HoliDaze: A Pair Of Legends Pass

Two very notable deaths this week, first, football broadcasting legend John Madden passed today at age 85.

John Madden, the NFL coach, broadcaster and namesake for the billion-dollar video game franchise, died unexpectedly Tuesday. He was 85 years old.

The legendary coach helmed the Oakland Raiders from 1969 to 1978, winning a Super Bowl over the Minnesota Vikings in January 1977. But he became as known for what he did after leaving the game in just his early 40s, when he ascended to the broadcast booth and later lent his name to the most successful sports video game franchise of all time.

He is survived by his wife, Virginia, and sons Mike and Joe, as well as several grandchildren.

"On behalf of the entire NFL family, we extend our condolences to Virginia, Mike, Joe and their families," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. "We all know him as the Hall of Fame coach of the Oakland Raiders and broadcaster who worked for every network, but more than anything, he was a devoted husband, father and grandfather."

"Nobody loved football more than Coach. He was football. He was an incredible sounding board to me and so many others," Goodell continued. "There will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for all he did to make football and the NFL what it is today." 

 

Certainly I grew up with Madden's marquee game calling, particularly watching his Detroit Lions Thanksgiving games at my grandparents' house, and watching CBS's Super Bowl broadcasts as well as playing Madden NFL on consoles in the 90's and 00's.  It just wasn't the same without him once he retired.

And speaking of things never being the same since he retired, that brings us to our other extremely notable passing this evening, former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

 

Harry Reid, who rose from abject poverty in rural Nevada to become one of the most influential state and national leaders, died on Tuesday, sources confirmed to The Nevada Independent. He was 82.

Additional details were not immediately available.

Reid was thought to be nearing the end of his life when he underwent surgery in 2018 for pancreatic cancer, which has one of the lowest survival rates. Last summer, however, Reid announced that he underwent an experimental surgery and was declared in “complete remission” and cancer-free.

Over more than three decades of service in Congress, Reid earned a reputation for fighting relentlessly to protect his home state and everyday Americans. As Senate Democratic leader for a dozen years, he played an instrumental role in passing the Affordable Care Act and shepherding through Congress pivotal economic recovery legislation in the wake of the Great Recession.

Reid also spent considerable time focusing on water, energy and public lands, issues at the forefront of a state that was undergoing rapid growth. In 2020, Reid said more than half of his congressional papers dealt, in some form, with the environment.

A savvy dealmaker and sometimes polarizing figure who made as many enemies as he did friends, Reid still earned the respect of colleagues in both parties — sometimes turning former enemies to friends. Soft-spoken with a sharp tongue, Reid compelled those around him to listen.

Reid took a no-holds-barred approach to politics, directly calling bankers to bail out the faltering CityCenter project on the Las Vegas Strip and falsely claiming Mitt Romney hadn’t paid his taxes in 10 years.

He helped Nevada punch above its weight on the national political stage by advocating that the state hold the first-in-the-West caucus in the nation in 2008, a move that has left Nevada’s presidential nominating contest just behind those in Iowa and New Hampshire. The caucus has brought droves of presidential contenders through the state every four years for the last four election cycles, elevating the state’s profile nationally.

He also turned the Nevada State Democratic Party into a well-oiled political operation — nicknamed the Reid Machine — responsible for securing numerous Democratic victories in close races over the last decade.

 

Everyone talks about all the fights Reid lost to Mitch McConnell, but frankly Reid was a Democratic player well after he left the Senate stage, and he won some critical legislative battles for Obama, including Obamacare and the nuclear option on appointing judges.

 

Oh, and Reid himself was an amateur boxer, who later became Nevada Gaming Commissioner, survived a Vegas mob car bomb attempt, and even had a movie role in Traffic.

Both of these men defined the roles they filled, and both will be missed.

Here's to you, Madden and Reid.

Last Call For Move, Mitch, Get Out The Way

With Vice President Harris swearing in both Georgia Democrats and her replacement, Alex Padilla, Democrats officially took control of the Senate this evening with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer now leading the Most August Deliberative Body and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy as President Pro Tempore.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is officially Senate majority leader after the inauguration of Vice President Kamala Harris and the swearing-in of new Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).

