Eventually Congressional Republicans smelled a rat, rightly so, and began heaving buckets of cold water on the idea last night. They’d already inflicted enormous damage to the healthcare legislation process, a “summit” only gave the President a chance to sneakily corner them with some of their laughable and offensive political principles.

Be that as it may Kevin’s list still has merit, as always leaving me ambivalent about the passage of healthcare “reform” at this time. On one side is the grossly humiliating and mortifying beyond measure the healthcare legislation process has been to the Democratic brand, we idiotically started off compromises with ourselves (assholes called it a childish reach for perfection) by losing single payer, then the public option, only finally to be taxed for our own plans, our Congressional weaknesses brutally scrubbed into our faces.

Throw in a few infuriating Billy Tauzin broken promises and I could see the whole thing drown, it’s been so ugly, but our people badly need the win, as Kevin says, and although no one knows what would happen with failure all agree whatever form it would take would be very bad.

Everyone dies, a ridiculous bit of hyperbole from Ezra Klein on the prospects of healthcare legislation failure, but still, he’s correct the consequences would be ultimately dire for many Democrats, maybe even Obama (I doubt it). We really don’t want to hand the Republicans such a huge political win, that truly would be disastrous for the Republic, so somehow, someday, healthcare should pass.

Two facets of this endless little summit ploy need mention before the healthcare nightmare ends, if it ever does. The first is the baffling Obama obtuseness in refusing to see the urgent need to wrap this the fuck up right away, the Party has already been humiliated and weakened, and besides it’s not a done deal in any sense, every day of delay increases the odds of failure, hence the bellicose pass the damn bill! from the normally placid Kevin Drum. The Obama administration should not be fooling with the clock in any sense, it’s disturbing to see them encourage the nightmare with a summit.

Aside from absent plain political smarts the move bespeaks a smarmy, blithe acceptance of things being just fine, baby, games are good with us with so many out of work. Are children dying from malnutrition and lack of care? Call a summit. Do our people desperately need dignity and trains to take to a job? Go to war ever more boldly in Afghanistan.

Summits are for snow. Presidents are for leadership. Let’s hope the Obama Administration gets with the show as soon as possible on both.

Imagine if the greatest threat humanity has ever faced got even a fraction of the attention given to the small band of extremist idiots who wasted hundreds of dollars each, over the weekend, to delude themselves that they are brave heroes on engaged in a noble cause. Extremist idiots who, themselves, deny the existence of the greatest cause humanity has ever faced.

On February 1, The Guardian had this simple but devastating news:

A global deal to tackle climate change is all but impossible in 2010, leaving the scale and pace of action to slow global warming in coming decades uncertain, according to senior figures across the world involved in the negotiations.

"The forces trying to tackle climate change are in disarray, wandering in small groups around the battlefield like a beaten army," said a senior British diplomat.

In the Bush era, we could blame it on Bush. But Bush is gone, and although President Obama isn't pushing a climate deal with the desperate urgency it really requires, he is at least engaged in the process. Just today, more effort was announced. And yet, the international process is broken. It can't be blamed on the U.S., anymore. A process that doesn't have time for incrementalism, much less stalling, is completely broken. A process that doesn't have time for self-interest and nationalist obstructionism. The world's governments are failing.

Many of those contacted say only a legally binding deal setting "top-down" global limits on emissions can ultimately avoid the worst impacts of rising temperatures. But a global deal at the next major climate summit in Mexico is impossible, says the former deputy prime minister John Prescott, now the Council of Europe's rapporteur on climate change. "I don't care if it's government ministers or NGOs, if they think you can get a legal agreement all signed up by November in Mexico, I don't believe it."

Impossible.

Meanwhile, a major glacier in Antartica is about to collapse. A November study says the ability of plants to absorb some human-emitted carbon dioxide probably has been over-estimated. A new report says the number of strong storms in the western Atlantic could double by the end of the century. A new study says ocean acidification could diminish phytoplankton blooms, thus undermining the source of half the world's atmospheric oxygen. And, of course, January saw this report, in Science Daily:

A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year on record.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 -- for the second warmest on record.

