Ms. Davis Goes To Austin

Caption: I wonder if the Texas state house looks like this.

Image credit: public domain/Wikimedia

Yes, believe it or not, there's a Democratic senator filibustering a bill that would restrict her constituents' rights. Of course, that Democratic senator is not a U.S. Senator, she's Wendy Davis, a Texas state senator:

What Will happen in Texas today after Rep. Jodie Laubenberg caused huge protests and squeals of outrage over her outlandish statement directed at victims of rape [in support of Texas Senate Bill 5]? Texas legislators have until midnight tonight to pass an anti-abortion bill that will make it basically impossible to get a legal procedure of abortion in West, Texas.

That’s why we’re rooting for Senator Wendy David and Democrats, who are planning a marathon filibuster against the anti-abortion bill, hoping to stop the vote, which must be held today due to rules of the Legislature.

Texas Sen. Wendy Davis Planning Marathon Filibuster

What's more, as the Guardian reports, things are a bit tougher in the Texas senate:

Image credit: Wendy Davis

A Texas senator, Wendy Davis, has launched a marathon filibuster of an abortion bill that would severely restrict abortion access in the state.

If she is to be successful, Davis must talk for 13 hours, during which she will not be allowed to sit, lean or take any breaks to go to the bathroom or eat. She is only allowed to stop speaking when listening to questions.

Texas senator Wendy Davis stages marathon filibuster against abortion bill

To make things even stranger from a progressive perspective, she's not doing this alone:

[T]he bill's bogging down began with Gov. Rick Perry, who summoned lawmakers back to work immediately after the regular legislative session ended May 27, but didn't add abortion to the special session to-do list until late in the process. The Legislature can only take up issues at the governor's direction during the extra session.

Then, House Democrats succeeded in stalling nearly all night Sunday, keeping the bill from reaching the Senate until 11 a.m. Monday.

The measure only passed the lower chamber after a raucous debate that saw more than 800 women's rights activists pack the public gallery and surrounding Capitol, imploring lawmakers not to approve it.

Texas Senate set for filibuster finale on abortion

So, the Democratic legislative leadership cooperated with activists, instead of screwing them, and did their part to keep a really lousy bill from passing.

According to Progress Texas's filibuster countdown, the goal of the filibuster is to run out the clock on a special session of the Texas legislature.

All I can say is, good luck, and I wish we had more legislators like this elsewhere in America.

Afterword: For the latest on this, check the Progress Texas site, Texas activist Joyce Arnold's latest article (with a live feed video embedded), or the Texas Tribune live blog.

UPDATE/Correction: The countdown clock is apparently by a group called Progress Texas, not the Texas ACLU. The Twitter message referring to it was from the ACLU. I've corrected those references in the article.

UPDATE 2: At least for the moment, on this computer, image uploads are working again. I added the images you now see.

UPDATE 3: Joyce Arnold reports that the Republicans who control the Texas senate are trying to get Ms. Davis disqualified from continuing her filibuster. As the Texas Tribune noted:

7:27 p.m. [CDT] by Becca Aaronson If state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, is charged with one more violation of the filibuster rules, her attempt to talk Senate Bill 5 to death could be over.

Davis received her second warning when the Senate voted 17 to 11 to sustain a point of order called by state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, on Davis for receiving assistance to put on a back brace.

Liveblog: Dems Approach Abortion Victory as Special Session Wanes

A back brace? Most people don't have one of those unless they have a back problem. Heck, I don't have a back problem, but after I stand for several hours straight I feel like I need some aspirin.

Don't let the pretty face fool you - the lady's tough as nails.

UPDATE 4 (10:30 PDT): I didn't tune in just before midnight CDT like I'd planned, but it looks like what happened is that the Republican leadership in the Texas senate first managed to lodge enough "decorum" complaints against Wendy Davis that she had to yield the floor. Enough disturbances and questions about procedure (the latter by senate Democrats, mostly) that the vote was not taken until after midnight. The Republicans are claiming the bill passed.

Here's a quote from the Texas Tribune's live blog of the session:

12:31 a.m. by Becca Aaronson

It's still unclear the exact time that the Senate voted and approved Senate Bill 5 — and whether that vote is valid.

"There will be people who see things as they see them...I think its fair to say this is not the way the Senate should do its business," state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, told the press. He blamed the outburst in the gallery for disrupting the Senate's processes. "The people can't come and create so much of a ruckus that we can't do our job," he said.

Standing next to Patrick, state Sen. Juan 'Chuy' Hinojosa, D-McAllen, agreed that this is not the way the Senate should conduct its business. But he said the Senate should not be allowed to approve a bill during a special session past the midnight deadline, at which point, the session should be concluded.

Liveblog: Dems Approach Abortion Victory as Special Session Wanes

Most likely, this will end up in court.

As I've observed here a few times before, what the law actually means doesn't matter much anymore to those in power. The party that controls the legislature says they passed a bill, and if the governor signs it, they'll start to enforce it.

If I were a member of the Texas senate's GOP caucus right now, I'd be ashamed of myself. Sen. Davis was maneuvered out of the way by three pissy complaints, including one about someone helping her to adjust her back brace after she'd been standing in place for hours. Then they ignored their own rules to pass the bill.

If you want to see what a pissant looks like, I'd say you should go to the Texas legislature's GOP caucus and have a look around.

UPDATE 5: Well, maybe they reconsidered. Here's what the Texas Tribune live blog had to say:

3:13 a.m. by Brandi Grissom Without recognizing Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, for a motion to adjourn Sine Die, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst stepped down from the dais after ruling that time had expired on SB 5, telling the senators, "It's been fun, but, um, see ya soon."

He then told reporters that "An unruly mob using Occupy Wall Street tactics" derailed legislation that was designed to protect women and babies.

He said he was "very frustrated."

