinking.

Cloture

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Inigo Montoya Lieberman

if cloture took 59 votes, how much you want to bet the vote would have been 59 to 40?
if cloture took 58 votes, how much you want to bet the vote would have been 58 to 41?
if cloture took 57 votes, how much you want to bet the vote would have been 57 to 42?
…

SanderO, state laws to limit terms on Congresspersons have been found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995). Therefore, we need a constitutional amendment to put in place term limits. But guess who gets to stand in the way of a constitutional amendment: Congress.

Therefore, the only way to get term limits is by (1st) having the states call a constitutional convention, (2nd) having that constitutional convention propose an amendment to limit terms, and (3rd) by having the states ratify that amendment.

Given Congress’s horrible approval ratings for the last decade+, and the widespread support for term limits, I would think such an amendment would have a chance.

Ineffectual loser might be stretching it. He did get the sixty votes, which seemed unlikely a couple of months ago. Granted, bribery was involved, but I guess that’s just okay dokey these days. He had some real hurdles to jump, and he managed to do it.

I agree that he should not have to play patty-cake with these senators though, he should hold votes to pull chairmanships if people behave like traitors to the democratic caucus.

Joe Lieberman’s on life support.

Campaign finance reform faces the same problem. Hard to imagine a majority of incumbents voting for public campaign financing.

Ya just gotta rain on our parade… Eh, M’dear…? ;-)

Even Sanders, Grayson, Feingold, Leahy, Kuchinich, etc???

Perfect opening — posted this on Jane’s RIP House thread.

Reconciliation

Breaking the term down to its component parts:

re — a prefix, occurring originally in loanwords from Latin, used with the meaning “again” or “again and again” to indicate repetition, or with the meaning “back” or “backward” to indicate withdrawal or backward motion

con — –adjective 1. involving abuse of confidence: a con trick. –verb (used with object) 2. to swindle; trick: That crook conned me out of all my savings. 3. to persuade by deception, cajolery, etc.
–noun 4. a confidence game or swindle. 5. a lie, exaggeration, or glib self-serving talk

silly –adjective 1. weak-minded or lacking good sense; stupid or foolish: a silly writer. 2. absurd; ridiculous; irrational: a silly idea. 3. stunned; dazed: He knocked me silly.

ation a suffix, appearing in words of Latin origin, denoting action or condition, used in Latin and in English to form nouns from stems of Latin adjectives

It’s simple when you have your corporate oligarchy decoder switched on.

He didn’t get anything from Joe up front, he didn’t put any pressure on Joe to uphold cloture, he didn’t attempt reconciliation.

Even if he was just doing Obama’s bidding, that still doesn’t make it right.

Probably be easier to move the nation’s capitol while pols are on vacation and then not tell them where it is.

Or at least change all the locks…

Dood, We actually passed public-financed elections for Hawaii County… The PTB’s(i.e. already elected councilors…) have thwarted ‘We the People’ of Haw. County by pleading that the tough economic times make it infeasible…!!! That’s some serious fuckery…!!!

I was about to say that wouldn’t be nice if we had a national initative process. Then I realized that it would just get abused like here in Ca.

They don’t do fillibusters like in “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” anymore. The process has devolved into fillibuster by proxy so that no one has to actually get up and speak, and Senate business continues on as fillibusters can now be put on hold and thus used for almost any purpose at all without the political risks involved in shutting down the government.

Eli, you are correct. Congress won’t limit its own ability to be bribed. And the Supreme Court is willing to extend the 1st amendment to defend a corporation’s “right” to bribe our Congress, asserting that money is speech. So our Constitution needs to be amended, or the Court needs to significantly realign, for us to have a chance to make a meaningful change in campaign finance reform.

Again, a constitutional convention is the only way to bypass Congress. Given the extent to which States are finding themselves at the mercy of the federal government during this financial crisis, I’d be willing to wager that a supermajority of state legislatures want to reign in the powers of Congress. Right now most states are broke, their budgets in ruins, because of Congress’s corporate-whoredom with regard to the federal reserve and banking. They literally have to beg the federal government to borrow/print the money to bail them out. (Or tax their citizens to death.) So I’d say the states would be very receptive to the idea of a constitutional convention right now: it is the one means by which the states can assert — on behalf of the people — that the federal government answers to the people.