Why it matters: With a 50-50 Senate, Schumer will control a narrow majority with Harris as the tie-breaking vote. Democratic control of the Senate is crucial to President Biden's agenda, from getting his coronavirus relief proposal passed to forgiving student debt.

The big picture: After more than 20 years in the Senate, Schumer will be taking the position from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who became majority leader in 2015. McConnell and Schumer met on Tuesday to discuss a power-sharing agreement for the new Senate and to sort out when to hold President Trump's second impeachment trial.

Context: The last time the Senate was divided 50-50 was in 2001, under former President George W. Bush. The Senate agreed on a power-sharing plan that gave Republicans "a narrow advantage on setting the agenda on contentious issues," Roll Call writes. 

Yes, but: The parties have become more divided since then and negotiations on how the power-sharing will work are likely to drag along, meaning Biden will not have any confirmed Cabinet members on his first day in office.

Details: Ossoff is Georgia's first Jewish senator. Warnock is Georgia's first Black senator. Padilla is the first Latino senator in California.

One fun thing: As Harris addressed "the certificate of the appointment to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of former Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California," she burst into laughter, adding: "Yeah, that was very weird."

New tags for our new Democratic senators. We'll need every one of them. And frankly, Chuck Schumer ain't Harry Reid, who was much better as both Senate Majority Leader and Senate Minority Leader than Schumer is capable of.

We'll see.

Going Back To Move Forward

Democrats, to their credit, have now given up on the whole Obama-era "looking forward" plan and the proposed Biden "unity" plan and are finally facing the ugly reality that Trumpists will do whatever it takes to hold power, and that accountability and justice need to happen or that next time the coup will succeed.

 

Whether or not the House pursues impeachment charges against Mr. Trump for his role in inciting his supporters to storm the Capitol on Wednesday, many Democrats say that impeachment is not enough.

Once President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes office on Jan. 20, wide segments of his party are eager to see investigations and prosecutions of an array of Trump aides and allies — an effort, they say, that would bolster the rule of law after a presidency that weakened it and serve as a warning to future presidents that there will be consequences for illegal actions taken while in office.

The rioting at the Capitol has only intensified that desire. More than a dozen Democrats interviewed in recent days said the president’s role in inspiring the mob violence had prompted them to change their positions: They now want the Biden Justice Department to investigate the president and his aides.

“I was not on the investigate-and-prosecute train before yesterday,” Kathleen Sullivan, a former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said on Thursday. “However, undermining the very foundations of democracy and the Constitution is a crime that can’t be ignored.”

So far, Mr. Biden has not taken a position on impeachment, let alone the broader agenda of launching criminal investigations. He has said he would leave any decisions about it to his Justice Department, which he has promised will return to the pre-Trump norm of maintaining independence from the White House. His choice of Merrick B. Garland, a centrist judge, as his nominee for Attorney General is another indication of his more measured approach to pursuing investigations and indictments.

His stance reflects not only his politics but a natural inclination not to settle scores — much like Mr. Obama, whom Mr. Biden served for eight years as vice-president. Mr. Obama said shortly before his own inauguration that he believed the nation needed “to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

But interviews with more than 50 current and former Democratic elected officials, Democratic National Committee members and party activists found an overwhelming consensus across the party’s ideological spectrum toward holding Mr. Trump personally accountable and launching congressional and Justice Department investigations into him, his family and his top aides — not only for inciting last week’s violent mob at the Capitol but for a host of other actions during his presidency.

The transgressions they cite include collusion with Russia, tax fraud, illegal pressure on state elections officials, using federal offices for political activity and violation of the constitutional provision that prohibits a president from profiting from foreign governments.

A Georgia elections official on Saturday confirmed a third call Mr. Trump made to officials in the state trying to reverse Mr. Biden’s victory. The calls began with one to Gov. Brian Kemp in early December to berate him for certifying the state’s election results. The efforts to change election results could be construed as illegal attempts at election interference or other criminal violations, but legal experts said proving a case could be difficult.

Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, said Mr. Trump, former Attorney General Bill Barr and others need to be investigated by Mr. Biden’s Justice Department, though he warned that Mr. Biden himself should keep his distance from any prosecutions to avoid the appearance of politicizing them.

“There’s a desire from me to never hear from Trump again, but I don’t think the issue should be ignored,” Mr. Reid said during an interview on Friday.

The push for accountability for Mr. Trump and his allies is starkest in the party’s liberal wing, especially among progressive people of color who have watched the Trump administration direct the use of tear gas against demonstrators for racial justice, and threaten them with long prison terms.

“Absolutely Trump should do jail time,” said Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York. A Justice Department investigation, Mr. Bowman said, “needs to happen on Jan. 20, as soon as possible.”

If Harry Reid, about as much as a Senate Emeritus "elder statesman" centrist that the Dems have, and Jamaal Bowman, the newly-minted Bronx BLM firebrand who kicked Eliot Engel out on his ass after 32 years, are both calling for Justice Department investigations of Trump, his family, and his regime, well that's just about as wide a spectrum on the Democratic side as you can get.

 

And Americans want Trump gone. Now.

A majority of the country believes President Donald Trump should be removed before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20 and two-thirds hold him accountable for the violent insurrection on Capitol Hill, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday.

In the new survey, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos' Knowledge Panel, 56% of Americans think the sitting commander-in-chief should be removed from office before the official transfer of power in less than two weeks, while 43% say he should not. Among those who say Trump should not be removed immediately, nearly half (45%) nevertheless say his actions this week were wrong.

Ousting the current president before his term expires splits Americans along partisan lines, with 94% of Democrats and only 13% of Republicans supporting the move. A majority of independents -- 58% -- also back removing him.

Some thoughts, then:

Does Trump pardon himself, and will that hold up or will SCOTUS side with Trump?

Does Pence pardon a January 19th resigning Trump after Trump pardons everyone else (maybe including Pence?)

Since Dems only need 50 votes now (plus VP Kamala Harris) to confirm, what do Joe Manchin, Jon Tester, Kyrsten Sinema etc. want in return for appointing Garland to Justice?

 

Politico's Tim Alberta sums it up:

The stuff I've heard in the last 72 hours—from members of Congress, law enforcement friends, gun shop owners, MAGA devotees—is absolutely chilling.

We need to brace for a wave of violence in this country. Not just over the next couple of weeks, but over the next couple of years.

— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) January 10, 2021

 

We'll see just how right he is. As bad as 2020 was, folks...2021 is going to be worse.

Last Call For The Race To Replace, Con't

With both Mitt Romney and Thom Tillis committing to confirm Trump's pick to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- and I remind you Trump has not made his decision yet and they are still pledging to vote for Trump's nominee unseen -- Trump has the votes to confirm during the election, an unprecedented assault on our country.

So what the hell do Democrats plan to do about it? Former Harry Reid staffer Adam Jentleson offeres some ideas.

 

There is no silver bullet available to Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, to block the nominee. Distraught Democrats should understand that senators’ options are limited, but Democratic senators should understand the depth of voters’ desire to see their senators do everything possible to stop Mr. Trump from replacing R.B.G. This is an illegitimate process, and that is how Democrats should approach it. A core function of the Senate is to “advise and consent” on federal court nominees. Jamming a Supreme Court nominee through in direct contradiction of Republican senators’ pledges not to do so, with votes already being cast in the election, will be a clear abdication of any reasonable claim to the institution’s constitutional responsibility.

There are a range of tools available to Democrats to apply constant pressure. The Senate operates on what are called “unanimous consent” agreements, or U.C.s — pacts that set the daily schedule and the terms of conduct for all business. As the name suggests, every senator has to agree to a U.C. If a single senator objects, the U.C. is blocked. Democrats can bring the business of the Senate to a halt by systematically denying U.C. agreements. This simply requires stationing one senator on the floor at all times — senators can rotate every few hours, they just need to be physically present on the floor to say, “I object,” anytime Republicans try to pass a U.C.

Denying U.C.s will gum up the works in countless ways, one of which will be to deny committees the ability to meet more than two hours after the Senate convenes. This applies to the Judiciary Committee, where any confirmation hearings would be held. Republicans will still be able to schedule them, but it will make the process arduous and abnormal.

