Gettin' All Mavericky

Senate bill to remove oil subsidies from the top five energy giants failed to pass a GOP filibuster.  That's not news.  This part is (and of course it's the last graph:)

[Mary] Landrieu [of Louisiana], Mark Begich of Alaska and Ben Nelson of Nebraska were the Democrats who cast "no" votes. Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe were the only Republicans to vote to take up the measure.

I can understand Landrieu and Begich, being from oil-tastic red states. I can understand The Ladies From Maine using a freebie to polish their moderate cred (what's left of it.)  But Ben Nelson?  He's just being a dick. We never had a 60 vote majority, not when one of them was Nelson.

The GOP Plan Is Working Perfectly

And Obama is falling right into the trap.

Thirty-eight percent of independents approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as president, the first time independent approval of Obama has dropped below 40% in a Gallup Daily tracking weekly aggregate. Meanwhile, Obama maintains the support of 81% of Democrats, and his job approval among Republicans remains low, at 12%.

Over the past year, Obama has lost support among all party groups, though the decline has been steeper among independents than among Republicans or Democrats. Today's 38% approval rating among independents is 18 percentage points lower than the 56% found July 6-12, 2009. During the same period, his support has fallen nine points among Democrats (from 90% to 81%) and eight points among Republicans (from 20% to 12%).

Overall, 46% of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing as president in the June 28-July 4 aggregate, one point above his lowest weekly average. Obama's average weekly job approval rating has not been above 50% since Feb. 8-14, though it reached the 50% mark as recently as May 3-9.

Obama's lower ratings come amid a still-struggling economy, the ongoing difficulties presented by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the recent change of command in the war in Afghanistan. Underscoring the challenge at hand, Obama's 44% approval rating in July 2-5 polling (Gallup did not interview July 4) ties his lowest three-day average to date.

The plan is as elegant as it is simple:  make sure nothing passes in the Senate and blame Obama when the country continues to fall apart, then make gains in November.  Repeat until you control Congress and the White House.  Now Obama's in a situation where by giving away everything to Republicans up front in order to secure their votes, they've simply stabbed him in the back and blocked everything anyway.  Only an amazing effort of will got health care reform through, and the President is unwilling (and now unable with only 59 Senate votes) to get anything else passed.  Now is when he needs Republican help the most, and now is when the Republicans he thought he could work with will oppose him straight down the line.

And he has no one to blame other than himself for believing for a second that the GOP wasn't out to destroy him or the country at the expense of winning in 2010 and 2012.  Been saying that for well over a year now.  All Republicans have to do is run out the clock until Labor Day, and they win.  It really is that simple, folks.  It's a damn shame Team Obama couldn't have figured this out, say, January 20, 2009.

Damn shame.

So What's The Deal With The FinReg Deal?

What's in the financial regulation legislation deal that made it to the final bill?  As somebody who has repeatedly said and still believes the measure will not pass the Senate, the answer is pretty surprising.

Members of the House-Senate committee approved proposals to restrict trading by banks for their own benefit and requiring banks and their parent companies to segregate much of their derivatives activities into a separately capitalized subsidiary.

The agreements were reached after hours of negotiations, most of it behind closed doors and outside the public forum of the conference committee discussions. The approvals cleared the way for both houses of Congress to vote on the full financial regulatory bill next week.

The bill has been the subject of furious and expensive lobbying efforts by businesses and financial trade groups in recent months. While those efforts produced some specific exceptions to new regulations, by and large the bill’s financial regulations not only remained strong but in some cases gained strength as public outrage grew at the excesses that fueled the financial meltdown of 2008.

Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who shepherded the bill through the House, said the bill benefited from the increased attention that turned to the subject of financial regulation after Congress completed the health care bill.

“Last year when we were debating it in the house, health care was getting all of the attention and it was not as good a bill as I would have liked to bring out because we were not getting public attention,” Mr. Frank said. “What happened was with the passage of health care, the American public started to focus on this.”

Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said legislators were still uncertain how the bill will work until it is in place. “But we believe we’ve done something that has been needed for a long time,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner also praised the conference committee for its work. “All Americans have a stake in this bill,” he said. “It will offer families the protections they deserve, help safeguard their financial security and give the businesses of America access to the credit they need to expand and innovate.” 

The bill, surprisingly, still has Blanche Lincoln's derivative language in it, the Volcker Rule (most of it) as well as laws that will prevent banks from playing the big casino games.  It's actually a fairly good piece of legislation and it's considerably better than I thought it was going to be.

Shame then that the Republicans will filibuster it in the Senate rather than see Obama and the Democrats get a legislative victory that might make voters take notice.