This may be true, but they can be inforced de facto and we certainly can demand that critters serve one or two terms and OUT withold support etc.

The concept of term limits is IN the constitution:

President and VP
Supremes

But we do need a new constitution or a reno on this one.

Term limits has an instant appeal that Republican deviants used in California, and probably elsewhere, to freeze up “democracy”. In California, term limits means that elected officials are soon not beholden to the electorate, (gerrymandering has helped in that), but are working even sooner than otherwise to reap financial advancement. Our Republican opponents have spent far more resources, intellectual and financial, over the decades, to perfect the strategies to bring this Republic, as we knew it, down.

But Howie Klien et al need to DEMAND that anyone who recieves funds pledge to support or sponsor:

Campaign finance
term limits amendment

it comes from paying too much attention to how votes were managed in the house during fisa fight. when the dem leadership wanted a bad bill passed, they had no problem passing it with a minority of the dems voting ‘yea.’ in fact, that was the only way they were able to do it (and they did it twice) — once for the paa and once for the faa.

08/04/07 – S.1927 – passed: 227 – 183 (Rs for: 186 – 2, Ds against: 41 – 181)
06/20/08 – H.R.6304 – passed: 293 – 129 (Rs for: 188 – 1, Ds against: 105 – 128)

i conclude that in almost all cases, the leadership gets the bills they want passed.

Doesn’t worry me…

out they go… you want the likes of StomThurmond, or Dennis Hastert, or Orin Hatch and the list goes on and on.

Seniority is a curse on the people.

Problem with that is twofold:

When we’re not in power, we need to have a voice. 55 for cloture?

In California, it would never pass since we need a 2/3 majority to get anything done. (We are looking at a state constitutional convention though.)

One of the most interesting panels at Netroots Nation was about public financing. Larry Lessig gave a fantastic presentation about how campaign money has utterly corrupted our government, and then the panelists talked about the various approaches to try to get public campaign financing passed.

They mainly focused on how many congresscritters are getting fed up with having to spend huge chunks of their time fundraising instead of legislating or talking to constituents, and even some donors are getting fed up as well, but I’m skeptical whether that would ever reach 50, much less 60%.

They also talked about shaming corrupt congresscritters like Ben Nelson, and more importantly, letting their constituents know who their rep or senator is *really* representing, but I suspect that has very little effect.

They didn’t talk about it much, but one of the panelists was a state legislator who got elected within a publicly financed system and how great it was, which makes me think that if public financing becomes widespread on the state and local level, that it will eventually generate a bench of future reps and senators who believe in public financing, and so maybe it will be a possibility 10-20 years from now.

But that presumes A) That public financing at the state/local level begins to grow, B) That the newbies don’t get corrupted as soon as they hit DC, and C) That we’ll still be a democracy in 10-20 years…

I am all for bringing this republic down and building a new one with the right role of the people and NO ROLE for the corporations or money interests.

Bring it down!

Term limits will almost certainly make sure that the next winning candidate has already pre-sold his soul to corporate interests to get elected. I’m all for getting rid of the entire pit of vipers but there needs to be something more.

The Republicans, during the Clinton era, won on term limit issues because their bosses told them that there would be other guys to take their place. Once in office they decided to make themselves at home and found other lobbyist to help them. Term limits alone will not eliminate votes being traded for cash.

If we can’t get rid of legalized bribery disguised as lobbying there is no solution.

I’m not overly optimistic because most Americans and the Supreme Court appear comfortable with a government based upon bribery.

I see your point. De facto the voters could limit terms by withholding support. I wish that actually happened.

Supreme’s term limit is life; (I guess that is actually a term limit, in a sense). President and VP limits were added by amendment.

But we do need a new constitution or a reno on this one.

I have often thought the same thing. But do you really think a mob of modern day Pols, lacking the FF’s ideals, will come up with a better one?

My biggest fear would be that we would end up with a constitution that’s much, much worse than what we have now. What would prevent that from happening if you open up that can of worms *before* you fix the corruption in the system?

We clearly have a system which runs on legal and illegal bribery. It’s completely corrupt and many people are so turned off they don’t bother voting because it’s tweedle dee and tweedle dumb as ralph nadar points out.