Absent U.C.s, the Senate needs a quorum of 51 senators to be present to conduct business. Senate Democrats should force Republicans to produce quorums on their own. Republicans control 53 seats, but bringing 51 senators to the floor every time they need to conduct business is a major challenge. Notably, Republicans have more incumbent senators up for re-election than Democrats do, and every day they have to spend in Washington is a lost day of campaigning. It takes only one senator to do this: By noting the absence of a quorum, a Democratic senator can put the Senate into a state of suspended animation called a “quorum call” until 51 senators arrive on the floor.

Democrats can also boycott the confirmation hearings. The hearings are unlikely to influence the outcome. If the hearings for Brett Kavanaugh did not change any votes, neither will these hearings. Attending confers legitimacy, and refusing to attend will send a powerful statement that they deem the process and the nominee illegitimate.

Together, these tactics will hang an asterisk around President Trump’s nominee. Democratic senators should keep in mind that if they participate in the process, even aggressively, history will record it as a “contentious” confirmation process, a common occurrence. Boycotting the process and disrupting Senate business, on the other hand, will brand it as fundamentally different from anything that has come before.

 

This is the same weak sauce offered before with Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation, ultimately it went nowhere.  But there's more this time.

 

This brings us to the most important step: Democrats should commit to the structural reforms necessary to undo the damage Republicans have wrought. Republicans were able to block Judge Merrick Garland and install a conservative majority on the Supreme Court despite representing less than half of the population. The Senate overrepresents white conservatives, while minority voters are more underrepresented than at any time since 1870. A white conservative minority imposing its will on a diverse majority — in part through federal judges serving lifetime appointments — is a fundamentally unhealthy dynamic for our democracy.

If Democrats win the White House and the Senate in November, they can pass reforms to rebalance our democracy through simple majority votes. The only thing standing in the way will be the filibuster — a procedural mutation that was not a part of the original Senate and that has been manipulated in recent decades to transform the Senate from the framers’ vision of a majority-rule institution into one where most business requires 60 votes (or a “supermajority”) to pass. There are many good reasons to get rid of the filibuster, but Republicans jamming through a nominee should motivate any hesitant Democrats to commit to eliminating it if they take back power.

Without the filibuster, reforms can be passed by simple majority votes, as the framers intended. Democrats should commit to reforming the Supreme Court: They can add seats to the court; apply age or term limits; or pass any of a range of credible proposals. Congress has the prerogative to change the court, including its size, which it has done six times since the founding.

Democrats should also reform the Senate so it better represents the nation. They can start by inviting territories bound by federal law but lacking voting representation in Congress to become states. The District of Columbia has roughly a similar or greater population as Wyoming or North Dakota, while Puerto Rico has more people than 20 states. Both deserve to become states if they so choose.

Committing to these changes now will enable Democrats to move quickly if they take back power.

 

It's a bold move, and Democrats will have to absolutely and fully committ and follow through for this to happen, but it's the only shot we have.

The alternative is 1952 America, Jim Crow, and white supremacy as the law of the land, based on Christian conservative bigotry being used to justify discrimination of everyone who isn't white, male, and straight. 

But there are issues right now, today. With Justice Ginsberg's body not even cold yet, the GOP is already asking the Supreme Court to block voting by mail in Pennsylvania this week.

 

In a sign of how critical Pennsylvania is to the Republican Party’s election litigation strategy, the state GOP wants the U.S. Supreme Court to review a state case that opened up absentee voting, while the Trump campaign is seeking to revive a federal lawsuit targeting Pennsylvania’s plans for pandemic voting.

The indication Tuesday that the U.S. Supreme Court will be asked to get involved in the state court case marks the first time the high court’s intervention will be sought since the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Democrats and Republicans have been engaged in a multi-front court battle over several aspects of Pennsylvania’s absentee voting process.

Last week, in a lawsuit brought by Democrats, the state Supreme Court okayed Pennsylvania’s plans to set up ballot drop boxes and it upheld the state’s requirement that poll watchers reside in the county they are assigned to. It also ruled that election officials should count ballots that arrive in the three days after the election.

