Just got off a conference call with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and she begged for our help in getting people to flood their local senators' offices for the jobs bill now being filibustered by Republicans.

"We don’t have even one Republican willing to help us break this filibuster," she said. "We have every anticipation that we will not have the votes. It’s become very clear that the Republicans in the Senate want this bill to fail.

"It's a cynical move, because it doesn’t serve them in terms of their elections this fall. They have decided they want this economy to fail, and they’re willing to take the country down with them," she said in an emotional conference call.

Republicans have claimed that the extended unemployment benefits can't be covered as an emergency. "If 15 million people without jobs isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is," she said.

Stabenow said Democrats have paid for the job provisions in this bill. "When you look underneath, they [Republicans] are protecting wealthy investors who are sending jobs overseas and the big oil companies," she said. The Democratic bill removes tax incentives for sending jobs overseas, and increases the charge per barrel for cleaning up oil spills.

"We desperately need to keep this economic recovery going. Unemployment benefits help people keep food on the table, and a little gas in the car to go look for work," she said.

"The Republicans are counting on the fact that no one’s going to know what’s going on here. It would help us if offices were flooded with emails, and phone calls and outrage when we come back next week."

From Mother Jones:

What’s the price of this political obstructionism? In addition to the millions of Americans who stand to lose unemployment benefits, a huge number of private and public sector employees will lose their jobs due to state budget cuts. Without federal help, states will have to pour more money to prop up Medicaid, forcing them to make cutbacks in other parts of the budget. As a result, Moody's chief economist estimates that 200,000 jobs could be axed without federal Medicaid support, and the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities puts the number as high as 900,000—jobs belonging to teachers, firemen, police, and social workers, among others.

While federal and state governments both contribute to Medicaid funding, the economic crisis has left the states in a terrible budget crunch. The federal government has tried to step in, devoting over 60 percent of the federal stimulus money to propping up Medicaid so states wouldn’t have to make other cuts. But that money is now set to expire, and the states have yet to recover from the effects of the recession to make up the difference.

In addition to the unemployment benefit and job losses, the cuts to social services could be brutal.

Now we have to wait to see if Harry Reid will schedule a vote this year, before three of the Senators supporting the change leave office:

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Saturday she's secured the votes to force a rules change ending the Senate's practice of secret holds.

McCaskill said on Twitter that she had secured the support of two more senators to give her the 67 votes necessary to change the rules in the Senate to abolish the traditional practice of being able to anonymously hold up nominees to positions requiring Senate confirmation.

Sens. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) were the last two signatories.

McCaskill tweeted Saturday:

First battle won!With Sens Bond and Brownbeck now have 67 Senators on my letter calling for the end to secret holds.Now gotta get a vote.

66 senators have signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in support of the rules change, and Reid has said he supports the change, too, but did not sign the letter since it was addressed to him.

McCaskill said earlier this month that she was two votes shy of ending the practice, which gives minority party senators the ability to hold up nominees. Republicans have used the privilege to some effect against President Barack Obama's nominees, most notably senior Sen. Richard Shelby's (R-Ala.) hold earlier this year on 70 of the president's picks for various positions requiring federal confirmation.

Senate Republicans who feared that they would not get the 50 votes they needed to destroy the filibuster spoke of abandoning the so-called "nuclear option" in favor of biological or chemical warfare.

"We should just gas all of them," said Sen. Rick Santorum of the Democrats, almost immediately after he had called them Nazis. Sen. Santorum later told critics that he had meant "sedating all of the Democrats with a non-toxic inhalant."

Another proposal on the table in behind-the-scenes discussion among conservative GOP senators is to inroduce Santorum's 6-year old niece, Bonnie Santorum, known to politicians as "Contagious Bonnie," into the Senate chamber. Most of the GOP senators have individually caught flus, coughs, incapaciting colds, and head lice from Bonnie in unfortunate happenstance encounters over the past two years, and Dr. Frist has certified that they have built up antibodies to her. Democrats, however, are expected to suffer and become unable to report for work long enough for the GOP to take advantage of their absence.

"And then the only issue would be whether we had a quorum," said Frist. "And when Dick Cheney is the Presiding Officer, well, a quorum is what we say it is."

The conservative organization Focus on the Family, which has been instrumental in forcing Republicans to wage the filibuster battle, supports the exploration of all "extreme" options, said Dr. James Dobson. "The ends definitely justify the means," said Dobson. "If it takes unethical and immoral acts to make this a more ethical America, then -- what are we waiting for?"
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The conservative organization Focus on the Family, which has been instrumental in forcing Republicans to wage the filibuster battle, supports the exploration of all "extreme" options, said Dr. James Dobson. "The ends definitely justify the means," said Dobson. "If it takes unethical and immoral acts to make this a more ethical America, then -- what are we waiting for?"