"I didn't lose control of what we were doing," he told reporters. "We had an unruly mob."

Liveblog: Dems Approach Abortion Victory as Special Session Wanes

Nice that the rules still matter for everyone, at least when enough folks are paying attention.

And congratulations to Wendy Davis and the Texas senate Democrats. I suspect there are a lot of people in Texas who are grateful for this effort.

UPDATE 6 (and last, I hope): Just noticed I had two "UPDATE 3"s, and mis-typed Sen. Davis's name at least once. Hopefully, everything is now fixed...

From The E-Mail Inbox

Image credit: National Cancer Institute/Wikimedia

This little gem arrived this morning:

From: Democrats 2014
To: Abfxvrhxdue
Subject: this is CRAZY
Date: May 29, 2013 9:14 AM

BREAKING NEWS: Michele Bachmann Quits!

Friends --

Late last night, Michele Bachmann released a crazy web video announcing that she's leaving Congress next year.

THIS IS HUGE! Now that the Tea Party's ringleader has called it quits, Boehner has to be wondering who's next to go. If we can sweep up 17 Republican seats, we can take Boehner's Speaker's gavel and win a Democratic House for President Obama!

In 48 hours, our FEC fundraising deadline hits and we'll report how many supporters we have standing behind us. Will you help us reach 500,000 strong standing behind our campaign to kick out the Tea Party House?

Name: Not Confirmed Abfxvrhxdue
Supporter record: XXXXXXXXX
Suggested Support: $8.00

As you can see, they've modestly suggested I send them $8.00 to help celebrate Ms. Bachmann's departure from the House of Representatives. They haven't picked a better pseudonym for me than "Abfxvrhxdue", but they think I should send them $8.00. I think there's a better way to celebrate, which is to give them no money at all.

After all, what does it matter to me if the Democrats are the ones who cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? What's more, why would I pay them to screw me and every other working class American? Supreme Court Justices? Are you kidding me? As Robert Reich noted today:

Now the President is nominating judges to fill all three of these crucial D.C. court of appeals vacancies at once. He’s also looking ahead at the strong probability that at least one Supreme Court justice, most likely Ruth Bader Ginsburg, will retire within the next two years, and he’ll need to get a replacement through the Senate.

Senate Republicans under the cynical direction of Mitch McConnell have abused the filibuster system, preventing votes on almost everything the President has wanted.

A Time for Harry Reid’s Backbone

Once again, as that title implies, Dr. Reich has given us the wrong diagnosis. Harry Reid's title isn't Majority Leader For Life. It's just Majority Leader. That's a post he could be voted out of. Yet even after failing to deal with the filibuster issue for three Senate terms, he still has his job.

It's pretty clear that he's doing his job well enough to satisfy Senate Democrats.

Ironically, if there's one thing that Michelle Bachmann was good at, it was at least attempting to do what her supporters wanted. Granted, what they want her to do is insane, but they insist on it, and Bachmann's work is, at least in part, a product of that insistence. I respect her more than I do the average congressional Democrat these days, despite her bigotry and bone-headed rhetoric (see NOTE 1). At least she had enough integrity to not take a dump on her supporters every chance she could.

This is yet another reason I'm going to make support for any political party contingent on its actually exercising the power we've given them on our behalf. The Democrats haven't done that. In fact, they seem to have gone out of their way to be useless. When we reward failure, all we will get is more failure.

Maybe when we progressives find our backbones, Harry Reid will remember he has one, too.

NOTE 1 In keeping with modern website design methods, users of Javascript filters like NoScript won't be able to see the photos on this page until they allow the buzzfeed.com and buzzfed.com domains to execute Javascript.

If I find a better collection of Bachmannisms that doesn't require this nonsense, I'll change the link. Lousy website design shouldn't be rewarded, either.

Trouble With Numbers

As recently as Monday, I was receiving e-mails like this one from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), regarding the special election in South Carolina's first congressional district:

From: Democrats 2014 <dccc@dccc.org>
To: <Name and address withheld>
Subject: latest reports: (Elizabeth Colbert Busch)
Date: May 6, 2013 3:20 PM

<withheld> -- The math is pretty simple:

Right now, Elizabeth Colbert Busch is down by just 1 point. But 
close isn't good enough. We want to win.

So here's the deal: If we can contact enough voters, fight 
Republican lies with the facts, and run the best damn 
get-out-the-vote operation that South Carolina's ever seen, 
we'll win tomorrow.

If not, we'll lose.

Name: <withheld>
Supporter record: <withheld>
Suggested Support: $8.00

Almost too close to call, as many other e-mails had said earlier. What was the result?

It was a solidly Republican district in South Carolina, and the Republican candidate won. By a wider than expected margin, too - 54% to 45%, with all precincts reporting.

Mark Sanford beats Colbert Busch in South Carolina special election

How did that "too close to call" election turn out to be so easy to call that they called it within an hour or so of the polls closing?

Here's what Real Clear Politics had to say about the polls and the outcome:

RCP: South Carolina 1st District Special Election - Sanford vs. Colbert Busch (screenshot by Cujo359)

What I get from this is that the only polling was done by the Democratic Party's polling firm, and it was, shall we say, very flattering to the Democratic candidate. Assuming that they at least got the trends right, what PPP's results suggest is that Colbert-Busch started out more or less even with Sanford, and went downhill from there. I wonder how they would have spun poll results that reflected reality - "We're going to get our butts handed to us, but send us money anyway"? Hard to think that would have been a good fund raising theme.

On a positive note, at least I'm not out that eight bucks.

Let's just add this to the many reasons I don't trust the Democratic Party further than I can spit into a hurricane.

