One of the biggest criticisms rank-and-file Democrats have of the Democratic leadership is that they don't fight back - but what difference does it make if the news media never goes to them for a response? They should be asking them directly, but even if they are too lazy they could check their various websites (some of them even have blogs) to see what they have to say about these things.
I actually meant to include this in my previous post, and judging from comments it's just what some of you want - a media contact list. So let me encourage you to tell the media how outrageous you find it that they give so much coverage to ludicrous right-wing talking points and then don't cover the response from the Democratic leadership - or from the majority of Americans.
It makes me nauseous hearing various Democratic leaders lauding Sandra Day O'Connor as a great heroine of moderation.� Yes, she made a few token bows on social issues, but her time on the Bench has been one of unmitigated hostility to working people.
While she may have saved some shards of affirmative action for the college-bound, it's worth remembering that O'Connor authored the decision in Adarand�which largely gutted the ability of the federal government to engage in affirmative action in subcontracting, just as she authored the decision in Croson�that outlawed the City of Richmond's affirmative action programs.� As Justice Marshall in dissent wrote of Sandra Day O'Connor's opinion:
today's decision marks a deliberate and giant step backward in this Court's affirmative-action jurisprudence. Cynical of one municipality's attempt to redress the effects of past racial discrimination in a particular industry, the majority launches a grapeshot attack on race-conscious remedies in general.
As for her attitude towards labor unions, O'Connor never missed a chance to cripple workers' union rights through her votes on the Court. Read on...
Gene Lyons has Croson�that outlawed the City of Richmond's affirmative action programs.� As Justice Marshall in dissent wrote of Sandra Day O'Connor's opinion:
today's decision marks a deliberate and giant step backward in this Court's affirmative-action jurisprudence. Cynical of one municipality's attempt to redress the effects of past racial discrimination in a particular industry, the majority launches a grapeshot attack on race-conscious remedies in general.
As for her attitude towards labor unions, O'Connor never missed a chance to cripple workers' union rights through her votes on the Court. Read on...
This just goes to show you: You just never know what's going to happen in an election. Anti-establishment fever? Who knows? What an intriguing story:
COLUMBIA, S.C. — An unemployed military veteran who raised no funds and put up no campaign website shocked South Carolina's Democratic Party leadership by capturing the nomination Tuesday to face Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint in November.
With nearly all precincts reporting, Alvin Greene, 32, commanded 59 percent of the vote against 41 percent for former four-term state lawmaker Vic Rawl, 64, who had raised about $186,000 and had to abruptly scrap a late-week fundraiser for the fall.
State Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler said voters unfamiliar with either candidate may have voted alphabetically for Greene over Rawl.
"As far as I know, he never showed up at anything. Vic Rawl has been campaigning everywhere from the time he filed," she said.
Rawl said he was disappointed.
"I would've liked very much to be a candidate against Jim DeMint," Rawl said, describing his sole primary rival as something of a mystery. "I never saw him. I've still never met him."
As for Greene, he couldn't explain it either but thanked voters in a state numb with high unemployment and said: "Let's continue to make history and get South Carolina back to work."
Greene said he spent a total of 13 years in the Air Force and Army before leaving the Army in August.
Late Tuesday, stunned Democratic leaders in South Carolina struggled to comprehend how the little-seen candidate upstaged Rawl, a moderate Southern Democrat they viewed as their far stronger bet against DeMint. Rawl's lengthy resume lists four past state House terms and former posts as prosecutor, circuit court judge and more.
This is one of the main issues we'll be discussing at the America's Future Now conference in D.C. this week. It still astounds me that some progressives are simply ignoring the very real economic and political arguments in favor of increasing economic stimulus, not slashing it:
With voter anger about the federal deficit intensifying in this election year, Democrats in Congress are edging away from one of their long-held articles of faith — government spending on social programs such as education and relief for the jobless.
The painful tradeoff comes to center stage this week, when the Senate tries again to pass an extension of unemployment benefits — this time a $54-billion measure that marks an abrupt retreat from a $200-billion bill that Democratic leaders had proposed before the Memorial Day recess.
The stripped-down bill is just one sign of how budget anxieties are beginning to impinge on Democrats' legislative ambitions and traditional commitments.
A White House-backed proposal to spend $23 billion to save as many as 300,000 teachers' jobs has been stymied by deficit concerns. Similarly, the House, usually a bastion of liberalism, bowed to fiscal conservatives and dropped health insurance subsidies for the unemployed.