The Pennsylvania GOP as well as the Republican leaders of its legislature indicated on Tuesday that it would appeal that decision — and particularly its extension for the receipt deadline for absentee ballots — to the U.S. Supreme Court. The notice came in requests to the state Supreme Court that it put its opinion on hold while U.S. Supreme Court review is sought.

 

All indications now are that the PA GOP will get a ruling in their favor, one that will be repeated nationally in order to disenfranchise millions of mail ballots.

And we're just getting started on the massive voter suppression now available to the GOP in the next six weeks.

Be ready.

Last Call For Gloves Off

The White House isn't splitting hairs on this CIA Trump/Russia revelations, outright saying that Donald Trump knew full well he was benefiting from Putin's propaganda machine.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said there’s no denying Trump benefitted from Russian hacking of political organizations during the campaign season.

“You didn’t need a security clearance to figure out who benefited from malicious Russian cyber activity,” Earnest said during the daily press briefing.“The president-elect didn’t call it into question," he continued. "He certainly had a pretty good sense of whose side this activity was coming down on.”

Earnest rattled off a long list of reported ties between Trump’s team and Russia, suggesting that members of Congress and the public knew of those connections before the election.

The spokesman also threw the White House’s support behind a congressional effort to investigate the claims, which came to light last Friday in a Washington Post report.
President Obama last week directed the intelligence community to compile a report into Russian hacking tied to U.S. elections. Earnest said the results could aid congressional investigators.

He noted that the only information published from the hacks, which reportedly hit Democratic and Republican groups, pertained to Democrats.

“It’s all information that is, as far as I can tell, undisputed,” Earnest said. “One conclusion it does lead me to is the special responsibility that members of Congress have to take a close look at this. Particularly those members of Congress who endorsed Trump in the elections.”He said some Republican lawmakers backing Trump are “wringing their hands about this” effort.

“I think they should spare us the hand-wringing and fulfill their basic responsibility, since the bar has been raised, based on their political choices.”

This is some pretty explosive stuff from the White House here.  They're loaded for bear on this and absolutely signaling a fight here.  So are Senate Democrats led by the outgoing Harry Reid (for now.)

In an exit interview with the Huffington Post, Senate Minority Harry Reid (D-NV) said that he believes that the Trump campaign was "in on" efforts to damage Hillary Clinton's campaign by using WikiLeaks.

“Someone in the Trump campaign organization was in on the deal. I have no doubt. Now, whether they told [Trump] or not, I don’t know. I assume they did. But there is no question about that,” Reid told the Huffington Post in an interview. “So there is collusion there, clearly.”

If you were somehow under the impression that the White House was going to soft-pedal this and be polite?  Hell no.  And good for them.  I am definitely hoping some of this evidence gets declassified and given to reporters, the sooner the better.

Last Call For Harry's Big Exit

As you're probably aware, Senate minority leader Harry Reid is hanging up his boxing gloves this year as Republican Joe Heck and Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto battle it out over his Nevada seat.  Right now it's looking pretty good for Cortez Masto who has taken a slim lead for the first time in state polling, indeed Cook Political Report's latest Senate forecast has the Democrats picking up five to seven seats and regaining control of the Senate.

Early voting is underway in 27 states, so Republicans don’t really have much time to turn things around, and Trump won’t be any help, especially his campaign doesn’t really have a ground game to speak of. The GOP’s only hope is to start running a checks-and-balances message, or more blatantly, a don’t-give-Clinton-a-blank-check message to motivate their base, particularly what one strategist called “casual Republicans,” to the polls. We are starting to see that message in some red and purple states as candidates work to tie Democratic candidate to Clinton.

History shows that races in the Toss Up column never split down the middle; one party tends to win the lion’s share of them. Since 1998, no party has won less than 67 percent of the seats in Toss Up. While the 2016 election has broken every political science rule and trend, we’d be surprised if this becomes one of them.

As such, we are increasing the range of expected Democratic pick ups to five to seven seats. This means that we feel that the prospect that Democrats will have at least 51 seats is greater than the odds of a tied Senate, or of Republicans somehow holding their majority.