Twitter Message Of The Day

Someone at the new MSNBC show All In With Chris Hayes summed up the real meaning of the word "center" in political discourse:

Twitter Message by @allinwithchris

At least in progressive discourse, this is true. It may mean something different on the conservative side, but I don't see folks over there using that term very much. For progressives, though, the "centrist" position is inevitably the one the movers and shakers in the Democratic Party want, which usually means whatever conservatives want.

I'm not going to bother with expository links for that one. There are about four years' worth of posts under the keyword "progressives" here that make that point, and a lot more under the keyword "Democrats".

Quote Of The Day

Paul Rosenberg, discussing how both political parties are failing in America, cuts to the heart of Barack Obama's "pragmatism" by contrasting him with Franklin Roosevelt (FDR):

It is not that FDR was an ideologue - quite the opposite. FDR was a profound pragmatist, whereas Obama is a centrist, neoliberal ideologue, whose thinking is so rigid that he won't even consider empowering his own more leftish supporters, even to strategically counterbalance hard right Republicans, who still do not regard his presidency as legitimate.

Regardless of your own ideology - conscious or unconscious - you just have to wonder why Obama clings so doggedly to both substantive policies and political strategies that repeatedly fail so profoundly. No doubt there are multiple factors involved, but the most compelling answer, I have come to believe, comes down to a lack of vision: Obama quite simply cannot see any alternative. His politics are drastically confined by the crabbed nature of his neoliberal imagination, formed in the shadows of Reagan and Thatcher.

...

There was a time when virtually every Democratic officeholder, from dogcatcher on up, realised that their party's fate was inextricably linked to the welfare of its core constituencies. FDR Democrats knew that in the marrow of their bones. But Obama is a neoliberal Reagan Democrat, who knows nothing of the sort.

Double trouble: In US both political parties are failing - and in denial

I disagree with his assertion that the Democrats focused solely on diversity as a political goal; it's just something that the rich don't oppose enough to punish them for, so it's an easy goal. It's pretty clear that's all they have left at this point. Nonetheless, Rosenberg's conclusion that we're all going to end up equal in the poorhouse is all too true. Nor do I disagree with him at all about his conclusion about the state of the two parties:

The Republicans were once the Party of Lincoln, but they are that no longer. They are much, much closer to being the Party of Jefferson Davis, with their government hatred, animosity towards minorities and their knee-jerk fealty to the idea of states' rights.

Meanwhile, Democrats, under Barack Obama, are no longer the Party of FDR. They are much, much closer to being the Party of Herbert Hoover, following Obama's initial protection of the bankers and neglect of foreclosed and imperiled homeowners, and his persistent obsession placing budget-balancing over job-creation and caring for the most urgent needs of tens of millions, victimised by the bad behaviour, bad judgment and bad ideas of their so-called "betters".

Double trouble: In US both political parties are failing - and in denial

At least, other than to nit-pick that at least Hoover was willing to consider strong regulation of the banks after that collapse. Neither of our current political parties, nor our President, appear to care about that goal at all.

It's a sad place we've gotten ourselves to, that's for sure. It's worth reading Rosenberg's essay, if for no other reason than for a quick itemization of where our politics are these days.

UPDATE: Altered the second paragraph to say what I meant about Democrats and diversity.

I Get E-mails

This is precious. I received this e-mail at the account I use for this blog. I probably have used it a time or two to communicate with Democratic politicians for one reason or another, but I wouldn't join a list of supporters using this identity. Plus, as I've explained before, I never do financial transactions using this identity. Yet, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has sent me several e-mails like this recently:

No, my name is not "Abfxvrhxdue". We can confirm that much. It makes you wonder how many others on their "supporters" list are similarly fictional.

Progressive Idiocy: Remember - The Other Guys Always Suck

Jon Walker wrote something interesting at FireDogLake today:

Back during the 2008 Democratic primary none of the strongest candidates supported same-sex marriage. Now with the recent endorsement of Hillary Clinton every Democrat that is viewed as a possible top tier candidate in the 2016 Presidential primary has come out in favor of marriage equality.

2016: All Top Tier Democratic Candidates Now Back Marriage Equality

As recently as five years ago, not one "serious" candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for President would support gay marriage. Now, they all do. That's pretty remarkable, all by itself.

What amazes me, though, is that it wasn't too hard to find opinions like this, regarding Sen. Rob Portman's (R-OH) recent reversal on the subject:

Sen. Rob Portman has made headlines by declaring his support for gay marriage after learning that his own son is gay, and apparently we’re supposed to praise him for his new enlightenment. But while enlightenment is good, wouldn’t it have been a lot more praiseworthy if he had shown some flexibility on the issue before he knew that his own family would benefit?

Other People's Children

Sen. Portman is at least able to listen to his son, which is something that far too many on that side of the fence seem unable to do. What's more, when confronted with the truth that right in his own family was someone who had "chosen the gay lifestyle", and that maybe it really wasn't a "lifestyle" at all so much as what genetics had handed his son, he was willing to change his mind. Plus, and progressives no doubt forget this for the simple reason that most would never think of doing this to Democratic politicians, but Portman's base is not inclined to let its politicians off the hook when they go off the reservation, so to speak. Portman is going to face some trouble for this.

Yes, he may have decided that gay marriage is going to happen, and he's better off being on board. That's possible. But the story right now looks a lot more like he changed his mind, because he loves his kid and he wants him to have the same rights most Americans do.

And I'll repeat, because progressives like Prof. Krugman seem unable to recall this point: five years ago no "serious" candidate for President among Democrats supported this. So, am I to believe that all their conversions were principled decisions based on what's best for society, and Portman's was just the selfish act of an opportunistic politician? Am I particularly to believe that in light of the fact that it's more clearly beneficial to Democratic politicians than to Republicans at this point? Apparently, I am.

Sadly, I'm just not that perceptive.