The Day In Hoffmania

We go to Florida, where today's example of a Teapublican loony smacking around the hand-picked GOP primary candidate is a particularly good one.

The new Quinnipiac poll in Florida shows that former healthcare executive Rick Scott's right-wing campaign for governor is having a serious impact -- he now leads the establishment GOP candidate state Attorney General Bill McCollum, in the Republican primary.

The numbers: Scott 44%, McCollum 31%. The survey of likely GOP primary voters has a ±3.4% margin of error. At the same time, 59% of primary votes who expressed a choice also said that their minds could potentially change, with that number spread evenly across both candidates' supporters.

Scott has been spending heavily on the race, focusing on illegal immigration and opposition to President Obama's health care reform law. From the pollster's analysis: "In addition to being a testament to the power of television, Scott's ability to take the lead so quickly is also a reflection on McCollum's lack of strong support within his own party despite his two decades in Florida politics."

Scott is about the worst guy possible to run for the GOP, a former health insurance exec who got busted for Medicare fraud running on "let the insurance companies control the market, you can trust us."  He's been trying to buy off the public ever since.

It's working for the primary at least.  Scott has a pretty solid lead.  For the general?  If he wins the primary, he's going to get to test the "Americans favor repeal" theory once and for all.

Shelby Shakedown Shakeout Shows Squat

As Steve Benen notes, of the 5 Sunday shows, 3 ignored the Shelby Shakedown, Candy Crowley gave it a passing mention, but Jake Tapper at least pointed out there was a problem in the This Week roundtable.  But that's as far as it got with Dancing Jake, Al Hunt, George Will, and Peggy Noonan (emphasis mine):

TAPPER: So, Al, that speech came one day after the White House attacked Senator Shelby for the very thing John was just talking about. He had put blanket holds on all nominees because he was concerned, he says, about some national security issues. What's going on here?

HUNT: Well, first of all, Senator Shelby is totally fraudulent on this to begin with. He was concerned about pork for his home state of Alabama. This is as bad as the Nebraska carve-out. It's outrageous what he did. It's, I think, an abuse of senatorial prerogative.

But I also, Jake, think that it's nice to give speeches. We have to have a more civil dialogue in this town. We have to have more bipartisanship. For a whole lot of reasons, it's not going to happen. It might selectively be able to -- you might have a few areas. You'll have some jobs bills where Orrin Hatch and Chuck Schumer might agree.

But in a -- in a broader sense, this is -- these are divisive political times, and that's not going to change, at least until after the November election.

TAPPER: George, the administration and the president has said specifically that he was hoping for some bipartisanship support for some of the small-business tax cuts and credits he's pushing. There's an elimination of a capital gains tax for investments in small businesses, a tax credit for hiring, hoping for Republican support. I have yet to hear one Republican voice, one level of support for any of that.

If there's not bipartisan support for tax cuts, is there support -- is there possibility for any support for anything bipartisan? 

WILL: Well, I'll volunteer. I subscribe to Milton Friedman's view that any tax cut of any shape at any time for any reason is to be supported. So I think probably they'll get some support on this.

But he has a very aggressive agenda from which he has retreated not one bit. I think you'd agree with that.

And so when he extends his hand, he says, "I ask only one thing of Republicans, and that is that you quit being Republicans," and they respectfully decline.

If you have an aggressive agenda, you're going to have to push it aggressively in a partisan manner. 

NOONAN: I'd add, sometimes timing is everything. If the president had spoken like that or acted in a manner reflective of his comments last year, when he first became president, instead of presenting some bills that want to actually know Republican support, he might be in better shape now. It's very convenient for him to be saying, "We're all in this together," when his numbers are going down. 

TAPPER: You wrote recently rather approvingly of the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. He has -- is that unfair?

NOONAN: Sure. No, no, good.

TAPPER: OK. OK. And -- and he came here talking a lot about wanting to work in a bipartisan fashion. One of the first things he did, as you saw in the interview with Geithner, we ran a clip of Brown, was say that the stimulus bill has not created one job. Now, you can criticize with the stimulus bill, but it is -- you can -- you can disagree with whether or not it's created 2 million jobs, but certainly it has created one job.

HUNT: Scott Brown's.

And everyone has a good laugh after that.

In other words, Shelby's hold isn't as big of a problem as Obama's aggressive agenda being all mean to Republicans who should be allowed to control Washington.  The Village sees Shelby's play a a bad one, but a necessary one to disabuse the President of the notion that 59 Senate votes constitutes a majority in any way.  You see, Shelby's crime was simply as being as bad as that arch-liberal Democrat, Ben Nelson. Shame on them both.  Net foul?  None.  And the Shelby Shakedown is swept under the rug.  Obama's hubris however is eternal for thinking he has a mandate.

