Probably the most revealing conversation regarding LBJ’s political values and sentiments as they related to Social Security and Medicare was an extended conversation he had with his Press Secretary, Bill Moyers. In this conversation, recorded on March 10, 1965, Johnson permits himself to reflect almost philosophically on his support for a provision in a pending bill which would provide a retroactive increase in Social Security payments. Moyers is arguing that the President should support the retroactivity clause because it will provide a stimulus to the economy. Johnson supports the provision, but he makes clear to Moyers that he does not see programs like Social Security and Medicare as being about economics.

Johnson: My reason though is not because of the economy. . . . my reason would be the same as I agreed to go $400 million on health. I’ve never seen an anti-trust suit lie against an old-age pensioner for monopoly or concentration of power or closely-held wealth. I’ve never seen it apply it to the average worker. And I’ve never seen one have too much health benefits. So when they come in to me and say we’ve got to have $400 million more so we can take care of some doctors bills, I’m for it on health. I’m pretty much for it on education. I’m for it anywhere it’s practicable. . . . My inclination would be . . . that it ought to retroactive as far back as you can get . . . because none of them ever get enough. That they are entitled to it. That’s an obligation of ours. It’s just like your mother writing you and saying she wants $20, and I’d always sent mine a $100 when she did. I never did it because I thought it was going to be good for the economy of Austin. I always did it because I thought she was entitled to it. And I think that’s a much better reason and a much better cause and I think it can be defended on a hell of a better basis. . . . We do know that it affects the economy. . . . it helps us in that respect. But that’s not the basis to go to the Hill, or the justification. We’ve just got to say that by God you can’t treat grandma this way. She’s entitled to it and we promised it to her.”

Just imagine if Obama were to frame the healthcare debate in the same way…..’because it’s the right thing to do’?

Just imagine if people who feel this way…aka Progressives….were allowed a seat at the table along with the industry insiders, Reps and the Blue Dogs?

Instead we live in a world where our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters.

Even with a popular new president who has loads of political capital plus majorities in both houses of Congress, they still can’t get their chit together to “do the right thing”. Instead, they kowtow to a handful of fiscal scolds who worry about the “cost” of a public plan but are strangely silent over cart loads of money spent on the never ending wars or corporate welfare doled out to Wall St.

The chance of getting anything close to a “robust” public option is fading by the day and it looks more and more like we will end up with another bailout, this time for Big Ins/Pharma….their stocks are already soaring and with insurance companies still in the mix, Americans will continue to work their entire lives to give away their nest eggs to them.

So whilst we watch once again as our Dem “leaders” sell out to their corporate masters, it’s important that we remember what real a Dem used to look like……and weep.

Harper on Ross, Clinton et al

Harp Dennis Ross: Goodbye and Good riddance. After much fussing around, and consulting with a wide range of Washington types, I am now convinced that we can lift our glasses and toast Dennis Ross’ departure from his desk outside the principal’s office at the State Department. I am told, by several people, whose access to the corridors of power at Foggy Bottom are unasailable, that Ross was, to put it in straightforward lingo, dumped, fired, kicked the hell out. He did something that clearly crossed the line, and was working at cross-purposes to Secretary of State Clinton and special envoy Mitchell. Maybe he also crossed Richard Holbrooke.

[]

…But that aside, I call all of your attention to the recent friction, developing between the White House and the Secretary of State. The most immediate manifestations of this rift are: 1. The White House insistence that Secretary Clinton drop her plans to bring her longtime advisor and friend, Sid Blumenthal into State, as a personal advisor to the Secretary. I am told that, while Denis McDonough was the purveyor of the message from the White House to Hillary, it was actually Rahm Emanuel who led the charge against Blumenthal, and, by extension, against Secretary Clinton. There is a sycophant problem at the White House. The fact that Hillary Clinton has been doing a very effective job, repairing some of the damage from eight years of Bush-Cheney “diplomacy-free foreign policy,” is now rubbing some of the sycophants the wrong way–as if her success somewho undermines the credibility of the President.

I considered this a relatively secondary matter, reflecting the usual personality frictions, in an administration top-loaded with smart people. But when Clinton announced yesterday that she was not going to Moscow with the President for his face-to-face summit with Medvedev and Putin, I inquired further, and got a clear indication that there are ruffled egos at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who reacted with some paranoia about the prospect of a Hillary partisan like Blumenthal taking a slot at State.