I will only vote for thrird party candidates FU democraps

We either need to rewrite or rename our former U.S. Constitution

Ah, to dream.

It is not about “bringing this republic down.” A constitutional convention is about fixing the republic we have. And because all it can do is propose amendments, it is still effectively controlled by the people (through the state legislatures.)

True, I just saying he got it through. Had his no/yes vote and a presser.

I have also advocated strongly to outlaw for profit interests from lobbying AT all… let them run adds on TV and stay clear of DC

I misspoke, i meant to say we need supremes on term limits.

…i conclude that in almost all cases, the leadership gets the bills they want passed.

Let me reiterate…! *g*

At what point do we say that the U.S. system of governance is meaningless?

Eli, your fear is natural. Fortunately, our Founding Fathers thought to make sure that the constitutional convention would only propose amendments. Therefore, any changes proposed by such a convention would have to have widespread support across a supermajority of states.

Think of it as a bypass switch for Congress proposing amendments. That’s really all it is. It gets around the fact that Congress would likely bar the door to amendments that would negatively impact Congressional power.

And of course, that’s precisely the problem these days: Congress is totally broken.

same thing happened in MA. we passed it. they (thanks dems!) repealed it.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0621-05.htm

I completely agree. The thought scares me to pieces. The founding fathers didn’t have to deal( in large numbers) with idiots.

I would be ok with this mob here at FDL leading the revolution and constitutional convention.

The depressing thing is the people have been boxed out and into wage slavery without representation by the present system.

It won’t changed itself because the cancer has take hold. We need to kill the patient so the disease does not spread.

Term limits will almost certainly make sure that the next winning candidate has already pre-sold his soul to corporate interests to get elected.

Which reminds me of the less-obvious, but equally needed part of campaign finance reform, which is to stop or severely slow down the revolving door between Congress and the private sector. Even if congresscritters don’t use corporate dollars to get re-elected, they could still be looking at fat paychecks as lobbyists or “consultants” if they play ball while in office. (Lessig hit this almost as hard as the campaign finance itself)

There also needs to be some way to deal with the conflicts of interest when a congresscritter’s *spouse* is a lobbyist or executive for one of the industries that takes, shall we say, an active interest in the workings of Congress.

Something that reflects the way things really work in this country:

Calling for a prostitutional convention for the world’s leading kleptocracy, the United States of Goldman Sachs.

You give Howie (love him) more power than he has.

if there wasn’t gallows humor, we’d have to invent it.

We are a nation of idiots lead by a cabal of the greedy.

I’d be happy with there simply being more supreme court justices. As it is, change in the makeup of the bench is far too slow, and we end up where one fence-sitter can make all the decisions (e.g. Justice Kennedy.) We need to expand the bench to perhaps double its current size. That will (1) double its rate of change, and (2) halve the concentration of power per justice.

No for profit interests may lobby congress.

Idiots is being rather charitable. More like automatons.

So this process is actually codified in the Constitution somewhere already?

The broken include the Congress, the Senate, the Supreme Court and the Administrative branch.

I’m pretty sure I missed something. Oh, the fourth branch of government: the financial banking parasites.

…shaming corrupt congresscritters…

Do they even have a grasp of the notion…?

But that presumes A) That public financing at the state/local level begins to grow, B) That the newbies don’t get corrupted as soon as they hit DC, and C) That we’ll still be a democracy in 10-20 years…

That’s a boatload of presumptions, Dood…! So far #1 is stalled here…!

Or, alternatively, raise the threshold of votes for confirmation. I would much rather have nine moderate justices than have so many Supreme Court decisions be foregone conclusions based on the makeup of the court. We already have a legislature for that.

The MSM Court Composers.

I’m glad you revived that. It’s worth an encore performance.

You forgot the Fourth Estate. Our media is just as corrupt and broken as our government.

I see your point, however, cloture is really a twofold thing and could be separated: (1) it ends debate; (2) it gets to a vote. I think a minority party has the right to a cloture vote, for a limited time, to make sure it gets some debate. However, a minority party has no right (in my opinion) to force the other side to come up with 55 people to vote “YES” to a bill. As the diary we are commenting on points out: cloture has become heavily weighted towards the second function: getting to a vote. Hence, cloture has become less about beginning and ending debate. It has become all about whether any vote happens at all.

