Never post angry. Or uninformed. Or confused.

The above are three reasons why I have not yet written anything about the tax cuts deal recently cut between President Obama and the Republicans in Congress.

But I will. I just want to take a little time to think about it and read more first, because I keep changing my mind about it.

I think it's safe to say, though, that the deal has prompted strong emotional responses from both sides - and for us progressives, especially in response to President Obama's press conference. Which I haven't seen yet. Again, need to dig more.

But I am leaning towards the view that this might wind up being a pretty good deal for Progressives (a very good deal under the circumstances - with the new Republican Congress soon to take over) that has been very poorly communicated.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Elizabeth Edwards, 1949-2010

The progressive advocate, health policy reformer, author, mother, and (yes) estranged wife of former Presidential candidate John Edwards died yesterday after a long battle with cancer.

I had the pleasure of meeting her once, and found her funny, smart, down to earth and thoughtful. May she rest in peace.

Wikileaks Part 2

I didn't want to write any more about the Wikileaks document dump, but I must admit the issue keeps turning over and over in my mind, and I'm not 100% sure I'm right or - if I am - what should be done about it.

I'm unwilling to declare the publishing leaked information should be a crime, because it is so often vital that people feel free to publish information that is in the public interest.

On the other hand, I do believe that you have to strike a balance between the public's interest in knowing what their government is doing (which is real) and the public's interest in having their government negotiate on their behalf to prevent wars, disarm enemies, or even just build allies under tense circumstances.

Where I instinctively tend to come down is on the side of giving the benefit of the doubt to peacemakers and am inherently sceptical of warmongers. Diplomats are often responsible for conducting tricky, private negotiations to try to prevent nations from going to war with each other. And if they are successful, you may never hear about it. So I have an inclination to say there are a lot of useful things that they do that can't be done in secret. A friend and colleague challenged me today whether there really are things that governments need to do that they should be allowed to do in secret in a Democratic society. My answer is a cautious and carefully managed yes - I don't think they should have a blank check to conceal all their actions from the people who put them into power, but if I have to balance the chance of deescalating a conflict with Iran or risking nuclear war (for instance) I'm willing to be kept in the dark for a period of time.

What I struggle with, and what I honestly don't know, is what the ultimate effects of a world of perfect leakability would be. I can imagine a number of scenarios. I suspect the most likely is that government officials simply adapt their working practices, as TSA officials have, to elevate their privacy concerns to the next level. You can easily envision a rule that diplomats are only allowed to brief their superiors in person or by secure telephone and may not put anything in writing.

The end result? No paper trail is created, making it impossible for anyone to leak but also for future historians to ever know what "really" happened. Also, potentially, this would lead to spectacularly biased and wrong-headed foreign policy as the top leaders could never see a horses mouth analysis or summary.

Or, if the world adapted to a situation where it was understood that all communications take place in the open, then we would have to treat every delicate discussion with crazy regimes like North Korea as if they might be listening. This means that either we can't frankly assess their situation (For instance, you couldn't say, "The Dear Leader is very old and may die soon, after which the nation may be plummeted into disaster. Meanwhile, he's desperately trying to aquire nuclear weapons before the End of Days.") or that we can never in fact engage in diplomacy with such regimes.

I may be wrong - I honestly don't know. How do you envision this playing out?

Ha ha ha....

Tee hee...

Filibusters Are No Fun These Days - but we can fix em!

Long term readers of this blog will know that I blame the evils of the current filibuster ssystem in the Senate for just about everything that goes wrong in America. But perversely, the Republican gains in November's midterm elections have actually made it marginally more likely that Democrats might have the will and ability to actually fix this system. And Josh Marshall points out the perverse incentives that make the current system so terribly unworkable.

In the outgoing Congress it would have meant getting all 60 Senators to stay on the floor indefinitely while the GOP only had to make sure one senator was on the floor at any one time to raise an objection to ending debate. Maybe two at any one time if you figure the need for occasional bathroom breaks. And since each party is going to have somewhere on the order of at least 40 senators, taking shifts indefinitely just isn't a problem. And even though people think you've got to sit there reading the phone book or talking forever or whatever else, you don't. You don't have to do anything except sit there and be ready to stand up for 30 seconds and make an objection. So while the majority needs 60 Senators cooling their heels on the floor, the minority can just have one or two sitting there playing Angry Birds on their iPhones.