NOWHERE in the Constitution is the Senate required to provide an up-or-down vote on the President’s nominees:

Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution outlines the President’s power of appointment. It reads:

“He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.” read on

via Liberal Oasis:

Freshman Sen. Ken Salazar, who has been trying to position himself as a moderate Dem and describes himself as a “person of faith,” is under attack by Focus On The Family over the nuclear option.

And he’s not taking it sitting down. Scripps Howard reports:

"I do think that what has happened here is there has been a hijacking of the U.S. Senate by what I call the religious right wing of the country," Salazar told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday.

He singled out Focus on the Family by name, objecting to full-page newspaper ads the ministry's political arm recently placed, targeting 20 senators in 15 states.

"I think what has happened is Focus on the Family has been hijacking Christianity and become an appendage of the Republican Party," Salazar said in an interview. "I think it's using Christianity and religion in a very unprincipled way."

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(h/t Heather)

I can see that Ben Nelson and the Conservadems/Baucus Dogs have a plan. They bitch and moan about the effect a public option would have on the poor, poor health-insurance industry, so if they do have to vote for a public option in the Senate that clearly benefits Americans and not his favorite donors, they will only do it under the provision that the states "opt in" rather than "opt out."

His hair has been saying this for a while now.

Nelson's hair doesn't explain why he favors the "opt in" version and Harwood doesn't bother to ask. And he can count on the media to not inform America what the differences are in an opt in or an opt out version of the PO so when we complain about it the Villagers will attack us. He was interviewed by John Hardwood, a Villager of the highest order on MSNBC.

Here's what Ben Nelson's hair said:

Harwood: You'd agree that unless a comprehensive health care bill would pass that it would cripple his presidency.

Nelson's hair: Well, I don't know that we should conclude that some form of health care reform won't pass. I believe that some form of health care will pass.

Harwood: What in your mind are stoppers, things that, knowing this place, things that either because you oppose them or other senators oppose them, simply can 't be in the final product to have it pass?

Nelson's hair: Well, it's very difficult to see how that CLASS Act that was in the HELP committe bill would make it [that's long term care provisions] I think also any kind of public option that would undermine or destabilize the private insurance that 200 million Americans have, I don't see that that would make it. But some version such as an opt-in, for the states with a state option, that could very well be in.

Digby alerted me to this clip and she astutely writes:

But I am still suspicious that there might be a play to make opt-in the reasonable alternative to opt-out. It just keeps cropping up in all kinds of places, often from White House reporters. It's worth keeping an eye on anyway.

Harwood thinks that Nelson will stick with them on cloture and I haven't heard otherwise. (and if Harwood asked him he didn't say, the putz.) But he certainly keeps dangling himself out there as a vote for opt-in, so if this thing really comes down to the wire I could see it happening. Again, I don't think the village media have clue about just how different the two things are. It's just bumper sticker slogans to them.

The Hill reports that Sheldon Whitehouse also trumpeted the same thing.

The Senate health bill is drifting toward ending up with an "opt-in" provision versus an "opt-out," one Democratic senator said Friday.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) predicted that healthcare reform in the upper chamber would shift from its current construction, which allows states to opt out of a public option, to a version that forces states to opt into such a plan.

"I think it's falling into an opt-in, versus opt-out," Whitehouse said during an appearance on MSNBC. "You have a public option, but it's up to a state to take an affirmative act to take advantage of it."

Whitehouse suggested the opt-in as a potential compromise on the public option to win enough Democratic votes in the Senate, where Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has said he will vote against a bill containing a public option, and several other centrist Democrats have been reluctant to support the current proposal.

I'm doing some digging around to see what's really happening and I'll have news soon. Reid is already having the "opt out" scored by the CBO, but my sources indicated that the Senate has not sent out the "opt in" to be scored. From what I'm hearing. The "opt in" would not pass the House conference.

Minority Rules LiberalOasis

Perhaps the most stunning part of the intel reform debacle is that the Speaker of the House admitted he had the votes to pass it.

Just not enough GOP votes to avoid making the Dems look good.

From the NY Times:

[Speaker Dennis] Hastert did not want to split his caucus and did not want the bill to pass with less than "a majority of the majority," said his spokesman, John Feehery.

"What good is it to pass something," Mr. Feehery said, "where most of our members don't like it?"

Well, there is a little thing called "the public good."

But that requires putting governing ahead of politics.

And that's not how the GOP got to where it is, so why start now?

Of course, saying the bill doesn't have support of the "majority of the majority" is a fancy, self-serving way to say a loud minority is opposed.

And that when a loud minority is opposed, it's important to wait -- as Senate Majority Leader Frist said -- until we "get it right".

Hmm. Does Frist apply the same logic to, say, judicial nominations?

Not exactly. As he said on CBS' Face The Nation this Sunday:

...let's take a nominee from the president, who has majority support in the Senate, and let's deny senators the opportunity to vote. It's wrong.

Any attempt to claim simple majority rule is a consistent principle of the GOP is now shot to hell.

So when the GOP tries to use it later, it should be quickly shoved down their throat.