And don’t leave out our Too Big To Fail corporations — Scarecrow thinks that’s the root of all evil.

Me, I think it’s corn subsidies. But I realize that’s rather idiosyncratic.

Like, uh, David Brooks.

*heh* The FISA/Patriot act fights (alone) have taught us well…!

What? Sotomayor could barely get through.

We just can’t get enough of that High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or ethanol…! 8-(

“And don’t leave out our Too Big To Fail corporations”

And, once SCOTUS accords them “Personhood, from the Moment of Conception,” it’s really Game Over.

I sort of think that the too-big-to-bail are covered under the financial banking but I suppose there are a few that weren’t also financial players.

The subtext here is that senators can now use the threat of filibuster to negotiate sweet deals for their states, way out of proportion to their weight population-wise and with respect to contribution. This is holding the country hostage, just like the financial oligarchs are doing by threatening to crash the economy if they don’t get their way. Where does this all end now that it has begun in earnest?

Eliminating the filibuster altogether worries me, especially with the Democrats so determined to throw away their congressional majorities.

Abortion being illegal after the first trimester.

By any reasonable interpretation, corporations have not been given personhood by the SCOTUS so much as super-personhood. Corporations are given the basic powers of personhood but none of the responsibilities.

Thanks! If you didn’t catch my follow up to your request for one of those decoders in your Christmas stocking….

You don’t need one, Jane — you are one.

Take that as an acknowledgement, not just a compliment.

Read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse.”

No, Eli, the process is not well spelled out in the Constitution. Here is the text of Article V: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.’

Note that the Constitution clearly specifies that the convention would merely propose amendments, and that legislatures (or conventions) in 3/4th the states would still need to ratify those proposed amendments.

So corporations would need to bribe the legislatures of 3/4ths the states to make things worse than they are now. (Not saying that’s impossible!)

Some info (if you trust Wikipedia) is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_to_propose_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution
e.g. “An Article V convention would merely be empowered to propose amendments. Until ratified, proposed amendments would have no constitutional effect. “

Copy that.

The thing is, they persuaded Congress to let them get that big, then persuaded Congress that that big was Too Big To Fail, whether it was or not.

But they never would have attained Too Big To Fail status if the system wasn’t corrupt in the first place.

WE know that but large swaths of the public think the U.S. has a “free” press and, well by golly that Katie Couric is as cute as a button and Bryon Williams, well he’s a man’s man.

I wish that someone would point out to the Supremes that a corporation cannot possibly be a person becsuse it would be illegal to own one.

707!

Jon Walker is upstairs!
What Is A Loan Equal To The GDP Of A Mid-Size Country Between Friends?

If that were *all* they were doing, if they had bought Nelson and Lieberman off with some ethanol subsidies and a submarine base (or whatever), I could have lived with that. But their primary motivation was not to get goodies for their nominal constituents, the people living in their states (although they did get those as well), it was to get goodies for their *real* constituents, the corporations who help them get re-elected.

Jane,

I enjoyed Wendell Potter’s interview on Countdown the other night when he addressed the MLR% and role of investment banking as well as the question how will MLR be enforced and regulated?

Has anyone done anything more in-depth on this? I am not finding too much out there.

I’m guessing that these are folks on the TV, as we oldsters refer to it. Sorry stopped watching that stuff a while back. (Alright, I’ve read about them.)

Very nice indeed.

U.S. Foreign Policy of Too Big to Fail

Apparently no one at the Pentagon or NSC has ever seen The Princess Bride:

Vizzini: You only think I guessed wrong! That’s what’s so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders – The most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia” – but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line”! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha…
Vizzini: [Vizzini stops suddenly,his smile frozen on his face and falls to the right out of camera dead]

very nice!

we we can charge those who do own corporations with a federal crime!

I’m having deja vu now – I think I’ve actually had this conversation before, but it was a long while back.

You’re probably right about how hard it might be to make things worse, but then again, look at what happened with Prop 8 in California, of all places. And it would only take 13 wingnut states (regardless of size) to derail anything positive.

Actually, there’s more ways than one to skin a cat…! Both, the enactment and repeal of Prohibition is a textbook example…! ;-)

Having grown up in Montana, witness Baucus. That dirtball has done virtually nothing for his state. Too busy becoming a multi-millionaire, one john at a time.