This is bad news all around. The President’s economic team, led by Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Peter Orszag, and Rahm Emanuel himself, is so biased in favor of bailing out the banks, that they have squandered $8 trillion in taxpayers money, and have done nothing about the ever-shrinking real economy. Just look at the job losses since January–3 million net jobs lost from the U.S. economy, with other really serious repercussions.

In this context, the national security team, Gen. Jones, Sec. Def. Gates, Hillary, and the two special envoys–Mitchell and Holbrooke–have been operating effectively, with a degree of collegiality and genuine coordination of effort, that serves the President very well. You can disagree with some of their policy decisions, but I don’t think there is any dispute that this is a team of experienced and well-intentioned people. Thus, if there is any real effort, for petty realpolitiking reasons, to disrupt or diminish this team, that is going to be a further disaster. And that worries me far more than the whereabouts of Dennis Ross. Harper

So…..the WH is pissed that Hillary is doing such a good job ….and, as such making Obama look bad?

Holy smokes!

Risk of major social upheaval likely if bank bonanza continues

Is a Democratic administration and a Democratically controlled Congress presiding over one of the most regressive wealth transfers in history? Roosevelt Institute Braintruster Marshall Auerback investigates.

State and local governments have been forced into draconian budget cuts, firing workers who are among the most reliable in making their mortgage payments–when they have jobs: firemen, policemen, teachers, civil servants.

Yet the Obama administration won’t spend even a small fraction of what it has wasted on the banks to cover state shortfalls. The guarantee of $5.5bn in short term notes for California was deemed to be fiscally irresponsible, yet hundreds of billions have already been allocated to the likes of Citigroup, AIG, and Goldman Sachs, all of whom have already beefed up salaries and bonuses as they emerge from the embrace of the federal government……

[]

…..In one sense, it is pointless blaming Wall Street for exploiting a system heavily rigged in its favour. They know that the game is stacked in their favour, so they are rationally taking advantage. But the sickest part about the whole episode is that the casino rule makers, Obama, Geithner and Summers, are perpetuating a flawed game that they had in their power the chance to end. In my more cynical moments, I have to wonder why TARP, which is essentially a purchase of financial assets (and, hence, better left in the hands of the Fed, as Treasury is supposed to buy ‘real things’) was placed in the hands of Treasury. It’s almost as if this was planned deliberately so as to provide the anti-government folks with a cudgel with which to beat back supporters of activist government. My issue with Obama and his fiscal package is the same as Rob Johnson’s: taxpayer money is being deployed in hugely inefficient ways like Citi, BofA, AIG, and GM and discrediting fiscal policy in the process. Contrast this with the achievements of the New Deal. As Adam Cohen in his new book, NOTHING TO FEAR ,

“[WPA] workers constructed or repaired more than 125,000 buildings, including 83,000 schools; 800 aiports; 950 sewage plants; and 650,000 miles of roads. They built or improved 78,000 bridges and 25,000 playgrounds; terraced 271,000 acres of eroded land; and taught two million people to read. They also ran a famous Federal Art Project, which hired destitute artists to create murals for public buildings, posters, and paintings. The WPA produced a highly regarded series of state guidebooks and an acclaimed collection of interviews with former slaves, and it played a major role in building the San Antonio Zoo, New York City’s LaGuardia and Washington’s Reagan airports, and the presidential retreat at Camp David. In 1965, on the program’s thirtieth anniversary, The New York Times quoted a dispossessed North Carolina tenant farmer living in an abandoned gas station, who had been rescued by a WPA job. ‘I’m proud of our United States, and everyting I hear The Star Spangled Banner I feel a lump in my throat,’ he said. ‘There ain’t no other nation in the world that would have had the sense enough to think of WPA.”

This kind of puts the paucity of Obama’s fiscal goals in stark relief, doesn’t it?

The key is building a political case for the stimulus. This means getting people around a common objective where everybody is perceived to be benefiting and that the sacrifices are being borne fairly. This was clearly the situation in WWII when the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP got as high as 30.3% of GDP, yet nobody complained about the “sustainability” of government expenditures. The upshot was that by 1946, the GDP per capita was 25 percent higher than it had been in the last peace years before the War. GDP per capita continued to grow during the Marshall Plan years. Despite giving away two percent of U.S. GDP, American residents (and taxpayers) experienced a higher standard of living each year. And nobody spoke about us running out of money.