We all know the Framers wanted the minority to have rights, to prevent a tyranny of the majority.

The question for the public to judge, both with today's intelligence reform and tomorrow's judges, is not if the minority has a right to object. Of course they do.

Instead the question is, what is the quality of the minority's objections?

Is the Pentagon's loss of turf, and lack of unrelated provisions on undocumented immigrant workers enough to warrant delay on the intelligence reform the 9/11 Commission says is "essential"?

And should the Senate roll over for activist right-wing judges who want to turn the clock back on equal rights, labor protections and environmental protections?

Paramore - Looking Up

Love me, love my pie-eyed optimism. The interim anchorage of Jake Tapper on ABC's This Week, has left me surprisingly encouraged. First, they have taken Jay Rosen's suggestion of how to fix the Sunday shows by working with Politifact to fact check claims made by guests. Then Jake himself has been soliciting feedback on his Twitter/Facebook streams, which I think has shaped some of his questions (and he responds to individuals, unlike many journalists on Twitter). And now, This Week is taking the initiative to move past the tired (and false) dichotomy of every issue falling into Dem vs. Rep binary scale. From ABC email promo:

On “This Week,” White House Economic Adviser Austan Goolsbee, and two key Senators EXCLUSIVELY join interim anchor Jake Tapper to debate next week’s critical Senate vote on whether financial reform will move forward. Goolsbee defends the President’s plan, while Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) argues that the bill does not go far enough to keep banks from getting too big. Republican Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) lays out what needs to be changed in order for the White House to gain Republican support.

Did you catch that? In addition to representing the White House plan for economic reform, they've asked on a fairly progressive Senator who argues that it's not progressive enough. Okay, it's not earth-shattering, but I do find it a step in the right direction and after four years of monitoring Sunday shows, this is the first time I remember them looking at an issue and considering a progressive point of view as a reasonable alternative. Contrast that with Meet the Press's David Gregory and his glib dismissal of any responsibility as the host to keep his guests honest in any way. Yup, I'm going to see This Week's actions as a positive change.

ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Chief White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Katty Kay, Andrew Sullivan, David Ignatius, Kelly O'Donnell. Topics: Does Obama Want A Fight On Wall Street Reform Or To Move On To Immigration? Is the Extreme Anti-Washington Rhetoric Seditious? Meter Questions: Should Republicans Issue A New Contract With America? YES: 11 NO: 1; Will President Obama Win Comprehensive Middle East Peace? YES: 3 No: 9.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sens. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - We discuss everything from Goldman Sachs to economic and political brawls in the US and abroad. First, Fareed has a candid conversation with Timothy Geithner, US Secretary of the Treasury. Then, we have a great panel featuring: Eliot Spitzer, Slate columnist and former NY governor and attorney general; Andrew Ross Sorkin, the chief mergers and acquisitions reporter for the New York Times and author of Too Big to Fail; Martin Wolf, Financial Times' chief economics commentator; and Amity Shlaes, Bloomberg columnist and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Fox News Sunday" - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairmen of a bipartisan commission on debt.

In another example about how Republicans cannot be trusted to responsibly address national security (or domestic security) issues, Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Lieberman (R-at Heart) are threatening the Defense Department with subpoenas if it does not release documents that they requested through the Senate's homeland security committee.

"The painful fact is that 13 Americans died in the Fort Hood massacre," Lieberman said. "We owe it to them and their survivors and everyone else in our country to determine whether our government could have prevented their deaths -- and if so, why it did not -- so that we can make sure it does the next time."

Collins faulted administration aides for "an inexplicable determination to stalemate and slow-walk our investigation."

Appropriately, SecDef Bob Gates has told the two to go pound sand, since there are, in fact, a few other pressing defense issues on his agenda, and there is no story here.

Gates, speaking to reporters after attending a Caribbean security conference in Barbados, said the US government had no interest in hiding information from Congress but the legal case against Major Nidal Malik Hasan had to take priority.

“Anything that does not have any impact on that prosecution, we are more than willing to share,” Gates said. “But what’s most important is this prosecution. And we will co-operate with the committee in every way - with that single caveat, that whatever we provide doesn’t compromise the prosecution.”

Of all the possible homeland security or military issues that one could address, keeping the Major Hassan story alive shouldn't be the top priority of this Senate's committee. Why these two want to keep this non-story alive is beyond me. Neither is up for re-election prior to 2012 - that's a long way off - so the only other explanation (because I don't buy the idea of misplaced concerns about DOD or DoJ practices and policies) is to embarrass the Obama administration at the cost of screwing the government officials who are correctly addressing the situation right now.

Racewire: The Senate isn't working either

SCOTUSblog: The "Kennedy Court," only more so

The Daily Dish: The Vatican's Watergate: Follow The Money

slacktivist: Which sect, Newt?

The Washington Note: Breaking analysis on a possible Obama Peace Plan

Ken Silverstein: Two former senators may find themselves out of board positions at a Kyrgyz bank