This will be corrected after the November elections, Hunt points out.  Once again bipartisanship is code for "doing what the Republicans want because it's what we think is best for America."  And Shelby gets all but a free pass as a result.

Scott Brown, whose idea of bipartisanship is being from a blue state while opposing the entire Obama agenda, is held up as the shining example for Obama to follow.

What mandate?  41 is more than 59.

The Tyranny Of The GOP Minority Continues

Via Digby, the Republican minority that Americans from Massachusetts to Massachusetts so clearly elected into power last month continues to make demands of former President Barack Obama as is their god-given Constitutional mandate to do so, and if you diusagree you're a socialist anyway so screw you.

A top House Republican has warned Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that unless the administration consults with Republicans on the make-up and mandate of a fiscal commission, the party won't cooperate, an aide said Friday.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) spoke to Geithner by telephone Friday about the commission, details of which are expected to be finalized next week, an aide to Boehner said.

According to the aide, Boehner told Geithner that President Barack Obama needs to consult Republicans on who will sit on the panel. He also said that everything needs to be up for discussion, including spending cuts, and that the panel should deliver its report to Congress before the November mid-term elections.

Despite attempts by Obama to restart relations with the Republican minority, it's looking increasingly unlikely that the party will cooperate.

Why should they cooperate?  They own all the power in Washington and none of the responsibility. Scott Brown counts as 20 Senators because he's a Republican from Massachusetts.

And the voters will continue to flock to the GOP because the Democrats in Washington are completely okay with this arrangement.

Suddenly Sonia Times Two

ABC News is reporting that the White House is preparing to handle not one, but two possible retirements from the Supreme Court over the next few months.

Court watchers believe two of the more liberal members of the court, justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, could decide to step aside for reasons of age and health. That would give the president his second and third chance to shape his legacy on the Supreme Court.

Last week, when Obama took the nearly unprecedented step of criticizing the court's opinion in a major campaign finance case during his State of the Union speech, some believed he was showcasing for the American people that presidential elections, and Supreme Court nominations count.

"With all due deference to separation of powers," the president said, " last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections. I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."

Doug Kendall, of the progressive Constitutional Accountability Center, said the president's message was clear: "President Obama's spirited reaction to Citizens United at the State of the Union indicates he fully understands the importance of the federal judiciary and the ability of the Supreme Court to stand in the way of his administration's agenda."

Kendall hopes Obama's dressing down of the majority will translate into greater attention to the judicial nomination and confirmation process.

Although five of the six justices who attended the speech sat poker faced when Obama made his comments, Justice Samuel Alito, who voted with the majority, reacted by shaking his head in irritation.

If a justice from the conservative block like Alito were to would retire, there could be a seismic shift on the court, likely giving Obama the chance to reverse the court's majority voting bloc. But speculation has centered on the liberal end of the bench.

And therein lies the problem.  As HuffPo's Sam Stein pointed out last year, at least one Senate Republican has to vote to allow any nominee to pass the Judiciary Committee, and it would take 60 votes in the overall Senate to beat that block.  The Republicans could in fact completely filibuster any pick.  They didn't on Sonia Sotomayor.  But 2009 wasn't an election year either, and Arlen Specter's party swap gave the Dems 60 votes.  That's no longer the case now.

It's entirely possible that the GOP will demand conservative Alito/Roberts style justices or they will simply filibuster the proceedings for months or longer.  They don't care.  Why not simply force a 7-person court (and get 4-3 rulings on everything with the Roberts/Alito/Thomas/Scalia bloc) until the GOP gets a President in to replace Ginsberg and Stevens with even more conservatives?  Why would the GOP not want to shut down the Judiciary at this point to continue their Tyranny of the Minority?

I'm no parliamentarian or legal expert, but it seems to be I've been right when I've said time and time again that the GOP has no shame and will see this government burn before giving Barack Obama any victories.  By making sure government can't work and blaming the people in charge, the Republicans gain power.  Since the Democrats still treat the Republicans as rational actors, the GOP wins again and again.

So somebody tell me why won't this turn into another GOP victory?  The Teabaggers are talking about bringing back literacy tests and other voting requirements to disenfranchise millions.  The GOP leader in the House says there's no difference between the GOP and the Teabaggers.  They are insane and will demand wholeheartedly that the GOP prevent anyone even remotely sane from reaching the bench.