Bank bonanza must end

By contrast, the current bonanza for banks is neither economically efficient, nor politically sustainable……

[]

…Both FDR and JFK had a brain trust that could help forge public opinion. Obama has his halo, Geithner, and Summers. We’ve known from the start that was a misstep…..

So far, Obama is absolutely tone deaf to the situation…..and I have no idea what has to happen before he wakes up.

Read the whole thing

There are reports of the conversation at Open Left, Think Progress, A Chronic Dose, blogher, and this about healthcare from nyceve at DK…..

…..Here’s the gist of what he said on healthcare:

1. To begin, he repeated almost verbatim, what he was quoted saying last week in the New York Times.

“He’s got a better Congress, a more receptive climate,” Mr. Clinton said in a recent interview. “He also has, frankly, a better — at least more politically saleable — set of proposals.”

. . .Mr. Clinton said that as he looked at the matter in 1993 he believed that he had two options for providing universal coverage: either a tax increase or an employer mandate. Since he had already expended a lot of political capital on a deficit-reduction plan that included tax increases as well as spending cuts, he said he had to rely on the employer mandate.

“If you had an employer mandate, then you could leave the small businesses out or come up with enough revenues to subsidize the smaller employers — and since we couldn’t raise taxes, having an employer mandate guaranteed that the National Federation of Independent Businesses would join with the insurance companies,” he said. “Now they don’t have to have an employer mandate, because they can offer buy-ins. I hope they won’t give up on this public option.”

2. He went on, “the political landscape today is vastly different, for one thing, we don’t have a Republican leader (Bob Dole), who is running for President and determined to kill reform.”

Most important he said, “the health crisis (which I told him is no longer a crisis, but a catastrophe), is exponentially worse.”

“Let’s talk financing”, President Clinton said next. He said, “health insurers cream people and administrative costs are outrageous.”

Then he talked about single-payer. “Here’s the deal on single payer. Rationally, single payer is the best system”, he continued, “our system is the worst, most expensive and least effective.”

Bill Clinton and the 51 vote healthcare solution:

Here’s where it gets both interesting and infuriating.

Clinton said President Obama should try and get 60 votes but not if it means sacrificing good legislation. He said, “if we don’t get enough real reform in there, healthcare costs will be 20% of GDP in a few years.”

He said, “I would spend a little time trying to get to 60, then I would go for 51 votes.” He said the reason the 51 vote solution is not ideal is because Obama will have to continue dealing with these morons (MY WORDS, NOT WHAT CLINTON SAID), after legislation passes with a simple majority and they will behave like very angry revved up killer bees.

Clinton made the point, which I think is worth repeating, that Obama has “the best Congress since Kennedy was assassinated” and everyone was tripping all over themselves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with LBJ.

Given all this, he said he was feeling quite optimistic because, “we have better than a 50% chance to get reform.” Yes, this is accurate,it’s not a typo, this is what he said, “better than a 50% chance”.

I ended by sqeezing in one more quick question. “Mr President, are you going to twist any arms?” “I’ll do whatever I’m asked to do.” I’d say to anyone reading, he’s waiting to be asked.

So, warriors, we have our work cut out……

Really all it takes is “leadership”.

We have just witnessed how Obama is willing to pull out all stops and go to the mattresses for war funding.

The question is…..is he willing to do the same for healthcare.

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like it.

Just as he did with the stimulus package, he is already talking about giving away the store before we even get to first base.

Scarecrow at Oxdown Gazette…..

….Was it Casey Stengel who said, “Doesn’t anyone know how to play this game?”

The article is bad news from end to end. But you have to read through to the end to discover that HHS Secretary Sebelius wasn’t off on her own when she told the AP that Obama was open to compromising the public health insurance option that, if robust enough, could have held most of his reform priciples together. Obama is saying the same thing Sebelius said, and in the process, he almost threw the Kennedy plan under the bus:

White House officials pointed out that the health committee bill was just one of several proposals and sought to keep the focus on President Obama’s larger goals.