Why can't progressives ever acknowledge that sometimes, every once in a great while, a member of the opposition will do something principled, or at least something that is both right and requires some courage? I guess then we'd have to look at the sorry record of Democratic politicians in upholding what are supposed to be Democratic values against the wishes of their own party leadership, wouldn't we?

Clearly, that isn't going to happen.

Twitter Message Of The Day

Cenk Uygur gets it right:

Twitter Message by Cenk Uygur, Mar. 15, 2013

He'll get no argument from me. As one respondent put it, it's just that one of those two parties is more up front about its goal of serving the rich than the other is. Come to think of it, I've written that in the past. A lot. I also wrote this:

As I've noted, Ralph Nader's admonition that when you choose between two evils, what you end up with is evil, is just as true today. When you're in the habit of just choosing the lesser evil, the evils will get worse over time.

Quote Of The Day, Oct. 29, 2011

So far, I don't see any reason to recant that prediction.

Progressive Idiocy: A Fundamental Truth Everyone Else Knows

Over at Corrente, letsgetitdone (A.K.A. Joe Firestone) had this to say today about the Senate Democrats' refusal to amend filibuster rules after they've been abused for three terms running by the Republicans:

[I]t's clear that part of the reason for the dysfunction we see is the existence of the filibuster and various procedures related to it, that now prevent the Senate from passing legislation unless 60 Senators will support a cloture vote. In itself, the maintenance of this rule has nothing to do with partisan commitments and much more to do with the individual wish of every Senator to be able to block legislation they are opposed to.

The power to say no, is a very important one for each Senator, allowing them to get special concessions when their vote is needed to get legislation through. Senators fear being in the minority and not having the power to say no. When they are in the majority they worry that some day, perhaps soon, they will be in the minority, and will need that ability to say no to extract concessions. They also worry that removal of the filibuster, would give campaign contributors much less reason to donate to the campaigns of individual Senators and even more reason then they have now to focus donations on Congressional leaders.

Is It Really About “Dysfunctional” Partisanship?

This is entirely correct, and from what I've seen, it is news to most progressives. Whenever I'm unfortunate enough to be involved in a conversation about politics with progressives these days, one of the things I almost inevitably have to tell them is that there is one thing that all politicians, whether good ones or bad, no matter what the system they work in, need in order to be effective at their jobs. That something is this:

Power.

They need to have the ability to get people to do the things they need those people to do in order to accomplish what they want. Whether that power is for the betterment of society, or just the betterment of themselves, they need that ability or they won't succeed. That power can be in the form of persuasion, intimidation, money, or favors traded, or a combination, but they have to be able to exercise it better than their rivals.

To me, this is the fundamental rule of politics. Yet it seems to be a mystery to most progressives. When they label voting for alternative parties or otherwise withholding support from errant Democrats "making a point", they clearly don't understand that it's the only point that matters, at least if you as a progressive voter have any hope of getting what you want. Unless Democratic politicians understand that they will lose their power if they fail to do what we want, then they will continue to fail to do what we want. The power they will work to maintain is the power that will go elsewhere if it's not satisfied.

If there's another way of making that point, then tell me. However, if that solution involves the word "primary", then your next words need to be an explanation of where the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to mount credible primary challenges in enough places to matter are going to come from. What we've seen in the past is that the current crop of Democratic politicians will happily use the money of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and its Senate counterpart, the DSCC, to finance incumbents facing progressive challengers. We learned that in Bill Halter's campaign, and in Ned Lamont's. "We'll out-organize them" isn't an answer, either. You need money for polls, television, and other advertising. Being better organized and attracting volunteers just makes the money required somewhat smaller. Don't tell me just the act of challenging an incumbent in a primary will change his behavior, either. It won't.

Nor is "reforming the party from within" an answer. You don't reform an organization you work for. You do what the bosses tell you. The bosses need to be given motivation to do the right thing. That will not come from their underlings. It will come from outside. Only when the bosses believe that their success, or the success of their organizations, depends on changing course will they do so.

Conservatives understand this. That's why their politicians will do just about anything they demand, even if they risk their chance of being elected. Republican politicians know which side will withdraw its support should they fail to do what's expected, and it's not progressives.

Until progressives grasp the basic concept that their undying support of the Democratic Party will only bring them more of the same, more of the same is all we'll get. There's really no point in discussing how to change things until that concept sinks in.

Progressive Idiocy: What, You Thought Something Would Change?

Caption: Think this was going to happen? Think again. This is 21st Century America.

Image credit: public domain/Wikimedia

Remember how, last December, the Democrats in the Senate were going to "cowboy up" and maybe change it so that the minority would have to actually show up for a filibuster?

Well, brace yourselves - it turned out that was just too radical an idea:

The final agreement reached by leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell and passed overwhelmingly by the Senate Thursday evening did not weaken the filibuster. It essentially served to move uncontroversial Senate business more quickly. Democratic senators roundly backed it — even the ones who were eager to end silent filibusters. Republicans didn’t object either.

How did it all fall apart?

According to conversations with pro-reform Democratic aides, party leadership sources and outside opponents of the filibuster, Reid’s main goal was ultimately not to weaken the 60-vote threshold that reformers desperately wanted to change. Instead his objective was to eliminate mandatory gaps between votes in order to move legislation and nominees that have cleared a filibuster more quickly — which he achieved.

Filibuster Reform Ends With A Whimper: How It Fell Apart

Wow, I bet none of you saw that coming, huh?

I felt so negative at the time for writing this:

To break a filibuster, the majority party needs to have at least 60 Senators ready to vote for it at the next opportunity. The minority party only needs to have the one speaking, and a couple of relief Senators at any time. As things stand now, that still gives the Republicans an advantage.

And that, I think, is the point. They still don't want to honk off their benefactors by doing what their supporters want.