You think Joe Biden will fix the filibuster rules?  Forget about it.  The Dems will fold again and again on this.  Have they passed health care reform?  Repealed DADT?  Reined in the banks that cost us trillions?  They've done a lot, but on the really important stuff they've dropped the ball.  And none of it will get done until the Dems agree that the Republicans have abdicated their responsibility to govern and would rather destroy America and its people than to allow a Democrat to improve anything for anyone.

This will be no different.  Watch.

The Village's Overton Window

Since it's been a whole 37 minutes since a media outlet had to speculate on the Democrats losing the House as an absolute, the real question (for the Village) is can the GOP win the Senate?  Today's contestants:  Politico's Jim Vandehai and Alexander Burns.

With all the usual disclaimers attached — do not engage in political odds-making while taking medication or operating heavy machinery — here's why a Republican takeover is at least possible:

GOP officials tell POLITICO former Sen. Dan Coats will run against incumbent Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, instantly transforming Indiana into a competitive race.

Rep. Mark Kirk won the Republican Senate primary in Illinois, beating back a tea party challenge and giving the GOP the best chance of winning President Obama's former seat.

This comes one week after Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden, decided not to run for his father’s former seat in Delaware. Democrats have a credible backup candidate in New Castle County Executive Chris Coons, but GOP Rep. Mike Castle, who has run and won 11 times statewide, is the strong favorite.

To pick up 10 seats, Republicans would have to run the table in competitive races — and get a miracle (or a big favor from an old friend), too. More on that in a moment. 

Scott Brown truly did change everything:  No matter what, the GOP always has a majority in the Senate.  Why do we even have a Democratic party?  I love how the answer is "No way in hell unless you believe the GOP can pull off multiple Scott Browns, and since the GOP proved it can, we expect Majority leader Mitch McConnell next January."

God, this is annoying.

Why Bother?

That's the advice of National Journal's Ronald Brownstein, who thinks in a world of sixty vote supermajorities that the best course of action is nothing at all.

Obama's first year demonstrated once again that in this deeply polarized political era, big legislative crusades aimed at big national problems produce only big political headaches. President George W. Bush learned that when his failed drive to restructure Social Security helped trigger his precipitous second-term political collapse. And now, like President Clinton, Obama is at risk of cracking his presidency on the immovable rock of health care reform. Democrats control the White House, the House, and, even after the Massachusetts vote, 59 Senate seats, more than either party has held since 1980, except during the past several months. Yet much of Washington assumes, probably correctly, that Democrats are now condemned to gridlock.

Republicans believe that Obama's problem is that he's pushing so much government intervention in the economy. That's undoubtedly part of the story. But Obama's larger difficulty is that he's pushing so much change at a time when filibuster threats are so common that it requires 60 Senate votes to pass almost everything -- and the minority party won't provide the president votes on almost anything. We are operating in what amounts to a parliamentary system without majority rule, a formula for futility.

Republicans would likely be facing equivalent troubles if they had the power to advance their goal of retrenching government. Does anyone imagine that a President John McCain would be flourishing if he had spent 2009 attempting, over unified Democratic resistance, to impose his campaign agenda of eliminating the tax incentive for employer-provided health care and reducing the growth of Medicare spending? Or that House Republicans would be thriving if they could enact their 2009 budget proposal to literally end Medicare for Americans now younger than 55 and replace it with a voucher to buy private insurance?

In that alternate universe, Democrats would almost certainly be the ones celebrating off-year upsets. The common thread is that it's extremely difficult to sell this country on big change, in any direction, without at least some bipartisan validation. That's especially true in today's communications maelstrom, where overtly partisan media sources tirelessly incite the opposition party's base against the president.

 Ahh, good old moral equivalency.  Because ending Medicare for those under 55 is exactly as insane as trying to cover the 50 million Americans without health insurance, and both are equally silly goals for America.

59 votes in the Senate is now gridlock.  That can't possibly be the problem, can it?

Back To The Buckeye State

President Obama returns to Ohio again today to revisit the city he launched his jobs campaign in two years ago as candidate Obama: Lorain.

Ted Fenik worked for National Gypsum for nine years before the plant went idle. "I definitely don't blame Barack Obama for me losing my job," Fenik said. "When the housing industry took the slide down, you know, that's what killed us."

"We just need to bring more manufacturing jobs back to America," Fenik said. "You know, it just seem like they're all going overseas."

Ken Sauvey, 55, still hasn’t found work and has been without benefits for more than a year.

"We're trying to save our house," Sauvey said. "We don't want to lose our house.  Everything we make goes towards the house and pays the bills and just to stay about ground.  When that runs out I may have to leave the state.  I don't know.  That's just a scary situation."

He's been looking for work for two years. "They just don't hire a 55 year old man.  I'll put it that way.  And so, it is frustrating."