"There is a very changed climate," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) recently told reporters, referring to anti-deficit pressures she faces within her own party.
Though polls for years have shown high levels of public concern about the deficit, rarely has it outstripped most other issues. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in mid-May found a notable increase in recent months in those who believe cutting the deficit and spending should be the government's highest priority.
Gee. You don't suppose having the media keep up a constant drumbeat of anti-deficit propaganda would have anything to do with that, do you?
According to the poll, 20% of those surveyed wanted the deficit and government spending to be the top priority, an issue second to the 35% concerned about job creation and economic growth. (In a January poll, 13% cited the deficit and government spending.)
"There's no question that people are almost as concerned about the deficit and government spending as about jobs," said Mark Mellman, a pollster who works closely with congressional Democrats. "It is not just about the actual dollars — it is a metaphor for wasted money and lack of discipline and long-term economic decline."
That's because Congress - and the administration - did such a piss-poor job explaining the difference between stimulus spending and the bank bailout.
Even Friday's report that private-sector job growth had slowed to a crawl in May is not expected to offset the Democrats' new reluctance to add to the deficit for unemployment benefits.
And you know what the really stupid thing is? The Democrats will try to act like Republicans by cutting the deficit, and it won't win them any additional votes. It never does. The kind of people who like Republican policies vote for Republicans.
So Frist will today "give his blessing" to a plan to change the Senate rules so that only 51 votes are required to end a filibuster of Bush's judicial nominations.
Here's the article from this morning's CongressDailyAM
SENATE LEADERSHIP Frist To Go 'Nuclear' On Nominations By John Stanton Senate Majority Leader Frist today is expected to give his blessing to a GOP plan to dramatically change the Senate's voting rules -- effectively eliminating Democrats' ability to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominees, aides said Tuesday. Democratic leadership sources warned that a move to reduce from 60 to 51 the number of votes needed to end a filibuster of judicial nominees would be considered a declaration of war by most Democrats, could further weaken the position of the chamber's shrinking population of moderates and almost certainly would create new obstacles for the GOP's agenda. During a closed-door meeting of the GOP Conference today, Frist will inform his colleagues that while the so-called "nuclear option" of changing Senate rules will be reserved as a last resort, Republicans will no longer tolerate Democratic efforts to block Bush's nominees to the federal bench, an aide to Frist confirmed. According to this source, no immediate action on changing the rules is planned. Frist will wait for the next floor debate on a contested Bush appointee...read on
Frist is complaining because ten nominees have been stopped, when over two hundred have been confirmed.
Not so fast, Sen. Dodd. You're telling us this is about Republicans blocking reform, but I agree with Russ Feingold - don't vote until we have a real reform bill. Keep talking!
WASHINGTON With one Democrat absent and two others voting no, the Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster and bring the huge overhaul of financial regulations to a vote.
Democrats and Republicans have been trying to reach agreement on a few key issues, but some disputes apparently are lingering over several amendments.
Another vote is expected on Thursday, and Democratic leaders were optimistic that they could overcome the procedural hurdle.
The Democrats fell two votes short, though the vote was 57-42. Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada changed his vote to 'no' to make it easier to hold another vote. He blasted Republicans after the vote for voting to "protect the big banks on Wall Street."
[...]Cantwell wants votes on two amendments -- one to tighten new proposed regulations on complex financial derivatives and another to restore a prohibition against federally insured commercial banks also doing investment banking. Feingold also wants a vote on the banking prohibition.
"The test for this legislation is a simple one -- whether it will prevent another financial crisis," Feingold said after the vote. "As the bill stands, it fails that test. Ending debate on the bill is finishing before the job is done."
The Republicans are really looking like fools over the way they've handled their opposition to something Americans really want to see get done--financial reform. They're sick and tired of the whiny CEOs and Wall Street honchos who rake in boatloads of cash and then cry that they haven't bought off enough politicians.
A Democratic Wall Street overhaul bill may be gaining an unlikely champion: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
After a week of attacking the pending legislation as a ticket to new taxpayer "bailouts," McConnell is striking a different tone. Monday on the Senate floor, he called for lawmakers to move beyond "personal attacks and questioning each others' motives" to "fixing the problems in this bill."
And McConnell conceded, after being chastised by no less than President Obama in his weekly radio address, that "both parties agree on this point: no bailouts. In my view, that's a pretty good start."