So in a future Clinton administration with the Democrats poised to have 51 to 53 Senate seats, that still means that Republicans can go back to filibustering everything like they did in 2012 and blame the Dems to great effect in 2014 and win the Senate right back in two years. And this time around, it would mean an almost guaranteed block on any Clinton nomination to the Supreme Court.

But maybe Harry Reid has the solution.

The outgoing Democratic leader told Talking Points Memo that he's paved the way for what would be a historic change of the Senate's rules, allowing Supreme Court nominees to bypass a 60-vote procedural requirement and be approved by a simple majority. 

"I really do believe that I have set the Senate so when I leave, we’re going to be able to get judges done with a majority," he said. "It’s clear to me that if the Republicans try to filibuster another circuit court judge, but especially a Supreme Court justice, I’ve told 'em how and I’ve done it, not just talking about it. I did it in changing the rules of the Senate. It’ll have to be done again."

Reid's comments come as Senate Republicans have refused to give Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, a hearing or a vote for more than eight months. They argue that the vacancy from Justice Antonin Scalia's death should be filled by the president's successor.

Reid, who has previously floated changing the rules in 2017, added to TPM that if Republicans "mess with the Supreme Court, it'll be changed just like that in my opinion. So I’ve set that up. I feel very comfortable with that.”

Not just a threat but a promise.  We'll see how the future plays out, but I'm hoping the Dems are ready to move to nuke the filibuster.

The Honey Badger's Last Hurrah

Senate minority leader Harry Reid may have one last ace up his sleeve before he retires and heads back to Nevada in the form of procedural maneuvering to force Senate Republicans to vote on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, whose nomination has now been blocked by the GOP for a record-breaking 148 days without a even a hearing.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday left the door open for Democrats to potentially use a procedural tactic to force a vote on Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. 

"We have a couple of options, and we're deciding when to do that and if we should do it — when and if," Reid told reporters during a conference call. "I've been in touch with some of my senators during the break to determine that." 

Reid didn't specify how Democrats could bring Garland's nomination to the Senate floor, but said they had some "extreme" options that would ultimately need more than 50 votes to succeed.

"It all boils down to whether you have more than 50 votes. If you don't have more than 50 votes ... most of it is not for anything other than a little drama," he said.

Democrats currently hold 44 seats, in addition to Independent Sens. Angus King (Maine) and Bernie Sanders (Vt.), who caucus with them. 

One option could be using a discharge resolution to bypass Republicans on the Senate floor and try to force the nomination out of the Judiciary Committee, where it has been waylaid by Sen. Chuck Grassley's (R-Iowa) refusal to give Garland a hearing. 

Reid's comments come amid a months-long entrenched fight over Garland's nomination after President Obama nominated him in March. 

GOP leadership has pledged to keep the seat open until next year, allowing Obama's successor to fill the vacancy created by Justice Antonin Scalia's death.

There are several scenarios that play out here: First, should GOP Senate races start crumbling under the weight of Donald Trump's disastrous campaign, opposition to Garland's nomination could crumble along with it in an effort to split the ticket and "save" GOP control of the Senate. once they come back from Labor Day recess.

Second, the GOP gambles they can keep 51 seats and they lose in November, or that Clinton loses in November, and they lose on both counts.  This is probably just as likely as scenario one in my head, and in both cases opposition crumbles and the Senate GOP accepts Garland.

Third, Reid plays his ace and the pressure during the campaign breaks the GOP.  The rest plays out like in scenarios one and two: opposition to Garland's nomination fails.

Four is where things get interesting: this is where Clinton is elected but the GOP keeps the Senate, barely.  This however imperils a whole different group of GOP senators in 2018, and they probably don't want to deal with this can being kicked down the road.  A lot of moving parts happen here, but I would think Garland would at least get his hearing and a vote.

Five? Five is where Trump wins, and well...all bets are off.  We do not speak of Scenario Five.

The Case For His Successor

Last night several big names in the Democratic Party (and for some unfathomable reason, Michael Bloomberg) laid out their respective cases for Hillary Clinton's election at the Democratic National Convention in Philly, including arguably Clinton's most powerful proponent, the current POTUS himself.