Sauvey told us he would ask President Obama "to keep up his work for the working man, the people that need it the most.  I know he's got a lot on his plate."

He does.  But so do millions of other Americans.  And if Obama folds on health care, they're not going to buy anything else he's selling either.

Many in Washington the Village want Obama to just throw everything under the bus and work on jobs, which of course means cutting corporate taxes like Republicans want.  The Republicans have already shown that Obama will get the blame if they block programs the GOP doesn't like that might benefit the working class or the president's numbers, so if he does propose a new jobs program, the Republicans fully expect to win that battle by blocking it.  41 is more than 59.

Obama can break the cycle and do some real good.  But right now he's on the sidelines. Health care doesn't seem to matter if your unemployed, but on the contrary it becomes far more important.

Wanted: Leadership

With Congressional Dems in full panic mode, the White House is showing leadership...by backing off completely, according to TPM.

Our sources suggest to us the White House has been hands-off since the fate of the health care bill went from nearly done to unbelievably uncertain this week.

Obama's health care message has been to say he hopes Congress tries to "move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on," a signal many took as backing away to let leaders do what they think is most politically viable.

A White House aide insisted Obama is "engaged" on health care and that "active" discussions are happening in an around the Oval Office.

Obama has been speaking with Congressional leadership including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Leader Harry Reid.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel also is talking to members, though aides say he's not advocating for one position, but is listening to their thoughts on health care.

The White House is waiting on the Senate.  Meanwhile, the Senate is punting to the House.

The preferred way forward for unions and the reform campaign Health Care for America Now (not to mention the preferred solution of many members) is for the House to pass the Senate bill along with a separate package making what they see as a variety of necessary changes to it. (Given the math in the Senate, many of those changes would have to be passed via the filibuster proof budget-reconciliation process.) But the House isn't willing to take anything for granted. And for the promise of a fix to be worth the paper it's printed on, members will want some assurance from the Senate (among others) that the Senate will be willing to act. With just about every Democrat in the Senate saying they've moved on to other, newer priorities, it's safe to say they're not getting that.

And the House? They're looking for the White House to back them up on making the bill better through reconciliation.

In a statement released this afternoon, Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said he can't support passing the Senate bill through the House.

"I cannot support the Senate bill for the same reasons I could not before," he said. "It is a collection of unfair elements, including last-minute deal-making with certain individual senators in exchange for their votes, that has incensed voters across the country. It does not add up to an improvement in our health care system."

But of course, health care reform has now become Somebody Else's Problem.   The House wants to improve the bill, the Senate wants to kill it, and the White House is on the sidelines waiting to see who wins.  As the Kroog says this morning:

A message to House Democrats: This is your moment of truth. You can do the right thing and pass the Senate health care bill. Or you can look for an easy way out, make excuses and fail the test of history.

Right now the Dems are set for complete failure.

Last Call

Your tiny sliver of hope this evening:

Backtracking from a declaration he made just after the election of Republican Scott Brown Tuesday night, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) has tempered his opposition to the Senate health reform bill.

"I have realized that my statement last night was more pessimistic than is called for," Frank said in a statement e-mailed to Raw Story on Wednesday evening.

"I was reacting – perhaps overreacting – to proposals I had heard from a variety of sources that we do things to facilitate the passage of a health care bill that would have sought in the short-term to neutralize yesterday’s election," he conceded

Yes.  You did.  You know how to proceed forward.  Make it happen.

Self-Fufilling Prophecy

From the Village's Mark Preston at CNN (emphasis mine)

In a matter of two weeks, Democrats witnessed a sleeping Republican base come to life to rally around a little-known GOP candidate, who defied the odds to win the race to succeed the liberal lion from Massachusetts.

And after watching two governorships slip from their grasp in November, many Democrats have come to realize that the American public is not particularly happy with their stewardship of the nation.

Democrats have 10 months to try to regain the momentum, but the wind is now at the Republicans' backs, and their first legislative victory will likely be slamming the brakes on President Obama's signature domestic issue: health care reform. It is a mighty blow for a president, who just one year ago seemed unbreakable, unstoppable, unbeatable.

The Village is already dealing with the post-Obamacare era, as well as the post-Obama era.  Not only is he being discussed like he is no longer President, but like he is not even in the same planet as where the Oval Office is located.

41 is more than 59.

Steal This Book

Doug J at Balloon Juice:

We’ve been talking about a new tag here “59 seat minority”. The Village Voice has already gotten to it:

“Scott Brown Wins Mass. Race, Giving GOP 41-59 Majority in the Senate”

(via)

Oh hell yes.  New tag: 41 Is More Than 59.