Or even more to the point:

January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. Looking back to 1880, when modern scientific instrumentation became available to monitor temperatures precisely, a clear warming trend is present, although there was a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s.

The nations facing imminent catastrophe are trying. But they are tiny, and considered politically insignificant. There are already an estimated 25,000,000 climate refugees. We ignore them not only at their peril but at our own. These nations, these peoples. Keep an eye on them. Their desperation will be ours. Because in the face of the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, the world's leaders are failing to lead.

Had we competent political actors representing us an instant reaction would not have occurred: watching a hanging curve go by, meaning—yet again, for the thousandth god damn time from the Obama people—this huge fat blimp of a political pitch is sailing in over the political plate of American politics, Hindenburg all the way, just sitting there with all the time and ease in the world to absolutely crush, to hit a desperately-needed way-easy tape-measure shut-the-fuck-up-Republican home run.

All of this could be stopped in 15 minutes with Obama calling Shelby out personally and humiliating him for it. Then Emanuel for 5 minutes the next day, Gibbs one more time the next, and so on. But, incredibly, the Obama Administration brayed awful political weakness from day one, they were going to be so above it all (right) in a plane of serene bipartisanship, so this constant crude Republican knifing has never stopped. Indeed, only become worse, as Shelby, a classic Senate asshole, just demonstrated.

In the real American world we live in there is no Democratic Party Wurlitzer media machine to rev up and crush Shelby for being such a fool, Yglesias, Krugman, Meyerson, Balloon Juice and The Left Coaster aren’t equal to Rush Limbaugh and television, no. So grow up and deal, the disadvantage is easily obviated by using the official position slots to hammer the media message home every day.

Oh that’s right, please excuse me, the New Way, the Mature Way (heh) is to leave all that shouting and political knifing in the past, we’re so sick of it all, the Messiah of American Bipartisan Politics [smirks] will accomplish great things by bringing us together with Republicans like Shelby and Cheney in summits.

So the great hanging political curve of last Friday, already rapidly slipping away as these pixels glow on, is about to vanish and disappear, as have so many other great easy political opportunities in the last year. Krugman sees it, Yglesias and Meyerson see it, hell everyone does, there is still one day left, one more news cycle, to start the swing that smashes this out the park. Again, it’s easy but liberal media voices can’t do it on their own, not in the United States we live in.

If it doesn’t happen partisan realism Democrats like yours truly will be immensely frustrated, embarrassed, and horribly mortified we got so shamefully punked by some dweeb Senator asshole yet again. Why is this not difficult to understand? Political failure begets political failure, that too is just the way of our world, I’m not going to help or cheer the fool asses on who allege to hold authority in this disintegrating country, making gross mistakes when they damn well should know better. Are we Republicans? Jesus.

If we can’t fight back against turds for human beings like Shelby, what kind of Democrats does that make us? Millions of American souls look at us every day to seriously, earnestly ask that question without the blinders of some bullshit fantasy that American is in a New Age of Bipartisan Leadership, no, and the answer they often get is that Democrats seriously need some psychiatry and psychology help—fast—for they appear to be in a Stockholm-like syndrome where they like taking abuse, a sick sycophantic reaction occurs instead of the normal fighting from gross Republican abuses.

I’m not wrong on this, neither is Krugman, nor is Yglesias or Meyerson or Tim at Balloon Juice. Until Obama and Democratic Party leadership actively fight back every day (man we’re all so tired of speeches about fighting) on precise specifics the Democratic Party and liberal political goals will continue to be in a lot of trouble.

The GOP says they have an incremental approach that will reduce costs without adding trillions to the deficit. To that end, they are correct, as the plan John Boehner laid out back in November only cost $61 billion over ten years, because its aims were to accomplish so little. As evidenced by their proposal, the GOP has no interest in making insurance available to the uninsured; their only goal is to make it a little cheaper for those who already have insurance. The GOP freely admits this, as they claim that tackling the problem of the uninsured would cost too much and isn’t worth it. Besides, those folks don't vote GOP anyway.