President Barack Obama painted an optimistic picture of America's future and offered full-throated support for Hillary Clinton's bid to defeat Republican Donald Trump in a speech that electrified the Democratic National Convention.

He urged Democrats to enable Clinton to finish the job he started with his election nearly eight years ago in a rousing speech that capped a night when party luminaries took to the stage to contrast the party's new standard-bearer with Trump, whom they portrayed as a threat to U.S. values.

"There has never been a man or woman, not me, not Bill - nobody more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States," Obama said to cheers at the Philadelphia convention on Wednesday night.

Hillary Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, will accept the party's White House nomination in a speech to end the convention on Thursday night. The election is on Nov. 8.

Her address will be closely watched to see if she can make a convincing argument for bringing about change while still representing the legacy of Obama, who is ending his second term with high approval ratings.

"Tonight, I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me. I ask you to carry her the same way you carried me," Obama said. When he finished, she joined him on stage where they hugged, clasped hands and waved to the crowd.

I saw this speech and as far as Obama speeches go it was pretty decent, not among his top ten by any means, but a good one nonetheless.  But he did what he set out to do, which was to endorse Clinton as someone who can and should follow him, and to go after Donald Trump, hard.

In fact that was the theme of the night. VP Joe Biden, Clinton running mate Sen. Tim Kaine, and retiring Senate minority leader Harry Reid all ripped Donald Trump to bits. Even Bloomberg got in on the festivities, declaring that as a New Yorker, he knew a con when he saw one.

All in all it was a good night for the Dems.  We'll see what Clinton herself has to say tonight.

Sunday Right-Wing Conspiracy

The Assrocket comes in with this completely ridiculous theory:

Scott wrote here about Harry Reid’s announcement that he will not run for re-election, a decision which, Reid was quick to say, was not the result of his “elastic exercise band” accident. In January, I wrote OK, So What Really Happened to Harry Reid? I noted the injuries that Reid suffered on New Year’s Day, in Las Vegas: multiple broken bones around his right eye, damage to the right eye, severe facial bruising, broken ribs, and a concussion. Was all of this really the result of losing his balance because an elastic exercise band broke? That seems unlikely, to say the least.

Oh it gets more hysterical.

When a guy shows up at a Las Vegas emergency room on New Year’s Day with severe facial injuries and broken ribs, and gives as an explanation the functional equivalent of “I walked into a doorknob,” it isn’t hard to guess that he ran afoul of mobsters. Yet the national press has studiously averted its eyes from Reid’s condition, and has refused to investigate the cause of his injuries. To my knowledge, every Washington reporter has at least pretended to believe Reid’s story, and none, as far as I can tell, has inquired further.

Wait for it....

A friend of mine was in Las Vegas a week or two ago. He talked to a number of people there about Reid’s accident, and didn’t find anyone who believed the elastic exercise band story. The common assumption was that the incident resulted, in some fashion, from Reid’s relationship with organized crime. The principal rumor my friend heard was that Reid had promised to obtain some benefit for a group of mobsters. He met with them on New Year’s Day, and broke the bad news that he hadn’t been able to deliver what he promised. When the mobsters complained, Reid (according to the rumor) made a comment that they considered disrespectful, and one of them beat him up.

Says a lot about Assrocket's "friends" doesn't it.  Then again, they don't believe in evolution or climate change or basic macroeconomics, so of course "Harry Reid was really beaten into retirement by mobsters."

Is that what really happened? I have no idea, but it is a more likely story than the elastic exercise band yarn.

What happened to Reid is not just a matter of curiosity. Everyone knows that the Reid family has gotten rich, even though Reid has spent his entire career as a public employee. It is known that a considerable part of his fortune came from being cut in on sweetheart Las Vegas land deals that included at least one person associated with organized crime as a principal. Was the Senate Majority Leader in the pocket of the Mafia? That seems like a question worth exploring, and yet, to my knowledge, not a single investigative reporter has chosen to look into the matter, even with the obvious clue of Reid’s face in front of them.

The deliberate blindness of Democratic Party reporters hasn’t stopped people from speculating about what really happened to Harry Reid, but so far, at least, it has prevented the story from exploding into a major scandal.

