The one defense of President Obama I’ve found most annoying is the argument that Obama “only” had the largest Democratic majority in Congress in a generation for a short period, so it would be unreasonable to expect too much from him given Republican opposition. The argument ignores reconciliation, which previous administrations had relied on to get legislation through the Senate despite strong opposition from the other party.

The surface transportation bill, which passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee on a unanimous vote, has been mired on the Senate floor for close to a month. Senate Republicans have filibustered all efforts to wrap up work on the bill, mainly because they sought a series of bumper-sticker amendment votes to make vulnerable Democrats uncomfortable. They know the bill has broad support and will eventually pass, but if they can hold together on cloture votes, they can block it until they get their way on amendments. Most of them have nothing to do with transportation policy. Fully 1/12 of the Senate’s time this year, then, will be spent on a standoff over squeezing election-year message votes out of the majority.

Yeah, the Senate rules are just fine.

The House passed the payroll tax/UI/doc fix bill this morning by a count of 293-132. 91 Republicans and 41 Democrats voted against the bill, but the combination of Democrats and Republicans in support were more than enough to carry the bill across the line. Republicans voting against it were mostly hardliners philosophically opposed to things like unemployment insurance and newly exercised about tax cuts for working families, particularly without an offset. Democrats voting no opposed some of the pay-fors – particularly the increase in pension contributions for new federal employees, and cuts to health care programs – and the reduction of weeks of eligibility for unemployment benefits.

I’m of two minds about President Obama’s shout out for Senate rules reform in his State of the Union speech. I’m glad he brought attention to the need for reform, but mostly I’m very disappointed he proposed to eliminate the filibuster only for appointments and not everything else.

Wired is censored today. So is TBogg’s mini-site. The Google doodle is blacked out. And part of Daily Kos. And a lead story at The Huffington Post. And even right here. Sites like Wikipedia and Reddit and I Can Haz Cheezburger and Raw Story and Informed Comment and thousands more are completely dark today, not providing any content. It’s part of the largest online strike in history.

Most Indiana Democratic House members stayed out of session for a second day yesterday to protest a right-to-work bill Republicans want to pass. Today becomes a point of reckoning, because after the third day of missed sessions, the majority Republicans, under a law passed last year when the Democrats went out of state to protest various bills, can impose fines of up to $1,000 a day.

The correct way to stop problems caused by a perversion of Constitutional intent is not to lay on top of one absurd system another boundary-pushing interpretation of Constitutional power. The correct solution is to fix the root source of what is causing the problems to begin with. Unfortunately, though, that is not how President Obama is going to deal with Senate Republicans’ latest obstructionism to support existing law.

If Democrats can refuse to gavel in the session, they begin to squeeze Republicans toward a March 14 deadline to conduct business. Already you hear some state Republicans expressing nervousness at their “long agenda” of other bills. This looks like a winnable fight, especially if the public engages.

Let’s define some terms here. The Internet censorship bills have different names depending on which chamber of Congress you’re talking about. The House bill is called SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. That bill is currently in the committee process and has not yet cleared the Judiciary Committee. Observers thought this would happen at the end of last year, but House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith cancelled the conclusion of the markup at the last minute.

But in the Senate, the Judiciary Committee has already cleared their version of the legislation, known as PIPA, the Protect Intellectual Property Act.

Is this the worst Congress in our lifetimes? The public now gives Congress its worst performance rating in the 20 years in which pollsters have been asking the question. Some of this new found disapproval of Congress is probably the result of the prolonged economic downturn. But a lot probably has to do with the fact that this Congress truly is behaving horribly.