Obama has already framed the session correctly:

The president offered a number of questions that his party would have for the Republicans.

“How do you guys want to lower costs? How do you guys intend to reform the insurance market so that people with pre-existing conditions, for example, can get health care?” he said. “How do you want to make sure that the 30 million people who don’t have health insurance can get it? What are your ideas specifically?”

The GOP doesn't have any ideas to expand coverage to the uninsured, and both sides know it. Oh sure, we'll hear Boehner, McConnell, and Cantor talk about the Holy Grail of tort reform, but beyond that the GOP has no plan to make useful health insurance more affordable for those who can't afford it now. The GOP would focus more on access to health care, not actual insurance, because the latter requires taking on the industry, and the GOP won't do anything to hurt the flow of campaign cash post-Citizens United. And that gets back to the notion of an incremental approach in an environment where the weak economy makes it way too easy for the GOP to scare people away from real reform.

So if the GOP wants to start small and focus on access instead of affordable insurance, what could Democrats do to box them in? Well, if the GOP really wants to deal with access to care, Democrats could push them to the wall and test their claim that they also want reform:

1. Obtain a huge increase in community clinics, which is already a part of the Senate health care reform bill;
2. Deal with the doctor shortage through a large expansion of the National Health Service Corps.
3. Get the market reforms and add a repeal of the industry’s anti-trust exemption; and
4. Encourage state and regional initiatives through CMS waivers and expanded Medicaid funding.

If the GOP wants to argue that we can't afford making insurance available to everyone, then Democrats can push the access and reform argument all the way.

The real Tea Partiers met in secret.

The real Tea Partiers were engaged in an act of defiance, for which they already had been threatened with a military response.

The real Tea Partiers risked their lives and their freedom by committing their daring act of protest literally surrounded by that threatened military.

The real Tea Partiers were in the midst of a burgeoning rebellion for which unarmed civilians of their town already had been massacred.

The real Tea Partiers were in the midst of a burgeoning rebellion, the initial victim of which, at that massacre, was a black man.

The real Tea Partiers were in the midst of a burgeoning rebellion whose first martyr was a black man.

The real Tea Partiers weren't merely whining about having come out on the wrong side of an election.

The real Tea Partiers were protesting the imposition of an economic monopoly by an unelected ruler.
The real Tea Partiers didn't enjoy the protection of their government as they whined petty complaints, in public, in peace.

The real Tea Partiers didn't enjoy a fancy celebration, with fawning attention given by their era's mass media.

The real Tea Partiers weren't gathered together by a corporation for the purpose of making a profit.

The real Tea Partiers didn't pay a small fortune to a dolled up nitwit to safely spew lies and concocted complaints from a public stage.

The real Tea Partiers sent their government into emergency meetings.

The real Tea Partiers had their government respond by closing their harbor.

The real Tea Partiers had their government respond by reducing their legal rights.

The real Tea Partiers had their government respond by ordering them placed under military occupation.

The real Tea Partiers had their government respond by replacing their civilian governor with a military commander.

The real Tea Partiers couldn't afford to publicly self-congratulate for acts of sniveling pettiness for which they should have been embarrassed.

The real Tea Partiers took great risks for a real cause for which they are celebrated by history.

Good luck and best wishes to the respective States of Louisiana and Indiana as your noble and mighty representatives of the National Football League beat the shit outta each other today in a contest of grace, gluttony, sanctioned violence and happy good times all around. It’s a shame someone must officially lose in all the magnificent spreads of food, drink and laughter, yes, but hopefully the lesson to ignore the football, concentrating totally on food, drink and your people on a State and Federal level has sunk in enough, enjoying the celebration just, well, because.

We in California have gleefully undertaken the modern American tradition Super Bowl parties, frolics and food, a very welcome development carried on from the late 20th century. In Mexico, it is said, almost anything and everything is cause for a celebration, something busy hectic Californians should surely welcome more often in their own lives. Frequent fun times are good for the soul, bespeaking of a mind and people where few hate us and hardly anything is spent on weapons. Basic investments in society from a wise people yield a need to laugh and have a good time often because, well, that’s the way life’s supposed to be.