Yeah, I stopped watching also but far to many Americans still get their information from these rich, pampered and privileged corporate shills.

I wasn’t aware of that; I’ll check it out. Thanks for the tip.

And Lieberman did not bring a whole lot of pork back to CT during the Bush administration, which means all his sellouts were essentially gratis.

Well, not *gratis*, but the Republican caucus didn’t have to give him much.

Butt his buddies probably did.

Right, I’m just saying that he didn’t require much horsetrading in exchange for voting against his own party. He just did it ‘cuz he liked it.

I think a similar conversation may have happened within the last year when Professor Sabbo (I think that’s his name) came out with a book proposing a constitutional convention. That may be the source of deja vu!

Your points are well taken. The ability of a small minority of states to simply derail the whole process is particularly problematic. And I also fear the Proposition 8 crowd.

I’m not sure what other path is available, though. The federal government appears to be more than happy with the corrupt status quo.

Sorry, but I think “term limits” is a solution in search of a problem. The issue isn’t that congresscritters are in Washington too long, it’s that the abundant and continual pressure of fundraising forces them (granted, some of them don’t need to be forced all that much) into soliciting bribes from the people who really have the money, i.e. corporations. Take away the fundraising rat-race imperative (through publicly funded elections) and you take away a great deal of incentive to sell out constituents in favor of bucks. Indeed, when you realize how fierce the fund-raising pressure is, it’s a miracle that so many of our progressive legislators are able to STAY progressive on so many issues.

Of course, a lot of congresspeople brown-nose special interests now, by way of applying for high-paying advisory or lobbying jobs later (Tom Daschle, anyone?) so that particular revolving door would need to be closed firmly too.

But term limits sweep out the good with the bad, and I personally have no interest in kicking Al Franken or Alan Grayson out now.

Anyone in N. Cal. there’s a rebroadcast worth catching tonight on PBS.

Theoretically, mathematically, the senority should be delt with within Congress.
What you should know is that term limits has been gamed, in California at least, so that the future leaders of the state senate and house of representatives are picked maybe before they are even elected (again thanks to gerrymandering) They have ABSOLUTELY no allegiance to whom elected them; every alegance to whom selected them. You figure out the consequences.

Another way of stating the urge to apply term limits is
“Stop me from voting again!” h/t my spouse.

This is me laughing a lot.

Eliminating the filibuster rule by constitutional amendment would be an almost insuperable job, given the the requirement that two-thirds of both houses of Congress (along with three-quarters of state legislatures) approve. Can you imagine 67 senators voting to give up their unilateral authority to “nuke” any legislation they don’t like?

Thus, I’m wondering if anyone on this blog knows whether any of the progressive legal groups — ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, or someone else — has plans to file suit against the Senate’s filibuster rule as unconstitutional.

Not to spam this to death, but there is another way: http://firedoglake.com/2009/12/26/cloture-is-now-officially-meaningless/#comment-2045060

OR… and I am becoming increasingly convinced this is actually the case, Joe provides cover (by being a scapegoat) for Dem leaders to pursue their real objectives, i.e. enable their corporate sponsors to loot and plunder.

Convinced of the same thing.

I’m not sure what other path is available, though. The federal government appears to be more than happy with the corrupt status quo.

But the American people are getting more and more *unhappy* about how corrupt and rigged our system is. And I think we’re starting to see that that is a bipartisan discontent. Our best hope may be a bipartisan campaign finance reform movement loud enough and angry enough to put pressure on both Democrats and Republicans.

The status quo is getting harder and harder to defend, I think.

One other thing, I’m not sure how such a group would have standing for such a suit, and furthermore, the constitution is pretty clear that the Senate can make its own rules. Plus we still have a Supreme Court that is decidedly 5-4 pro-status-quo.

It provides an excellent explanation both for Harry’s refusal to threaten or discipline him in any way, *and* his refusal to use reconciliation.

If necessary they’ll defend it at the point of a bayonet.

Your borrowed tax dollars at work.

Paying tomorrow to be oppressed today.

Is there anything more self-evident?