Here's another part of the equation. Everyone knows you need 60 votes to break a filibuster. But it's not 3/5 of the votes, it's an absolute 60. That's why you'll note that when a filibuster is a broken it's usually by a vote of 60 to 30-something. In other words, the folks in the minority, the folks filibustering, don't even need to show up. I'd like to say they can just dial it in. But actually they don't even need to do that.

These are, to put it mildly, very perverse incentives.

When Mr. Smith goes to Washington these days, he doesn't make heroic speeches for hours on end until he collapses with exhaustion. No, he just stands up and says, "I object," then proceeds to check his e-mail, while 60 of his colleagues scramble to try and get some work done.

The filibuster was never a part of the Constitutional design of the Senate. It was created by accident in 1805 by America's Worst Vice President Aaron Burr (shortly after he killed Alexander Hamilton in a Duel. No, seriously!), and no one noticeduntil years later that the procedural change led to this possibility.

And for a while it meant dramatic scenes of Senators doing marathon speaking sessions, and literally peeing themselves on the Senate floor because they couldn't afford to leave the chamber lest they break the filibuster. Dramatic stuff. But it's not like that any more.

Senators no longer have to actually speak up about the bills they are trying to block. They can just make sure it never comes to a vote.

Time to put a stop to this nonsense.

Oh, and for the record - let's remember that the so-called glory days of marathon filibustering was not some brave stand in favor of the oppressed minority. Actually, it was used for such noble causes as blocking civil rights reform and preventing the passage of anti-lynching measures. If today's Strom Thurmonds want to block unemployment insurance, or insist on tax cuts for millionaires, let them have the courage to display that shame on the Senate floor at the very least.

Or better yet, let's let the majority actually get on with leading the country.

DADT Repeal and Gay Marriage - For Different Reasons

As the Senate has been considering repeal of the appalling Clinton-era Don't Ask Don't tell rule this week, I've been giving a lot of thought to how far the country has come in the last decade and a half on our attitudes towards gay rights. And it caused me to reflect on the fact that, although I personally feel very strongly about both the importance of repealling DADT and also offering access to marriage for gay men and women, I think of the two issues a bit differently.

Don't Ask Don't Tell is, as I see it, the most straightforward and indefensible example of outright legal bigotry still in place in our system. I can't think of any other group of individuals who are straightforwardly banned from participating in any part of our civil society purely on the basis of who they are. Can you? What if we told Jewish soldiers that they could serve with their Christian comrades, but only if they never aknowledged their faith? Of if we told Hispanics that they could serve only if they could "pass" for anglo? What if we told married heterosexuals that they could serve only if they never told anyone of their marriage, or did anything that might allow their fellow soldiers to understand that they were married? That is quite literally exactly what we are asking gay men and women to do - and all for the priviledge of fighting and dying to defend... us. It's appalling, it's morally reprehensible, it unduly traumatises good men and women who want to serve, it harms our national security by preventing highly qualified people signing up, and there is broad agreement from both the top military leaders and the rank and file soldiers themselves that repealling it would do no meaningful harm to our military capacity. In fact, of the 70% of currently serving military who said that they believed they already were serving with gay or lesbian colleagues, 92% of them said that it had had no effect on the performance of their unit.

Everyone who continues to defend this policy should hang their heads in shame, as they no longer have even a fig leaf of a reason to do so.

Yes, I'm talking to you, John McCain.

But gay marriage is something different. Although I fully accept and agree with the contention that it is also bigoted to exclude gays from this institution,  I can understand the rationale of the people who say that this to some extent change the nature of the institution. Marriage WOULD change if gays and lebians were allowed to fully participate in it. Just as it changed when it turned from a financial arrangement in which the bride was offered up as collateral for a bargain between two men. Just as it changed when women gained legal rights to property within marriage.

