Harry Reid still hasn’t seen enough obstruction from Senate Republicans to support filibuster reform, saying, “The only way we’ll get rid of the filibuster is if it continues to be abused.” He has either been sound asleep for the past four years, is the most trusting man alive, or he is simply and completely full of the brown stuff.

Democrats have won a majority in the Senate and can fully control it as the Constitution intended. Voting for this package is voting to give the Republican minority a veto they did not earn at the ballot box.

Delightful tidbits keep leaking out of the Fiscal Cliff negotiations, as various Capitol Hill egos find willing stenographers to ‘report’ on incidents that reflect well on them.

Combine this odd behavior with Majority Leader Cantor’s no vote and we might have a challenge on our hands Thursday when Republicans elect a new speaker for the 113th Congress. It’s being reported that there are 20 Republicans are willing to band together to unseat John Boehner.

Some skullduggery on the Senate floor today.

John Boehner delivered a letter to the White House today about the fiscal slope, and I just find it to be weird. He starts off by calling the events of November 6 a “status quo election” where the American people expect a “fair middle ground” on fiscal issues (the fact that House Democrats got more votes than House Republicans, and could have taken the chamber but for factors like gerrymandering, didn’t enter into this). He then says that Republicans “presented (the White House) with a balanced framework of spending cuts and new tax revenue. Nobody has seen this and the White House has repeatedly said that Republicans have not presented them with anything specific.

Then, Boehner laments the terrible partisanship of the Geithner proposal, which he frames in ways favorable to the Republican position.

Then there’s this curious line: “If we were to take your Administration’s proposal at face value, then we would counter with the House-passed Budget resolution.”

In The Foreign Policy Auction: Foreign Lobbying in America, Freeman unpacks the ways in which governments from around the world attempt to use finance capital to ensure that the sausage factory on Capitol Hill churns out American foreign policy in their favor. The book is unrelentingly thorough, engaging, and sober. “There is no arch-villain here,” Freeman warns at the start, “no dark lord, no one to unmask at the end of the show. There are only politicians seeking reelection, lobbyists seeking more revenue, and foreign governments competing for influence over the most influential government the world has ever known.”

Reid’s proposal would not eliminate the filibuster. It would instead required Senators who want to prevent a vote to continuously hold the floor. What impact this would have depends on exactly how the rule is written and interrupted. It would also remove the need for a cloture vote on motions to proceed.

Today everyone is supposed to be optimistic about avoiding the fiscal slope. Considering the potential consequences of that avoidance, I’m not sure “optimistic” is the right word.

With the expectation of a series of new cabinet appointments (though not Attorney General, apparently) comes the expectation of a number of bruising nomination fights on the floor of the Senate. In particular, Senate Republicans seem to want to collect a scalp if UN Ambassador Susan Rice gets nominated to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. They blame Rice for providing false information about the attack on the consulate in Benghazi.

Republicans may or may not have the muscle to get this done. But they certainly would not if Democrats simply ended the undemocratic, extra-Constitutional super-majority Senate through changes to the rules process.