I agree the American people are very unhappy about the current system. But witness how the left/right false-dichotomy is being exploited by the centrist corporatists to prevent the left and right from unifying to change things. [And I apologize in advance here for using the "right/left" dichotomy in the following:]

The right-wing is being encouraged by billionaires like Murdoch/FOX-news to look like absolute boneheads with their Teabagging movement. They are actively being encouraged to be more and more stupid, more and more reactionary, and more and more illogical. The net effect is that the left-wing liberals are disgusted by what they see: Hitler mustaches on Obama on signs, “birthers”, etc. Any right wing that the left could unify with has been shoehorned into crazyness.

HERE’S A PERFECT EXAMPLE: Rahm Emanuel is being defended on sites like DailyKos — not on the basis of actual evidence or analysis — but on the fact that Jane signed a letter with someone easily tarred and feathered by the left. Thus, despite the fact that Rahm is probably despised by a supermajority of Americans, the betrayed left and the majority of the right, he will escape political pressure because of how ridiculous the conservatives have been encouraged, and maneuvered, into becoming.

But this is for another diary, for another time. Excellent diary, by the way. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks.

I too am convinced that Joe Lieberman is nothing more than a willing “bad cop” in a classic “good cop/bad cop” charade. He has willingly taken on the mantle of “bad guy” to deflect anger from the people he is shielding. He’s a distraction: The real problems here are the White House and Reid. In that order, because Harry is just an empty suit.

I hear ya, and the crazy teabaggers ill me too. But the rage and frustration against the corporate control of government is growing across the political spectrum, and it’s a matter of figuring out how to harness it effectively without getting caught up in the old hostilities.

This is like one of those movies where two bitter enemies team up against a greater threat, promising to return to beating up on each other after they’ve dealt with the larger enemy. The question is how to get to that point, and how to do it without quite embracing *all* of that once and future enemy.

While I’m not a Norquist apologist, the dKos folks are not attacking Jane or other dissidents because of Grover. These folks have become the defenders of the Obama approach. Defenders of the realm. Put simply Grover is not the problem, dissent is the problem. They do this, I believe, because of the little trick of cognitive dissonance. Make people choose a distasteful option and they will often become the options most vocal supporter. Nothing but people who don’t know they are being played or would rather be played than stand on their own.

The key thing the two bitter enemies can agree on, as you pointed out, is that corporations control the government. To the extent that they can laser focus on that one purpose — to purge corporate control — then they can avoid agreeing on other matters.

The problem is that the right is frequently encouraged to believe that corporations = capitalism = Good and pure, and to believe that the “left” = communist = Evil. So the focus will likely need to be on the very narrow issue of eliminating the bribery of Congress by corporations.

And that is, again, a 1st amendment issue, according to our Supreme Court. And therefore, we need either the Court to change, or the Constitution to change. And — not to retread old ground — the Constitution ain’t changing outside of an Article V convention.

Well I’m calling it a night. I enjoyed discussing this with you. Keep up the good fight!

I’ve been leaning that way for a long time but for me the clincher might be that while Joe’s obstructionism inspired a lot of angst among bill supporters outside of government, Senate Dems did not appear particularly miffed, nor did they apply any pressure on him to drop his demands.

Likewise, and goodnight!

Interestingly, the way the public financing people get around the First Amendment is by simply making the public financing an option. If a candidate *wants* to fund their campaign with corporate donations, they are free to do so, but their opponent can get enough money to run a competitive campaign without begging (of course, the definition of “competitive campaign” is critical, and I think there would have to mechanisms to counterbalance a corporate-funded candidate who goes massive).

And I’m pretty sure that the revolving door and spousal conflicts of interest would not be a free speech issue. My first thought was that there are probably limits to how much you can restrict people’s employment options, but if the private sector can have non-compete agreements…

Yeah, their reaction to Lieberman, Nelson et al, seemed to be pretty much along the lines of, “Oh, we’re so sorry to hear that – what can we do to make it right?”

You’re right.

Jane Hamsher is upstairs!
Emperor Lieberman Says No More “Epic Battles” This Session

I hear the call. Goodnight to all.

Have fun.

Thanks for another good post, Eli.

What he said, at 55.

Key point! Everyone now knows and fully accepts that victory goes to whichever faction can offer the largest bribes to key legislators. And why is this? Because of U.S. reliance on commercial television for news and information. Since candidates must buy a lot of expensive TV time, the candidate with the most money is very likely to win.