I seem to be lying low most of the time as I glide out life, my favorite soda, a few friends and meticulously prepared guacamole with scoop white corn chips will do me perfectly this Super Bowl. One of my sisters prefers the minimalist version with nothing but salt and lemon juice, while I often like a little fresh jalapeño and cilantro, too, I haven’t made up my mind which one to make yet.

I’m actually a fan of the NFL, I’ll be interested in the football and mutely disdainful of the commercials, as always. A national holiday of drinking and gluttony, fine, but half of it centered around television commercials? Ugh. How gauche, how classically commercial American.

It’s a blindingly-bright open secret all up and down this great land that the great Foodie Holiday of Football is hardly better served than with a cannabis case of the giggles and raging munchies, all will listen and be reassured as millions of bubbling bongs slowly create a soft roar in the Republic before kickoff. Something very regionally strange has happened with the State’s slow march to legal marijuana, the great day when the grossly obtuse and cruelly stupid Federal pot club raids stopped finally happened with the election of Democrats, the holy hour of hash hookahs outside of Starbucks almost here.

Yet our while our Southern brothers and sisters wholly embraced the great news, pot clubs springing up by the hundreds like mushrooms in Los Angeles, things have been strangely quiet and silent about cannabis here in Northern San Francisco climes. We hear the fascinating stories of busty Los Angeles bikini vixens slowly twisting hips and bright placards on the street that say hey, you wanna pot card? Follow this hip to the doctor, honey, of course anyone can see how sick you are, the legal burn of holy purple hair is soon to be yours.

That, of course—very regrettably, damn, it sounds like a fine way of city life to me—was too much, even for Southern California, so soon hundreds of pot clubs will close. That can’t be all of the story, but like I said, it’s a SoCal thing, I hardly know anything about it, one would think with the Haight and Berkeley’n Santa Cruz and all the rest the mighty march of the buds would have started in my stoner neck of the woods, but it just didn’t. NorCal is pretty snobbish about its superior way of life compared to our smoggy Disney cousins, actually, and for once I find myself surprisingly envious of them.

Not to worry, of course, cannabis leads to bloated, sleepy beings, satiated from gluttony and insulated from grinding labor. Have fun, good luck Indiana and Louisiana, party on and sleep well, dudes, it’s a long work week ahead, Monday waiting for us.

As for the filibuster, the reason Senators don't have to talk on and on and on and on when they filibuster is because there was an agreement that a filibuster should not have to halt all Senate business. When the ability of the Senate to do any business for the people is stopped because of the misuse of the filibuster, then Senators must once again be made to get up and talk until they and their allies are talked out (*) if only to make it extremely visible to the Public who is responsible for the deadlock in the Senate. If they want to filibuster, then as Steve says make them talk.

(*) Doing so they can spend their energy trying to convince their colleagues to vote with them with their public oratory or they can rally the country to their side. Somehow visibility on who is responsible for the stalemate must be brought back if there is any hope to bringing balance to our form of government.

Note also, I believe the Democrats could have found some very eloquent voices on why they were blocking the terrible Bush judicial nominees if they had been required to talk. The Republicans should be required to be explicit about their objections in a very public way. Just as Martin Luther King, Jr. preached civil disobedience it was only because he was willing to pay the price for his actions by going to jail that his actions got moral authority. These guys who are playing with blackmail don't expect to have to pay anything for their acts. Like all bullies and cheats they believe they are above the laws and rules of honorable behavior. Make them talk.

So there's a lot of information out there that people understandably are concerned about. And that's why I think it's very important for us to have a methodical, open process over the next several weeks, and then let's go ahead and make a decision. And it may be that -- you know, if Congress decides -- if Congress decides we're not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not. And that's how democracy works. There will be elections coming up and they'll be able to make a determination and register their concerns one way or the other during election time.