I support the innovation of allowing gay men and women to participate in the institution of secular civil marriage because I believe that this would not only be of great benefit to the couples who would now be allowed to marry, but also because (as with heterosexual marriage) encouraging two people to make a lifelong commitment of mutual responsibility and promise solemnly before the state and their loved ones to honour and care for each other is of enormous benefit to society as a whole.

Very large numbers of gay households are raising children - I believe it's better for children to have two parents than one. Sometimes, in gay couples, one partner will find themself in financial difficulty - I believe it's better for the community if that person is financially supported by their partner than through the welfare system if this is possible.  Sometimes, in gay couples, one partner will become sick - I believe it's better for them and everyone if that person is not only loved, cared for and supported by their partner but also, yes, has access to their partner's health insurance so that they avoid having to potentially end up in medical bankrupcy. Sometimes in gay relationships, one partner come from another countries - I think it's better that they are able to stay in America rather than have to flee the country to be somewhere that their relationship can be aknowledged by the immigration authorities. Sometimes in gay relationships, people fight. I think on the whole, if they still love each other, that there be some reasonable expectation that they make an effort to work things out.

I support marriage for gay people, in other words, for the exact same reasons that I support it for straight people. And because I think it would be a change to the institution of marriage that would improve it.

Also, because... weddings. Dontcha just love em?

The Week's Worst: Republicans Block Tax cut for All Americans Because Democrats Won't Let Them Cut Taxes for Millionaires Even More

So I took a little pause from the Week's Worst series last week in honour of the Thanksgiving spirit. But this week we're back looking at Terrible Things Republicans Do That Hurt the Country(TM) with a doozy of an example. This week, after the House passed a bill that would keep in place the Bush era tax cuts for every American, but would restore tax on incomes over $250,000 to the level they were under the Clinton Administration, Republicans in the Senate successfully "defeated" the Senate's attempt to do the same. That is, it was defeated with 53 people voting for it and 4X voting against. In other words, most Senators agreed that the this is the approach we should take, but by taking advantage of the filibuster, Republicans were once again able to ensure that they look out for the interests of the richest at the expense of... well, everyone else.

What fascinates me is that this is a wildly unpopular position Republicans have taken. 67% of Americans polled agree that it is time for these tax handouts for the wealthiest to end. Even 52% of REPUBLICANS agree that tax cuts on income over $250,000 should expire. It's just what makes sense - the wealthy have been the group of people least affected by the economic crisis, their incomes have been rising while everyone elses's has been stagnating, they certainly don't suffer from high unemployment, and they won't be deeply harmed by restoring them to Clinton-era tax rates under which, if you recall, they also did pretty darn well.

Billionaire Warren Buffet agrees, pointing out that,

"The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on,"

Indeed.

So why are Republicans so determined to offer this hand out to the people who need it most, at the same time they are trying to deny unemployment insurance to the people who need it a lot?

Well 2 reasons, I guess. 1) They really, really love millionaires. I mean, a lot. Way more than they like the rest of us. They just love them. That's why they're Republicans after all. Duh. But also 2) they calculate that any political failure for the Democrats and the President is good for them. And they may be right.

But I'm really hoping that the American people will see that a bunch of people who would fight tooth and nail to help the few who are least in need and will fight equally hard to avoid helping the many who are in need is not a party that's got the interests of the country at heart.

Wikileaks: All I have to say on the subject...

Is that the current set of leaked documents do not unveil any government wrongdoing that requires public exposure to be redressed. What they do, however, is make it much harder for diplomats to actually do the difficult work of preventing wars and easing international tensions. Our diplomatic corps are heroes, in my eyes. And whilst it is certainly very interesting to know that China - for instance - might be open to allowing the reuinification of North and South Korea, it is also deeply saddening to realise that the exposure of these views now makes it far less likely that any deal could be struck to make this happen. The prospect of peacefully defusing some of the threat from one of the world's most deadly nuclear aspirants strikes me as a compelling public interest and a great example of the kind of thing that diplomacy can do as long as it remains in the category of a closely held secret.

So I do not agree with Julian Assanage's simple-minded "More transparency always makes the world better," viewpoint. Some things worth doing can only be done in secret, and he has done no one in the world any favours by making that work impossible. Alas.