As long as that's true, real change is worth about as much as a filibustering Senator's words.

Senate Democrats Might Do Something About The Filibuster, Kinda...

It turns out that I was too optimistic. Things may go a little more smoothly in the Senate, assuming there's no contention over at least a few things, but most of the legislation and appointments will move as slowly as they ever did. What the end result will be, of course, is that the Republicans, and conservatives generally, will get even more of what they want, and progressives won't. Why? Because they'll get what everyone agrees on, which was at least endangered now, and they're still going to obstruct everything else, because they can and their base expects them to actually accomplish something.

Folks have taken to blaming Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader for this, but it sure looks like he still has his job. If Democrats were upset over his failure, they could have removed him. They didn't. As far as I'm concerned, that makes this the Democrats' problem, not just Harry Reid's. At some point, you really have to blame the electorate for the people they vote for.

Maybe progressives will figure that out some day... Nah!

The next time some idiot of a "progressive" asks me why I'm so negative..., well, I already had lots of reasons. Now, I just have one more.

The Lesson Not Learned

A lot has been written about the events in Newtown, Connecticut last Friday. Much of it probably shouldn't have been written, and I haven't had much urge to add to that volume of work. Nevertheless...

First, having lost a loved one when I wasn't a whole lot younger than the parents of those school children are now, I understand in some small way what that feels like. Since that loved one wasn't my child, I only understand in a small way. For them, and the other survivors of that day, there will be no forgetting what happened, and for many there will be a hole in their lives that will never again be filled. For them, I'm truly sorry.

For the rest of us, though, there should be lessons to learn, but we progressives won't learn them. There will be folks who go on, for the most part rightly, about how violent a culture we can be, how little we do to treat the mentally ill in this country, or how easy it is for anyone, including the mentally ill, to obtain firearms here. What you probably won't read, anywhere but here, is this:

The Second Amendment is the only one that matters in America.

Theoretically, and by "theoretically", I mean, in my opinion, all the others are important, too. In fact, few arguments in favor of "Second Amendment rights", which often as not equate to unrestricted access to firearms for just about everybody, amuse me as much as the one that goes "it's the right that protects all the others." As the last few years have shown, as long as gun owners have that right, quite a few of them are ready to let all the rest go to hell.

That's probably not a new idea to many progressives. It is certainly not a new one to me. What ought to be interesting, and what is the thing that progressives absolutely will not learn, is that the reason it's the only one that matters is that there are people willing to punish politicians who don't respect it. The other nine amendments to the Bill of Rights have no such constituency. There was no mass expulsion of politicians when the Transportation Safety Agency (TSA) began violating our Fourth Amendment rights every time we want to take a commercial airline flight somewhere. No politicians lost their jobs thanks to repeated, and overwhelmingly bipartisan, votes for the PATRIOT Act every time it's come up. Progressives didn't switch parties while the Democrats allowed the consolidation of our news and publishing services into a big six of owners to make a mockery of the idea of freedom of the press. No, they just shrugged and voted Democratic anyway, like they always did and they always will.

The lesson they don't want to see is that you only have the rights you're willing to punish your politicians for violating. Our politicians know that they can't mess with the Second Amendment, but all the others are, so to speak, fair game. That's so obvious that even the dimmest of them must know that by now. If they don't, they probably have consultants who can get them up to speed.

Which is why I think that much of what's written shouldn't be. There's no reason to think that this time people will do something about any of the real causes of this tragedy. They won't make sure that people who have guns are sane and know how and when to use them. They won't make sure that the mentally ill are taken care of in a humane way. If anything happens at all, it will to further erode all our other rights. I'm sure we'll be hearing momentarily that we need to have more metal detectors, security guards, and fences at schools. We'll have to have more thorough background checks of staff and faculty, because you just never know what sort of axe-murdering lunatic might show up with a teacher's license. Whatever it is, it will be both useless and invasive. There's a very simple reason for that. It's the same reason nothing of use gets done about anything anymore:

Progressives won't punish Democrats for failing to do what they sent them to DC to do.

Until that changes, nothing else will. At least, it won't change for the better.

Afterword: Consider this notice that I won't be visiting most other blogs for a while. I'll probably try to keep up with economic news, but the wailing and foolishness about this is really starting to drive me crazy.

UPDATE: Oops. Forgot to put paragraph macros in the text. Hopefully, things should be easier to read now. I also added the Afterword.

Senate Democrats Might Do Something About The Filibuster, Kinda...

Image credit: public domain/Wikimedia

Frustrated by years of "obstructionism", in which the Republicans have used the power of filibuster to block measures that the Democratic Senate caucus probably didn't want to pass anyway, the Democrats have finally focused their righteous anger and are, maybe, willing to so something thoroughly underwhelming about it. Yesterday, Talking Points Memo's Sahil Kapur writes:

Currently the minority party can mount “silent” filibusters, so long as the majority can’t muster 60 supportive votes. That means they can block a bill from moving to debate or to a final vote without necessarily occupying the floor and speaking, just like the iconic scene in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. If even a single member of the minority objects quietly to a simple-majority vote on a piece of legislation or a nominee, the majority must muster 60 votes to end debate.

The Democrats want to alter these incentives by implementing a “talking” filibuster that shifts some of the burden to the filibustering minority. The reforms under consideration would take away obstructing senators’ shortcuts in scuttling a bill, forcing them to occupy the floor and speak ceaselessly until one party or the other loses its will and gives up.

How Democrats’ Main Filibuster Reform Would Work

Don't get me wrong - this is not nothing. It does at least make the minority party earn its filibuster, making it somewhat more costly for them to block legislation, including making some poor schlub stand up and waste the Senate's time in a visible and very public manner. Sad to say, it does nothing to make it more costly for the majority party to counter.