Mr. Obama, moving aggressively on the issue, sent out an e-mail message to supporters to raise money for a grass-roots campaign in support of the health care legislation. And in an interview with CNBC and The New York Times, Mr. Obama expressed a willingness to compromise on his call for a new public insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

“We’re open-minded,” Mr. Obama said. “If, for example, the cooperative idea that Kent Conrad has put forward, if that is a better way to reduce costs and help families and businesses with their health care, I’m more than happy to accept those good ideas.”

Now, maybe Obama is just stating his usual “I’ll listen to any good ideas” mantra. But he didn’t say, “the co-op idea needs to be vetted; we need to know that it would meet the following principles and actually work, and those questions [e.g., these] need to be answered before I accept that as a viable concept, let alone a substitute for a robust public option.” Instead, he sent a signal to Congress, intended or not, that this is the compromise he’s leaning towards….

And that’s just the “public plan”, not single payer.

When it comes to political testicular fortitude, Obama’s are the size of raisins…….unless of course, it’s something like war or something the Republicans are behind…then he’s all teeth.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again….Obama is not a Democrat. He is a moderate left leaning Republican.

I don’t see any liberal cause he is willing to fight for.

I hope in healthcare (and climate change) he proves me wrong, but I’m not holding my breath.

Some snippets…

….Despite dozens of official inquiries in the five years since the Abu Ghraib photos first exposed our abuse of Iraqi detainees, the torture scandal continues to spread like a virus, infecting all who touch it, including now Obama himself. By embracing a specific methodology of torture, covertly developed by the CIA over decades using countless millions of taxpayer dollars and graphically revealed in those Iraqi prison photos, we have condemned ourselves to retreat from whatever promises might be made to end this sort of abuse and are instead already returning to a bipartisan consensus that made torture America’s secret weapon throughout the Cold War…..

[]

…..After codifying its new interrogation methods in the KUBARK manual, the Agency spent the next 30 years promoting these torture techniques within the U.S. intelligence community and among anti-communist allies. In its clandestine journey across continents and decades, the CIA’s psychological torture paradigm would prove elusive, adaptable, devastatingly destructive, and powerfully seductive. So darkly seductive is torture’s appeal that these seemingly scientific methods, even when intended for a few Soviet spies or al-Qaeda terrorists, soon spread uncontrollably in two directions — toward the torture of the many and into a paroxysm of brutality towards specific individuals. During the Vietnam War, when the CIA applied these techniques in their search for information on top Vietcong cadre, the interrogation effort soon degenerated into the crude physical brutality of the Phoenix Program, producing 46,000 extrajudicial executions and little actionable intelligence….

[]

….No matter how twisted the process, impunity — whether in England, Indonesia, or America — usually passes through three stages:

1. Blame the supposed “bad apples.”

2. Invoke the security argument. (“It protected us.”)

3. Appeal to national unity. (“We need to move forward together.”)

For a year after the Abu Ghraib exposé, Rumsfeld’s Pentagon blamed various low-ranking bad apples by claiming the abuse was “perpetrated by a small number of U.S. military.” In his statement on May 13th, while refusing to release more torture photos, President Obama echoed Rumsfeld, claiming the abuse in these latest images, too, “was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals.”

In recent weeks, Republicans have taken us deep into the second stage with Cheney’s statements that the CIA’s methods “prevented the violent deaths of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people.”

Then, on April 16th, President Obama brought us to the final stage when he released the four Bush-era memos detailing CIA torture, insisting: “Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” During a visit to CIA headquarters four days later, Obama promised that there would be no prosecutions of Agency employees. “We’ve made some mistakes,” he admitted, but urged Americans simply to “acknowledge them and then move forward.” The president’s statements were in such blatant defiance of international law that the U.N.’s chief official on torture, Manfred Nowak, reminded him that Washington was actually obliged to investigate possible violations of the Convention Against Torture…..

[]

….This time around, however, a long-distance torture policy may not provide the same insulation as in the past for Washington. Any retreat into torture by remote-control is, in fact, only likely to produce the next scandal that will do yet more damage to America’s international standing.

Over a 40-year period, Americans have found themselves mired in this same moral quagmire on six separate occasions: following exposés of CIA-sponsored torture in South Vietnam (1970), Brazil (1974), Iran (1978), Honduras (1988), and then throughout Latin America (1997). After each exposé, the public’s shock soon faded, allowing the Agency to resume its dirty work in the shadows.