That does not mean I'm against transparency - or that all leaks are bad. If there is criminal or unethical activity it shoudl be exposed, and if public servants are wasteful or ineffective that should be known. But these documents seem to show nothing but US diplomats doing effective and difficult work and providing honest, candid advice. A shame that such advice will be virtually impossible to draft in future.

I'm Thankful for the Tea Party. Seriously.

I never feel more American than I do on the few days following Thanksgiving - here I sit, stuffed full of turkey sandwiches and leftover pie, I've had two Thanksgiving dinners this weekend, one hosted by arne and I right here at home and one - the traditional deep fried turkey and champagne festival - with some friends in Hampstead Garden Suburb. I've started a little bit of online Christmas shopping, and the cats are huddling close to me for warmth.

All is, more or less, well. And despite the setbacks and disappointments for Democrats in the midterm elections, I remain genuinely hopeful and optimistic about America. So although I have a long list of things to be thankful for personally (good friends and family, an interesting job, a husband who puts up with my quirks, the aforementioned cats...) I wanted to take a moment to mention some of the things I am thankful for as a Democrat - and as an American.


1) I'm Thankful for the Perfectibility of America: Obama in his famous speech on race in Philadelphia spoke thoughtfully of the nation as something that is not yet perfect, but is on a never ending journey to becoming more perfect. Not every step on that journey is a step forward, and sometimes it must feel like we've gone backwards as much as we've gone forward, but I think that view is short sighted. Read the biography of any man or woman of my parents' generation and you can't help but be struck by how far the country has moved in their lifetime. From a place where the simple notion that a black man might be allowed to cast his ballot in a state like North Carolina to a place where a black man can win the state in a Presidential election. From a place where gay men and women could literally be arrested just for existing to a place where federal workers enjoy job benefits for their same sex partners and it is legal for them to marry in 5 states plus the District of Columbia. From a place where the majority of senior citizens lived in poverty to a place where - almost none do.

2) I'm Thankful that the Tea Party is a Non-Violent Political Movement: I believe that most of the so-called Tea Party activists who have been getting so much attention in recent months are catastrophically wrong both on the facts and on the philosophy of politics. But I don't begrudge them their right to organise politically on behalf of their ideas (however wrong they may be) and in fact I am extremely grateful to them for expressing their opposition to the President and to the Democratic Party policy almost entirely through peaceful and non-violent political organisation. This may seem like something unworthy of praise, but it was within my adult lifetime that I can remember extremist right wing fanatics urging citizens to take arms against their own government as part of the so-called "Milita Movement", apparently mobilised by Bill Clinton's ascent to the Presidency. And, of course, for generations before that there was often some version of an extreme political movement that would go beyond political anger, and stir up some of the bloody kind - activists of both the right and the left. Think not only of the Ku Klux Klan, but also of the Weather Underground. Right wing populist rabble rousing has a long and shameful history in the US, going back to the radio rantings of Father Coughlin in the 1930's.

He drew 40 million listeners in the early thirties to his Sunday afternoon program, double the 20 million that Rush Limbaugh has claimed for his audience. But he didn’t just talk; he urged action — illegal and terrifying. By1938, increasingly unhinged and openly anti-Semitic, Coughlin was using his radio pulpit and his 200,000-circulation newspaper, Social Justice, to advocate for the creation of a violent hate group, the Christian Front. The group soon boasted members numbering in the thousands throughout the cities of Northeast. It has largely been forgotten that Coughlin’s “platoons,” as he called them, were responsible for a months-long campaign of low-level mayhem in New York City: They attacked Jews with fists and sometimes knives. They boycotted Jewish-owned businesses (guided by a “Christian index” of shopkeepers) and sometimes smashed their windows in the German fashion. This ugly episode culminated when 17 Coughlinites were arrested by the FBI in January 1940 and charged with planning acts of terrorism against Jewish individuals and institutions (and those deemed their allies).