To break a filibuster, the majority party needs to have at least 60 Senators ready to vote for it at the next opportunity. The minority party only needs to have the one speaking, and a couple of relief Senators at any time. As things stand now, that still gives the Republicans an advantage.

And that, I think, is the point. They still don't want to honk off their benefactors by doing what their supporters want.

As long as that's true, real change is worth about as much as a filibustering Senator's words.

Hey Barney, Please Shut Up

As Joyce Arnold noted today:

Image credit: Barney Frank's office It’s Barney Frank, so it’s unlikely anyone is going to be shocked when he says something a bit “out there.” And since he’s retiring, and this was his last Democratic National Convention as a member of Congress, maybe he felt even more free than usual. Whatever he was, or wasn’t, thinking, his remarks regarding the Log Cabin Republicans [(LCR)] have certainly gotten attention. He made the comments while addressing the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender] Caucus, and, according to Chris Geidner at BuzzFeed, Frank had made similar remarks earlier, on Michelangelo Signorile’s radio show.

Queer Talk: Barney Frank Being Barney Frank

I was a lot more fond of Barney Frank and his mouth before he rolled over and begged for the banks, rather than trying to pass legislation that could have prevented another financial catastrophe like the one we saw in 2008. Instead, we got the Dodd-Frank Bill, an absurdly weak piece of legislation that the financial industry almost immediately figured out how to get around, and the Obama Administration has no intention of enforcing anyway.

Now, I just can’t help but remember that it was the LCR who brought suit against the Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy. How much longer would it have been before DADT was repealed if there hadn’t been a Republican gay rights group fighting a Democratic presidential administration in court? My guess is, given the general lack of interest on the part of that administration about gay rights, is “until hell froze over”. The Obama Administration was perfectly OK with letting good people be drummed out of the military because they were gay. That’s actually an example of partisan politics working – the party that was supposed to be working on behalf of a constituency fell down on the job, and another, seeing an advantage perhaps, ended up pushing them in the right direction.

Most of us have more than one issue we’re concerned with, We all pick from among options that are less than ideal. I wish people who want to say things like Barney Frank did about the LCR would step back and consider that once in a while, but such people aren't inclined to be thoughtful, in my experience. I can’t blame gays for being Republicans any more than I can blame progressives for being Democrats.

As for Barney Frank, he had a chance to say something about what was needed to make the things under his watch, the nation's financial industries, right. Instead, he took the money and ran. I wish he'd just shut the hell up and retire.

Labor Day

Somehow, I haven't felt much like celebrating Labor Day these last few years. Consider the history of Labor Day, as told by PBS, back when they still did journalism:

In an attempt to appease the nation's workers, Labor Day is born

The movement for a national Labor Day had been growing for some time. In September 1892, union workers in New York City took an unpaid day off and marched around Union Square in support of the holiday. But now, protests against President Cleveland's harsh methods [during the Pullman Strike] made the appeasement of the nation's workers a top political priority. In the immediate wake of the strike, legislation was rushed unanimously through both houses of Congress, and the bill arrived on President Cleveland's desk just six days after his troops had broken the Pullman strike.

1894 was an election year. President Cleveland seized the chance at conciliation, and Labor Day was born. He was not reelected.

The Origins of Labor Day

It was begun by a Democratic President hoping that a basically empty gesture would make up for his unwavering support of the rich against workers. That support for the rich, incidentally, included bloody actions by the U.S. Army and the Marshals Service to break the strike. In Cleveland's case, it didn't work out so well.

Labor leader Eugene V. Debs was imprisoned by Cleveland's administration for advocating on behalf of the Pullman workers. He emerged from prison a socialist.

Here we are now at the beginning of the Twenty-First Century, and it looks like we are seeing history replay, just with a new twist. This is a march by March On Wall Street South, in Charlotte, North Carolina yesterday:

Braving extreme heat, more than 2,500 people from throughout the South and across the U.S. filled the streets of Charlotte on Sun., Sept. 2 for the March on Wall Street South. The demonstration confronted the banks and corporations headquartered in Charlotte that are wreaking havoc on communities throughout the country, and raised a people’s agenda for jobs and justice as the Democratic National Convention convenes here.

...

Along the march, demonstrators stopped in front of the Bank of America’s world headquarters and Duke Energy’s headquarters. At each stop, people who have been directly impacted by the practices of these banks and corporations –whose homes are being foreclosed on, who have massive amounts of student loan debt, and whose communities are being devastated by coal mining and energy rate hikes — spoke out and exposed these profit gauging institutions.

2,500 march on Wall Street South: We need jobs, housing, justice, not war!

After ignoring the recall race in Wisconsin, and doing nothing on labor's behalf when the Democrats had a huge majority in Congress, President Obama and the Democrats are holding their convention in one of the more notorious "right to work" states in the union, in a convention center they refuse to acknowledge publicly is named after Bank of America.

What's the reaction of labor leaders to all of this? Maybe it's best summed up by AFSCME President Lee Saunders, as quoted by BuzzFeed:

Saunders doesn’t hide his disappointment with the selection of North Carolina as the convention state.

“Charlotte wouldn’t have been our choice as a city,” Saunders told reporters after his Ohio delegation breakfast speech. “It’s in a right to work state, it’s tough to organize down here for private and public sector unions. “

“But we’re beyond that now,” Saunders said. “I mean, it’s over. Charlotte was selected and we’ve got to keep our eyes on the prize and that’s to win in November, and we can’t get caught up in B.S. to be quite honest with you.”

Saunders struck a hopeful note. “We’re going to continue to move forward, we’re going to continue to organize. We’re going to be just fine.”