Sargent:

But it seems clear that he also acknowledged the possibility that it may not happen — and cast that possibility as something Dem Congressional leaders would ultimately decide on their own. It’s hard to see how that helps the prospects for getting it done.

Yes, the president again said he wants to see it get done. But so have many of us. So what? And yes, Congress should be able to work this out on its own. But expecting Congress to get something done on its own is absurd as expecting Congress to get something done on its own. The Republicans oppose everything, and the Democrats are hundreds of characters in search of a plot.

Sargent previously pointed out that David Axelrod had taken a soft stand on pushing Congress, and The Hill reported that Democratic Senators were upset with the White House, for its lack of direction in closing the deal, on health care reform.

The president is the leader of his party. He picks the chairman of the national committee. A Congress of his party follows his agenda. The Democrats didn't push health care reform in 2007. Win or lose on the issue, Obama gets the credit or the blame. Great Democratic presidents have been known to send their own legislation to Congress. It's called leadership.

It sounds as if President Obama is setting up Congress to take the fall, should health care reform not get done. Which is great politics, in an election year. Maybe it's what he considers a means of pressuring Congress. Or maybe it's a means of distancing himself. Triangulating. Blame Congress. And if we lose Congress, as we did in 1994, he can blame the Republicans, some more. Which worked pretty well for President Clinton, in 1996.

The chairman of the Senate banking committee said Friday that efforts to reach a bipartisan consensus on sweeping legislation to overhaul the nation's financial regulatory system had "reached an impasse," but he said he intends to move forward even without Republican support.

For the second time since November, talks have stalled between Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said ranking Republican Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.). Both men have expressed interest in reaching a consensus on a wide-ranging bill that would revamp regulation of the financial services industry. But after months of negotiation, they have yet to overcome a key hurdle: the proposed creation of a consumer protection regulator to focus on mortgages, credit cards and other such financial products.

[snip]

Dodd most likely can muster enough support from Democrats on his committee to move the bill to the Senate floor. But eventually he would need Republican support to overcome the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster.

Fine. Get it to the Senate floor, and beg the GOP to filibuster the consumer protection agency in plain view of Americans. Hold up all other Senate business and call in all the cameras and make it as easy as possible for the GOP, Mr. Scott Brown included, to filibuster against protecting consumers from big banks and Wall Street.

Do it now. Please. For a change, please call their bluff and make them do Wall Street's bidding in plain view of Main Street.

Mathew Yglesias commented that this “agonizing glide of unemployment” must have been implemented to produce Republican “officeholders,” since Reagan presided over the worst employment record in modern history, but Obama seems determined to out-misery him. Whether Obama could lose his job with a Republican president in 2013 Yglesias didn’t specify.

Martin Longman described the pathetic chump Republican opposition to Obama as “a problem,” here it is in all its thunderous clapping of pathetic employment failure: Obama is pursuing obtuse, core principle-betraying policies that profoundly squat on his little people Democratic Party heritage and naturally produce vast amounts of painful failure, yet because the Republicans have absolutely no one but laughable pathetic chumps to run against him in 2012 Obama must have kryptonite confidence he can do anything his first term.

Make no mistake, this outrageous sniveling and pussyfooting around by a Democratic President in the face of this roaring employment horror is, at its most base, profoundly embarrassing and shameful, I’m surprised anyone self-identifies with the Party after this. We’re setting up ourselves to be worse than Reagan on employment, God.

The President could have put a liberal Democrat in charge of the Fed who could have pulled all kinds of Econ strings to help get our people back to work, but instead put a lying inflation-weenie Republican in such a critical policy position. The President could have given up on sullying the Democratic brand with those stupid stimulus tax cuts, spending the money instead on real jobs, but he didn’t. The President could have led for a robust $200 billion jobs bill he could be signing today, but went to Hawaii on vacation instead. By setting himself and us up to be worse than Reagan he in fact demonstrated he’s not a very good Democrat, leaders from the past never would have left out little people hanging like this with so many easy steps for a fix that are obviously good politics too.