3) I'm thankful for the It Gets Better Project: Which not only is doing something useful and constructive to help young gay men and women who are do devoid of hope that they might consider suicide, but has also inspired contributions from the highest levels, from President Obama himself, from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and even from the Conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron. Some might say that these contributions from leaders are purely symbolic, and it's true that no leader should be exempt from doing the right thing just because they are willing to say the right thing. But symbolism in this case is no small thing - for a young person who is on the point of taking their own life because they believe themselves utterly alone in the world to know that the President of the United States or the Prime Minister of Britain is on their side and against the bullies who are attacking them is a very big deal. Sometime symbols actually do make a difference in the world.

4) I'm thankful for the excellence of our federal law enforcement services: They have by undying gratitude today for catching the 19 year old would-be bomber who was, chillingly, determined to blow up the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, OR. I'm trebly grateful in this case because my Mom and her husband live just outside of Portland so this feels very close to home. However, the FBI was constantly in control of the situation, and gave the man a fake phone number that he thought would detonate the bomb. In a win-win scenario, we have not only stopped this man from perpetrating a terrible crime, but we have done so in a way that ensures he can be clearly and quickly prosecuted for his crime. Praise to the calm, decisive and effective work of the FBI in this case and in the many other instances we will probably never hear about in which they are quietly keeping us safe.

5) And finally, I'm Thankful for Health Care Reform: A year ago at this time, I was hopeful about the prospects of passage, but things were still up in the air, and it got scarier. In the end, as much through sheer bloody minded stubbornness as for any other reason, we passed the first ever comprehensive reform of the US Health Care system, guaranteeing a right to coverage for every US citizen. And, in timely fashion, part of the promise is being fulfilled now - as of this week, insurers will be required to spend at least 80 cents of every health care dollar that they take in on delivering actual health care.

And if anyone out there is reading this - I'm thankful for that too! Would love to hear your own "I'm thankful fors" in comments.

The Week's Worst: Republicans block START treaty...

I'm having a little trouble keeping up with the unrelenting awfulness of Right Wing activity as, emboldened by their post-midterm strength they begin a full court press with their newly emboldened "everything that is bad for the President is good for us strategy." Obviously, things that are good for the President are quite often the things that are best for the country - economic recovery being one example. Or diplomatic successes overseas. Or improvements in Americans' health and life expectancy.

All of these things must now be halted in their tracks, argue the new Republicn insurgency, for they aid the President and therefore are bad for Republicans and thus, counter-intuitively, ultimately bad for the country. After all, would you really want to have a thriving  nation when you could have a Republican majority instead? Well, YOU AND I would, of course. But they wouldn't.

In any case, I have decided to start a little weekly feature just to try and get my head around one terrible Republican action per week. Each week I'll write a Week's Worst post highlighting the thing Republicans have done that seems most obviously worst for the country.

There was a lot to choose from this week, but in my mind a clear winner emerged:


Republican Senator John Kyl, who had been the point man with the White House appointed by Republicans to negotiate ratification of the new START treaty, after months of negotiation, and after the White House believed that they had secured a mutual agreement on all the key points, that he would not support ratification in the upcoming "lame duck" session of the Senate. He offered no rationale for this position.

The treaty has been described by many as President Obama's key foreing policy priority for this year - and that's accurate. But it would also be accurate to describe it as America's key foreign policy priority. Certainly, Republican Senator sees it as such - he recently begged his colleagues to come to their senses and vote for the treaty:

"Please do your duty for your country," Lugar said in a message to his colleagues. "We do not have verification of the Russian nuclear posture right now. We're not going to have it until we sign the START treaty. We're not going to be able to get rid of further missiles and warheads aimed at us.

"I state it candidly to my colleagues, one of those warheads ... could demolish my city of Indianapolis -- obliterate it! Now Americans may have forgotten that. I've not forgotten it and I think that most people who are concentrating on the START treaty want to move ahead to move down the ladder of the number of weapons aimed at us."

That's exactly right. After the previous START treaty expired in December last year, American inspectors have not been able to access Russian nuclear facilities to ensure that the weapons are secured and that they are complying with their commitment to reduce their arsenal.

The Russians think we have gone insane - they see the treaty as transparently in the US national interest, and they are gobsmacked that it might not pass. Frankly, so am I.

For the Record: Liberals Hate the Deficit...