Labor Brings Its Frustrations To Charlotte

Can you imagine a sharper contrast between this guy and Eugene Debs? Debs went to jail for his cause. Saunders won't even risk punishing Democrats for the obvious snub of holding this convention in North Carolina, and all the past nonsupport on a whole range of issues. Richard Trumka's bright idea of only supporting Democrats who had earned labor's support was still born. Only a few weeks later, he endorsed Obama and pledged to support him. Why? I think it's because that's just too great a risk - if he didn't support Obama, anything that happened regarding government's treatment of labor would be Trumka's fault.

These guys won't even risk their jobs for their cause.

When you get right down to it, what I wrote after the failed Wisconsin recall election is just as true today:

Labor unions have been led by people for quite some time now who are happy to just collect their paychecks and go home. This is a big part of the problem they have, because it's become abundantly clear to anyone who is paying attention that Democrats in general, particularly at the national level, or unsympathetic at best, and hostile at worst, to labor's interests. Yet labor unions have refused to stop acting as though the Democrats are their best buddies in the whole world.

What's worse, when people who run things aren't committed to the interests of their rank and file, it makes it hard to persuade that rank and file to do things that they would otherwise not see as being in their best interests in order to make their collective power greater.

All Over But The Shouting: Wisconsin Recall Edition

This is the reason labor isn't getting what it wants - its leaders won't fight for it, and its rank and file won't demand that they do. Until that changes, we'll be seeing a lot more mournful Labor Days.

Enjoy your Labor Day if you can possibly do it. You deserve it, and things aren't likely to get better any time soon.

Quote Of The Day

Ralph Nader writes in OpEd News:

What would President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who signed the first minimum wage law in 1938, say about today's pathetic Democrats (with few exceptions like the more than 20 Representatives who signed on to Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s H.R. 5901 bill to raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour)? Remember how FDR pushed his Democrats in the 1930s? He would not have tolerated today's Democratic Party of caution, cash and cowardliness.

The Democratic Party Sleeps on FDR's Legacy

So, tell me again how good it is that President Obama isn't FDR?

And yet, if the folks quoted in this USA Today article are any example, the Democrats and their sycophants still don't get it. After observing that many more Americans who don't plan on voting favor Obama than don't, the article goes on to quote the pollster:

"There's this pool of people that Barack Obama doesn't even need to persuade," says David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which took the survey. "All he needs to do is find them and identify them and get them to the polls. It's like a treasure chest. But the bad news is that the treasure chest is locked.

Why 90 million Americans won't vote in November

Well, you see here's the problem, and anyone who knows much of anything about FDR would realize that he would have known this - when you don't take care of the base, it doesn't take care of you. It doesn't matter if it's because it won't or because it can't; it's probably both anyway. The sad fact is that when people have to work hard just to stay ahead of the rent, they don't have time to worry about who is President, or who is running Congress. And when the folks they sent to Congress to fix the problem hem and haw and then go home for recess without accomplishing a damn thing worth mentioning, then it's pretty clear that voting didn't make any damn difference anyway, so why should they bother?

A ten year old child could get this idea, assuming he wasn't motivated not to. Yet supposedly intelligent adults are stumped.

If there's anything we've learned about our politicians in the last few years, it's that they don't know what our lives are like out here, and most of them don't care.

Lambert Strether: The Obama Enablers' Big Lie

Over at Naked Capitalism, Lambert Strether has written a strong rebuttal to one of the central excuses for the Obama Administration's and the Democrats' failure to do what we sent them to do back in 2009:

The bottom line is that “Republican obstructionism” is entirely of the Democrat’s making. What Reid (and Obama) want — or say they want — to do in 2013, and butchered doing in 2010, could and should have done in 2009, immediately after Obama’s inauguration. Republicans would have had no ability to obstruct had Obama and the Democrats not deliberately given them the power to do so. The gridlock is a gridlock of choice.

The Obama Enabler’s Big Lie: “We Never Had the Votes”

As Lambert notes, anyone who remembers the "nuclear option" back in 2005, when then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened to use Senate procedures to eliminate the filibuster if the Bush Administration's Supreme Court nominees were blocked by filibuster, knows that there are ways around filibusters for politicians willing to employ them. Yet this remains a big lie of Democratic politics - that it was those nasty Republicans who spoiled it all. The truth is that things were much better for Harry Reid and President Obama if the insurance companies and other masters of the universe got what they wanted, and we didn't.

This is why no progressive with the least bit of sense thinks that merely electing more Democrats to Congress is going to fix what ails America. They clearly aren't motivated to do what they know they can, and most progressives seem perfectly willing to let them get away with it.

Quote Of The Day

Lambert Strether of Corrente and Naked Capitalism, wrote this as a postscript to the Netroots Nation 2012 "trade show":

I started out by saying that Democrats subtract value from the political work that ordinary citizens do; what the Democrats did to the people who stood in the snow in the Wisconsin recall is a clear example. An even more clear example is the betrayal of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of first- and second-time voters with the “hope and change” con in 2008 (though fortunately not all of them are disillusioned, and some of them moved on to Occupy). In both cases, the apparatus of the Democratic Party turned into a roach motel for progressive energy; a “process decoy” as some would say. In Ohio, SB5 worked exactly because the election was not personalized in the form of a party candidate, and the message stayed crisp because the Democrats were not there to blur it.

Trip Report: Netroots Nation (part II)

I'd add most of the captive progressive organizations like MoveOn.org and Media Matters to that list of time and energy sucks, but it's the lesson of these last few years. If you want something screwed up, at least from a progressive perspective, let the Democrats get involved in it.

Jimmy Carter And The Sad State Of The American Way

Caption: President Jimmy Carter speaking at the LBJ Library, February, 2011.