On Tuesday, McConnell returned to the chamber and announced he was "heartened to hear that bipartisan talks have resumed in earnest." Senate Democratic leaders are preparing to bring the overhaul bill to the floor as early as Thursday, but all 41 Republicans have signed a letter stating their opposition to the bill in its current form. Unless Democrats can peel off at least one GOP senator to allow debate to proceed, a GOP-led filibuster could block financial regulatory reform indefinitely.
Sure Mitch, you 'wrote them a letter' and now everything is working just fine. Who does he think he's kidding now?
In fact, Sam Stein reports that Republican Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the ranking member on the Banking Committee, said negotiations "have progressed to the point that the debate now centers on specific language rather than individual proposals.
Halperin: What they're saying really doesn't make any sense.
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I cannot defend what they're doing. They are willfully misreading this bill or they are engaged in a cynical attempt to keep the president from achieving something.
A new Gallup poll said voters were siding with Democrats on the issue: 50 percent of those surveyed said they supported giving the federal government new powers to regulate Wall Street banks, while 36 percent were opposed.
Another recent poll — from the Pew Research Center — showed 59 percent of Americans want Washington to address financial reform before any other issue.
“Wall Street gambled with our economy, and we all lost out as a result,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat. “We need better accountability to make sure taxpayers never get left holding the bag for giant Wall Street investment banks again . … So far it appears that Wall Street has found a united ally in the Republican Party to protect them.”
Democrats delight in the prospect of Republicans voting, en bloc, to keep the debate from even starting at a time when voters are furious at Wall Street. Support for a financial industry crackdown is far more widespread and intense – 77% favor legislation like Obama's, according to a poll conducted for the White House and Senate Democrats – than it was for Democrats' health care legislation.
Have the Democrats finally realized how to act like winners? (Or, as Bill Maher just put it, use their recently-descended testicles.) Good to know they're not going to curl into the fetal position for a change:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants House Democrats to go on offense during the critical two-week recess that begins this weekend.
Members returning to their districts should tout the new healthcare law’s benefits to their constituents, according to the “recess packet” issued by Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office this week and obtained by The Hill.
“With the passage of health insurance reform, this District Work Period is a critical time to go on offense,” the memo states.
Members should “convey the immediate benefits of health reform to your constituents (such as better prescription drug benefits for seniors, tax credits for small businesses and prohibiting insurance companies from canceling your policy if you get sick),” the memo said.
[...] Pelosi’s advice to members illustrates that she and other Democratic leaders believe they can capitalize on healthcare to rally before the fall.
The message in the memo wasn’t limited to healthcare.
Lawmakers also should also “demonstrate the work of this Congress to create jobs and strengthen the economy,” and “publicize the benefits of the $800 billion in tax cuts this Congress has enacted” through last year’s $787 billion stimulus package, according to the memo.
The American people were once again treated to the sight of the obstructionist Republicans dragging their feet and playing party politics with the people's business - on a bill that's constructed mostly with Republican ideas.
Senate Republicans have successfully identified two minor violations of reconciliation rules in the final piece of the health-care package. The violations will force the Senate to change the reconciliation bill and ship it to the House of Representatives for final passage.
But Democratic leaders said the provisions that will be struck -- from the part of the bill dealing with Pell Grants for college students -- do not significantly affect the student loan program or the health care bill overall.
The corrected legislation most likely will not be subjected to additional challenges when it is sent back to the House, Democratic staffers said, and is expected to receive final approval before the weekend.
"The parliamentarian struck two minor provisions tonight from in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. But this bill's passage in the Senate is a big win for the American people," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
For much of Wednesday and into Thursday morning, Senate Republicans offered dozens of amendments to the bill President Obama signed into law Tuesday. Their goal was to force the legislation that will launch an overhaul of the nation's health-care system back to the House for another vote. But when the Senate began voting shortly after 5 p.m., all 29 amendments were easily rejected.
That means the health-care package survived essentially intact, save for the deletion of the two clauses in the reconciliation bill that were found to violate reconciliation rules, the complicated set of procedures that protected the bill from filibuster.
A senior Democratic aide said one of the problematic items is a "hold-harmless provision," which was designed to prevent reductions in individual student grants if appropriated funds for Pell Grants declines. The second adjustment was described as "a conforming change, to strike obsolete language."