Noted that Congressional Democrats barely make a peep about it themselves, I wouldn’t go so far as to use the word enable in this awful scene, the President leads the Party, but their obsequious silence certainly doesn’t help.

How is it possible President Obama and the Democratic Party have so lost their way on such a bedrock principle of the Party? Democrats are for the little people, their lives and their jobs, it has always been so, even if we Americans eschew the classic Labor label for our side of the fence. Now, in 2010, all of sudden we don’t give a shit, how is that supposed to sell in 2010 and 2012? It won’t, obviously, elections that should have been total cakewalks over a Republican political partly just as much a political corpse as John McCain just four months ago are now in total jeopardy. Jesus Christ, only Democrats could pull this off.

Solutions require political scapegoating of the stinking unfeeling assholes who got us into this horror show, the Republicans. Can’t do that if you’re the New Messiah of Bipartisanship. [spits] We could forget about weenie tax credits, God I’m so sick of that Republican half-assed business butt-kissing solution to anything and spend money on Americans directly just like the assholes do with the defense budget, but oh no, that would be, well, liberal. We could appoint Democrats to the Federal Reserve since, you know, we have Democratic leadership of the entire government, but we don’t how to lead, we’re incompetent, Democrats in the 21st century are flat-out not-very-good politicians.

I understand the possible tactics Digby mentions, that engaging Republicans “elevates” them for some mysterious reason, or that Democratic base members are being “triangulated,” screw our little people endlessly and The Left are supposed to be hissing kung-fu fighter motherfuckers (see how reasonable I look?), but I don’t buy it for a second, tactics like this require subtlety and intelligence our Democratic chumps just don’t have.

By all means, wonks, pundits and most especially politicians, go on out there and prove me wrong, tell me how 10% unemployment is good Democratic Party politics that well deliver for us in 2010. Go for it, we’re all listening.


Many thanks to Brad DeLong for the graph image. h/t Atrios for the Delong link.

The government has accounted for the presence of rags in the mouths of the three prisoners by suggesting that they stuffed the rags in their own mouths to muffle noise which might alert guards, and that the rags were “inhaled as a natural reaction to death by asphyxiation.” Are you familiar with any other cases in which prisoners committed suicide by binding their feet, binding their hands, stuffing rags down their throats (and putting on a surgical mask to keep the rags in place), and while so bound, climbing up onto something to put their heads through a noose? In your opinion, would it be appropriate for a medical examiner to reach a conclusion that rags “were inhaled as a natural reaction to death by asphyxiation?”

After the last couple years, you would think that Republicans would give up on their plan to transfer the Social Security Trust Fund into the private accounts of Wall Street firms and banks. But you have to hand it to the Republicans. Reality never trumps ideology. Josh Marshall has the news:

House Republicans don't have an official budget yet. But they have what amounts to a first draft. The official budget will be released in March or April and will be authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee in consultation with the other Republicans on the Committee. But Ryan has released a budget he'd like. And it's actually fairly detailed. And if you read it, which we have, you start to wonder why Democrats aren't making a bigger deal out of it.

Want some details?

First, it calls for big cuts in Social Security benefits for everyone currently under 55 years of age. On top of the cuts it also calls for privatizing Social Security.

Basically the exact plan President Bush tried in 2005. Next, it calls for the full privatization and phasing out of Medicare. It'll be replaced by a system of vouchers in which instead of getting Medicare you get a voucher to buy un-reformed private insurance.

Good. Because Medicare is just as bad and unpopular as Social Security! And Marshall points out that it's not exactly the most fiscally responsible budget, either. It does get rid of the federal deficit. In about 50 years...

Apparently, Republicans leaders are refusing to say that Ryan's draft will be their final proposal. But Ryan is their budget guy. And Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), the Republicans' number two guy on the budget committee also is on the record supporting the privatization of Social Security.

So, spread the word. Should the Republicans regain the House, this year, the privatization of Social Security and Medicare will be in play. Sounds like something voters should know about.