Unless some formal inquiry is convened to look into a sordid history that reached its depths in the Bush era, and so begins to break this cycle of deceit, exposé, and paralysis followed by more of the same, we’re likely, a few years hence, to find ourselves right back where we are now. We’ll be confronted with the next American torture scandal from some future iconic dungeon, part of a dismal, ever lengthening procession that has led from the tiger cages of South Vietnam through the Shah of Iran’s prison cells in Tehran to Abu Ghraib and the prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

The next time, however, the world will not have forgotten those photos from Abu Ghraib. The next time, the damage to this country will be nothing short of devastating.

Sleeping With The Enemy

by digby

In case you are wondering why conservative rhetoric remains dominant and Democrats operate from exactly the same assumptions as Republicans, perhaps this is a clue:

Durbin highlighted arguments made by Republican leadership: “They tell horror stories about health care stories in other countries. That would be Dr. Frank Luntz’s talking point number five.” And on he went, referring over and over to the talking points outlined in the Luntz memo.

[...]

But the Senate Democrats already knew all they needed about such mendacious methods: Luntz himself had briefed them at a Democratic retreat earlier this year. His co-panelist: Paul Begala.

Since that January retreat, he has also briefed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) personally, a Reid aide confirmed. The message to the leader and to the Senate Democratic caucus was the same: Words matter…..

There you have it. The GOP messaging expert is advising both parties. No wonder everyone is selling conservative tropes and propaganda and nobody even knows what liberalism really is.

Ask yourself why in the world the Democrats would be interested in Frank Luntz’s advice now of all times. Do they really think he is better at this than say … the Obama campaign? That the Republican success of the past four years is so impressive that they need to emulate it? I honestly don’t know. But I do know that Frank Luntz is a conservative true believer who helped Newt Gingrich engineer the Republican revolution in the 90s and he has not changed. He has been reprimanded by his professional peers and has been caught rigging his focus groups. If you want to help Republicans by any means necessary, this is the guy you’d call.

The question is why Democrats are inviting him to advise them on how to use his patented fraudulent conservative propaganda and methods? You wouldn’t be crazy to wonder if they may just share his goals.

“Healthcare” will turn out to be a giant give-a-way to Big Ins/Pharma………….paid for by us.

Just you wait and see.

Wankers!

It’s go time Nation! “The Colbert Report” has deployed to Iraq on a USO tour entitled “Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando” and will tape and perform shows in front of the troops. “The Colbert Report” is the first TV show in USO history to produce a week of shows in a combat zone. “Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando” will air on COMEDY CENTRAL Monday, June 8 through Thursday, June 11 at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT. In addition, Colbert will post updates from base on Twitter at http://twitter.com/stephenathome.

“The USO counts this as military service, right? I might want to run for office some day,” Colbert said.

“Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando” is taking place at an undisclosed military base in conjunction with the USO, with all shows taped in front of an audience of troops. The week will feature many segments including Colbert putting together USO care packages for the troops and “shout outs” from notable figures in society.

Guests who will appear on the show include: Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, Barham Saleh; Gen. Ray Odierno, commanding general, Multi National Force- Iraq; Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby, Jr., commanding general, Multi National Corps- Iraq; Command Sgt. Maj. Frank Grippe, command sergeant major, Multi National Corps- Iraq; Sgt. Robin Balcom, squad leader, 463rd Military Police Company; and Spc. Tareq Salha, Arabic linguist, 111th Military Intelligence Brigade (attached to 3rd Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment).

Proceeds from sales of “The Colbert Report” on iTunes during the week of June 8 will benefit the USO……

He is also guest editing at Newsweek.

A Reader’s Guide to the Colbert Issue…..

…..When Colbert and I first spoke about his guest-editing, he initially doubted he would have the time to do it. As he thought about it, however, he found the idea intriguing because of the trip to Iraq he was planning. He is there now, and will do his show from Baghdad this week. He would undertake the NEWSWEEK project, he said, if it allowed him to bring renewed attention to the war there and the men and women who are still fighting…. it.

And ….

Why I Took This Crummy Job…..