Image credit: U.S. National Archives/Wikimedia

In a "Quote Of The Day" three weeks ago, I wrote that there were few prominent progressives these days who have openly criticized the Obama Administration's abysmal record on human rights, and on the seemingly unlimited use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, more commonly referred to as "drone") attacks on people who may or may not have had something to do with terrorism. Sunday in the New York Times, a very prominent progressive added his name to the list:

While the country has made mistakes in the past, the widespread abuse of human rights over the last decade has been a dramatic change from the past. With leadership from the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 as “the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” This was a bold and clear commitment that power would no longer serve as a cover to oppress or injure people, and it established equal rights of all people to life, liberty, security of person, equal protection of the law and freedom from torture, arbitrary detention or forced exile.

A Cruel and Unusual Record

The op-ed was written by President Jimmy Carter. That paragraph is pure Jimmy Carter - idealistic almost to the point of not recognizing some basic truths. One of Carter's catch phrases when he was running for President was that America's foreign policy should reflect the morality of its people. I sometimes think it does even today, given what some of us think should be our foreign policy. What's more, as a read through the chapters covering our Senate's reluctant signing of the U.N. declaration on genocide in Samantha Powers' A Problem From Hell should remind us, our path to signing onto things like the U.N. Declaration has often been a rocky one.

Caption: Detainees arriving at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Jan. 11, 2002. Just one example of how we've broken our own rules lately, because they weren't convenient.

Image credit: Petty Officer 1st class Shane T. McCoy/U.S. Navy/Wikimedia

Still, I like to think that, at heart, we're a people who want to elect leaders wise enough to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, and who will respect the rights of their own citizens even if that's a rather inconvenient practice. Neither is the case today, as President Carter goes on to remind us:

In addition to American citizens’ being targeted for assassination or indefinite detention, recent laws have canceled the restraints in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to allow unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications. Popular state laws permit detaining individuals because of their appearance, where they worship or with whom they associate.

Despite an arbitrary rule that any man killed by drones is declared an enemy terrorist, the death of nearby innocent women and children is accepted as inevitable. After more than 30 airstrikes on civilian homes this year in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has demanded that such attacks end, but the practice continues in areas of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen that are not in any war zone. We don’t know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks, each one approved by the highest authorities in Washington. This would have been unthinkable in previous times.

These policies clearly affect American foreign policy. Top intelligence and military officials, as well as rights defenders in targeted areas, affirm that the great escalation in drone attacks has turned aggrieved families toward terrorist organizations, aroused civilian populations against us and permitted repressive governments to cite such actions to justify their own despotic behavior.

A Cruel and Unusual Record

Caption: A U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper UAV, in 2007. It's air power without consequences, at least for the people deciding whether to use them or not.

Image credit: U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson/Wikimedia

That last paragraph explains why concern over innocent deaths isn't just some namby-pamby librul value. Every dead innocent, in a country where people are inclined to distrust us anyway, is one more blow for future terrorism. Only bigots who think that somehow other people will be cowed or subservient in situations where we wouldn't accept such things would think otherwise.

As someone who voted for John Andersen back in 1980 because he was appalled at Carter's inability to run the government, I have to say that the guy has made up for those mistakes since then. As Glenn Greenwald noted in passing, he earned his Nobel Peace Prize, in contrast to a more recent winner.

He certainly demonstrated yesterday that he still deserves that Nobel, if only by being one of the rare people among his party to dissent on this issue publicly. Of course, the man always was an idealist, and that has always made him something of an outsider. That's yet another reason to be suspicious whenever we're lectured by DC insiders about how things really work, and how we just have to be "realists". While I didn't think so quite so much back in 1980, I appreciate that idealism now.

All Over But The Shouting: Wisconsin Recall Edition

UPDATED with final vote counts. Scroll down to UPDATE 2 if you've seen the rest of this article already.

Caption: County by county results for the June 5, 2012 recall election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

Image credit: Screenshot of this interactive map by the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Journal-Sentinel by Cujo359.

It's all over but for the shouting in Wisconsin:

Gov. Scott Walker became the first governor in the country's history on Tuesday to survive a recall election, besting his 2010 rival in a contest that broke spending records and captured the nation's attention.

...

The recall race for governor was viewed as crucial nationally, with both sides seeing it as a test of whether politicians could take on unions and survive. Last year, GOP Ohio Gov. John Kasich approved a law curtailing collective bargaining that went further than Wisconsin's, but voters there overturned it in a November referendum.

Walker wins recall race over Barrett

Quote Of The Day

Bruce A. Dixon, of Black Agenda Report, in an article about Newark Mayor Corey Booker, and what his success as a politician means for black political issues:

The right has decisively invaded the politics of black America, and owns the Democratic party outright. Barack Obama is effectively a center-right president, pursuing wars, prosecuting whistleblowers, shielding banksters, and using cruise missiles to dispatch suspected terrorists with an impunity the Bush-Cheney gang never enjoyed With black Democrats routinely shilling for imperial wars, austerity, school closings, privatizations, bailouts and kindly treatment for their campaign contributors, there are no outlets in the two parties for the real needs and desires of much of black America. The two party system has become people-proof and democracy-proof.

Corey Booker and the Hard Right's Colonization of Black American Politics

I think you could do a global substitution of "progressive" for "black" in that paragraph, and it would still be largely true. While it's likely that how things played out worked differently, there's no doubt that conservatives, largely via the Democratic Party, call the tune pretty much everywhere.

Having explained why often enough that I don't feel the need to repeat myself, I'll just say that what this means to me is that the real problem is that both black and progressive politics became too much about Democratic politics, and at some point failed to be about what really matters. As long as major progressive organizations continue to depend on the Democratic Party for funding, as some like Media Matters and the Center For American Progress do, that will continue to be a problem.

The National Rifle Association, LGBTs, and Wall Street have all shown that the way to influence politics isn't to be slavishly loyal to one party. It's to make it perfectly clear that their support can go elsewhere.

When progressives learn to do that, politicians may take them seriously. They certainly won't until then.