There's a commonly accepted conventional wisdom that somehow Republicans are supposed to be the party that is "Fiscally Conservative" whereas Democrats love running up giant debts. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Republican party actually behaves in this manner, and there's equally little evidence that Democrats don't take the deficit very seriously. In fact, welcome to opposite world, the complete opposite of the conventional wisdom has been the actual behaviour of Democratic and Republican Presidents for longer than I've been alive.

I'm not going to comment on the Republican love of deficits, but from a progressive point of view, it's fairly obvious why Democrats might behave this way.

Liberals don't love govenment spending for its own sake - we support it when and because it actually does things that we think are worth doing. So, if it can stimulate the economy, educate children, put out fires, build infrastructure, keep people alive then we want the government to do those things. But we also realise that there is a limited amount of money that can be raised from taxation. If it's necessary to go into debt in the short term to keep the country moving, then that's the right thing to do. But in the long run, every dollar that we spend on interest for loans is a dollar we're not spending on health, education, poverty reduction or innovation. So it's in our interest as progressives to find a stable way of funding our programs that is sustainable. That's why we want to reduce medicare costs. That's why we want to cut waste from the Pentagon. That's why we consistently support Pay as You Go policies.



The 5% of the federal that we spent last year on debt interest was not wasted money, but it wasn't maximally efficient either. In the long run, we want to stabilise this in a way that doesn't cause people too much pain in the short term.

But Republicans... just don't care about this at all. Not even a little bit. So ask them why not...

A Black President, Universal US Health Care and... Peace in the Middle East?

I always hesitate to write anything at all about the Israeli-Palestinian situation, because I can rarely think of anything to say other than, "Abandon hope all ye who enter here!"

So it's with some doubt and trepidation, that I am letting my inherent optimism link you to this article, which speculates that the same type of messy, ugly, but ultimately effective process that led to the this government passing the first ever comprehensive universal health care provision - as dreamed of by generations - has the distant hope of, after a similarly gruelling and painful process of compromise and setbacks, to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on a path towards lasting peace.

Because what this deal actually does is provide the various parties to the negotiation an opportunity to delineate a border. As New York Times correspondent Mark Langer writes, burying his lead:


The logic behind a 90-day extension is that the two sides would aim for a swift agreement on the borders of a Palestinian state. That would make the long dispute over settlements irrelevant since it would be clear which housing blocks fell into Israel and which fell into a Palestinian state.

As with healthcare, the administration is taking a path that is not easy to watch, but may be the most practical. I have argued here before that the US government must have, and eventually convey to the parties, a view regarding the elements of a final status agreement: more Dr. Kissinger, less Dr. Phil. But the occasion for putting a thumb on the scales should be a negotiation over the border, not a dispute over continued settlements, which has been clouded by past negotiations over the border. Various talks between Israelis and PA officials, from the Geneva group, to the Olmert meetings, portended land swaps. These first efforts to draw lines, all of which assumed the Eztzion bloc would be part of Israel, say, cannot simply be erased from everyone's consciousness.

THE ANALOGY TO healthcare may be pushed further. The administration has been criticized for allowing Senate committees to debate the shape of the healthcare bill before committing itself to a final plan. The process was ugly; and the administration sweetened the outcome for resistant blue-dogs along the way. In the end, however, it got senators who had skin in the game, and it used their disagreements to define the "solution space" in which to intervene. And once (as Jonathan Cohn has shown) Obama saw the shape of the bill he could get, he still had to choose: let it go, for political reasons, or campaign for it, for historical ones. Had he not chosen the latter course, we would not have had a health reform bill at all.

As always, I'll take a humilating victory over a noble defeat any day. There are still a million and one steps between this moment and a lasting peace for the people of Israel and Palestine. But one step in the right direction is not nothing.

Nancy Pelosi, American Hero

As we bid farewell to Nancy Pelosi's Speakership, let's pause a moment to realise that the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives - the most powerful woman ever to serve in elected office in the USA - was also the most effective leader the Democrats have had in Congress for many generations.

Progressive, feminist, climate change hawk, child advocate, and proud San Fransican, Nancy was never a politician to win elections or legislative battles by selling out her beliefs. But win them she did.