….I know what you’re thinking: “Isn’t the Iraq War over?” That’s what I thought, too. I hadn’t seen it in the media for a while, and when I don’t see something, I assume it’s vanished forever, like in that terrifying game peekaboo. We stopped seeing much coverage of the Iraq War back in September when the economy tanked, and I just figured the insurgents were wiped out because they were heavily invested in Lehman Brothers.
Turns out there are still 135,000 troops in Iraq, which I don’t understand because we’ve already won the war. And we’ve won it so many times. We should win something for the number of times we’ve won it. We eliminated the weapons of mass destruction by having them not exist. We took out Saddam Hussein—or a really convincing and committed Saddam Hussein double. We helped write the Iraqi Constitution and clearly gave Iraqis the right to bear a lot of arms. And by August of next year we’ll withdraw every single one of our troops, leaving behind only memories and 50,000 troops…..

Good for him!

Might have to DVR those shows and buy that issue of Newsweek.

(Hat tip to mablue2 at RD)

KBR, Halliburton and the private security firm Blackwater have come tosymbolize the excesses of outsourcing warfare. So you’d think that with a new sheriff like Barack Obama in town, such practices would be on the “Things Not to Do” list. Not so.

According to new Pentagon statistics, in the second quarter of this year, there has been a 23% increase in the number of private security contractors working for the Pentagon in Iraq and a 29% hike in Afghanistan. In fact, outside contractors now make up approximately half of our forces fighting in the two countries. “This means,” according to Jeremy Scahill, author of the book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, “there are a whopping 242,647 contractors working on these two U.S. wars.”……

As she says…….

Meanwhile we have the fiscal scolds out there pounding the message that we have to rein in “entitlement” spending right this minute or the country is going to implode. The question of privatizing wars for profit — by the trillions — isn’t even on the table.

“We need to put that jack back in the box” – Wes Clark

Yet another reason Wes was not asked to join the team?

Ezra Klein…

….In March 2007, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that ending all employer-related tax breaks for health care would raise $1.23 trillion between 2009 and 2012. That’s more than $300 billion a year. That’s much more than you’d need to pay for health care…..

There is no “middle ground” when it comes to health care.

Mike Lux explains…

How DC Centrism Makes For Bad Politics and Bad Policy

…..2. It’s not centrist except in the bizarre world of inside-the-Beltway land. Seriously, it is only in the odd nether-world of special interest-dominated Washington, DC that a policy widely unpopular with the general public in every poll, one where the winning presidential candidate spent over $100 million in campaign advertising attacking, could ever be considered as a credible “centrist” solution to anything. The reason this is possible is that centrism inside-the-Beltway has nothing to do with what real voters think, and everything to do with wealthy special interests and contributors happy. Centrism in DC basically equals corporatism- doing what’s good for big business. Rather than do the simple, more popular (with the voter, as opposed to the big business lobbyist) thing of paying for health care reform with progressive taxes, having wealthier taxpayers and businesses pay their fair share, as President Obama has proposed, the DC version of centrism says “Hey, let’s increase taxes on hard-pressed middle-class people who work for a living.”

A commenter at Krugman’s blog says it all…..

“ Why would any educated society rely on a health care system that has a stated fiduciary responsibility to extract as much money from its customers while giving them as little care as possible?”

And the great man himself….

So let me offer Congress two pieces of advice:

1) Don’t trust the insurance industry.

2) Don’t trust the insurance industry.

The final word from Chris Bowers….

…..Real health care reform–aka, a public option–is the lowest bar for progressives to clear with the current congress. It has the most lobbying behind it, bringing in not only health care reform groups, but also unions and mutli-issue groups like MoveOn. It only requires 50 votes in the senate, whereas Republicans will force 60-votes on virtually everything else. It is a very popular, not only in absolute terms (60%+), but also relatively popular compared to other major Democratic agenda items like climate change. And President Obama won’t have a 60%+ approval rating forever, either.

The bottom line is this: if we can’t get our most popular major agenda item, during the peak in Democratic popularity, when we need only 50 Senate votes, and on the issue where we have given our strongest lobbying and activist efforts, then we aren’t going to pass meaningful progressive legislation on anything else…..

Read the whole thing.

As Armando says….

Blocking Judicial Branch review of Executive Branch actions is simply the tactic of scoundrels. The Obama Administration is acting like scoundrels on this matter. It is despicable and inexcusable.

It is good to see that Barney Frank will not stand for it.

Jane’s phone conversation with Frank here