Her term as Speaker was relatively short, but her accomplishments outrank most of her predecessors by a long way.

By any measure, Pelosi has been one of the most effective House speakers in American history, especially given her relatively short tenure. At Salon, Steve Kornacki offers a helpful recollection of her many accomplishments, from health care to student loan reform to the credit card bill of rights to cap and trade. Pelosi consistently delivered legislation that became law, as well as legislation that the Senate then stalled on and failed to pass. As Kornacki writes, Pelosi is unpopular less because of what the House has done or failed to do — most Americans have little idea of those particulars — but because the economy is bad and voters wanted someone to blame.

But there’s another factor that makes Pelosi that much easier to scapegoat: She is a woman — the highest-ranked woman ever to hold elective office in the United States. In January 2007, Pelosi gaveled in her first legislative session as speaker while cradling her newborn grandson (one of seven grandchildren) and surrounded by other legislators’ offspring, whom she had invited to the dais to celebrate. She spoke about her own journey from “kitchen to Congress” and promised that the Democratic Party would govern on behalf of children, and their mothers, too — a vow she fulfilled by collecting the votes to pass the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which insures 11 million kids, and the Lily Ledbetter Act, which made it easier for victims of gender- and race-based pay discrimination to file civil rights complaints and collect back pay.

Thanks.

Get Angrier

Last night, the Republicans appear to have won over 60 seats in the US House of Representatives, taking back majority control of that body, while at the same time picking up at least 6 seats in the Senate. Democrats will retain a majority in the Senate and were relieved to hold onto some critical seats there that looked like they would be hard to hold - most notably, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid held onto his seat in Nevada against all odds.

So... that was a pretty crappy night for us, really. No two ways about it. The defeat of (sorry Mom) batshit crazy non-Witch Christine O'Donnell in Delaware and baseball bat wielding loon Carl Paladino in New York by substantial double digits won't stop the so called Tea Party from tightening their stranglehold on the Republican party. They now own it. They've proved in this election cycle that they can take down in the primary any Republican who shows any hint of an interest in actually solving the nation's problems. Climate change doesn't exist, immigration should be punished (and screw the law abiding Latinos who get caught up their dragnet), the only acceptable way to even attempt to fix the economy is with more tax breaks for the rich. Welcome to the new rules.

Well I say screw that.

President Obama's going to make a speech pretty soon, and I'm sure that as usual his words will be wise, reasonable and right. But I wanted to post before he speaks to tell you that, from my point of view, election 2012 starts today.

I'm incredibly proud of the Democrats accomplishments of the past two year. Against resistance from every faction of the Republican party we've salvaged the economy, rescued the auto industry (which, amazingly, is now restored to full profitibility), delivered a stimulus package that economists agree is responsible for keeping or creating between 1.5 and 3.3 million jobs, and passed health care reform that will cover 95% of the population and will serve as our lasting legacy for generations to come.

It was the most successful Congress of the past hundred years, and seems to have started to but it wasn't enough - not nearly enough to solve the deep and lasting damage that has been done to the economy by 8 years of Republican mismanagement. And people angry. I don't blame them

The problem is that people have lashed out, in their anger, at the only people they could knowck down - the overwhelming Democratic majorities in Congress. We were in their sites, so they took us down.

I think the voters weren't nearly angry enough. I know I wasn't.

Republicans now say they want to spend the next two years obstructing, blocking, investigating and holding hearings on the Democrats. For instance,

The GOP plans to hold high profile hearings examining the alleged "scientific fraud" behind global warming, a sleeper issue in this election that motivated the base quite a bit.

Now that they have the reigns of power in the House, what are they hoping to accomplish with it? Well, nothing actually,

"If you put too much of the actual official power in the hands of the Republicans, it makes them responsible. Right now, I think they're in perfect position tactically. Control the House, object, propose stuff that Obama may veto and run on that against him in 2012.”

While the country has a 9.6% unemployment rate? Does this sound to you like a party that has any interest in, oh, I don't know, fixing things?

Me neither.

The 2012 election campaign starts RIGHT NOW. And I say, bring it on. This is a fight we have to win.