"Everyone knows" Harry Reid is "involved with mobsters" and yet nobody has reported on it especially nobody on the right.

Weird how that works. It's almost like Assrocket has no actual evidence and is full of shit as usual.

The Honey Badger Hangs Up His Gloves

Senate minority leader Harry Reid will not run for re-election in 2016 as yet another big Senate retirement will set off a scramble for both his seat and for leadership among the Dems.

Senator Harry Reid, the tough tactician who has led Senate Democrats since 2005, will not seek re-election next year, bringing an end to a three-decade congressional career that culminated with his push of President Obama’s ambitious agenda against fierce Republican resistance. 

Mr. Reid, 75, who suffered serious eye and facial injuries in a Jan. 1 exercise accident at his Las Vegas home, said he had been contemplating retiring from the Senate for months. He said his decision was not attributable either to the accident or to his demotion to minority leader after Democrats lost the majority in November’s midterm elections. 

“I understand this place,” Mr. Reid said. “I have quite a bit of power as minority leader.”
He has already confounded the new Republican majority this year by holding Democrats united against a proposal to gut the Obama administration’s immigration policies as well as a human-trafficking measure Democrats objected to over an anti-abortion provision. 

“I want to be able to go out at the top of my game,” said Mr. Reid, who used a sports metaphor about athletes who try to hang on too long. “I don’t want to be a 42-year-old trying to become a designated hitter.”

Reid certainly has done a hell of a job trolling Republicans all these years.  The Dems could do a lot worse.  The article ends with this:

Mr. Reid said he had seen one important change for the better in the Senate: an influx of female senators. 

“This place is so much better because of women,” he said. “Men and women are different, and they have changed the dynamic of the Senate.”

Amen to that, Honey Badger.  Maybe with both President Obama and now Harry Reid unburdened by re-election, some interesting last minute things can get done.

Cruz Uncontrolled Con't

So Sen. Ted Cruz's plan to force the Senate to stay through the weekend and vote on every single nomination the Dems wanted in order to pass this year's spending bill to stop a shutdown was a disaster.

For Ted Cruz.

Democrats called his bluff.

While Republican senators were fuming at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) for holding up a $1.1 trillion spending bill aimed at preventing a government shutdown, Democrats saw a silver lining: the move by Cruz and Lee gave Democrats an opening to move a number of President Barack Obama's nominees for federal judgeships and the executive branch.

What happened was that when Cruz and Lee scuttled a deal between Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) that would have allowed lawmakers to leave Washington D.C. for the weekend and come back Monday they gave Democrats a chance to advance Obama's presidential appointees by having to stay in D.C. to deal with the spending bill.

The extra time over the weekend gave Reid the opportunity to, through the Senate's executive session, file cloture on the nominations and move them sooner than they would have under the deal Reid and McConnell had planned on and that Cruz and Lee blocked. Under the original deal Reid would have had to schedule votes on the nominees later in the upcoming week, when Democrats may not have wanted to stick around to vote.

"It allows us to speed up the time when we could get going on these noms, rather than waiting until next week," a top Senate Democratic aide told TPM on Saturday evening. "It gets harder to get them all done when you’re running up on the end of the Congress."

Cruz dragged out the clock in protest, lost his anti-immigration poison pill vote on the CR/Omnibus bill anyway, and bought the Democrats extra time to bring up all the nominations that the Republicans blocked for the last two years for a straight up or down vote on Monday.

And in the end, Ted Cruz loses again.  Get used to that headline, America.

Last Call For Unauthorization

Senate majority leader Harry Reid is finally, finally backing efforts to revisit the Eternal War that Bush started...and maybe finally putting an end to it.

Although Reid did not take a specific stand on how the law should be changed, in an interview with BuzzFeed he argued the time has come to revisit the Authorization of Use of Military Force.

“It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, but 9/11 was a very difficult time in the history of this country,” said Reid, who voted for the law in 2001.

“[But] I definitely think its something we should definitely take a look at. I think 9/11 is a long time ago, and it’s something that needs to be looked at again. I have no problem with that,” Reid added.

The AUMF gave military and intelligence agencies wide leeway to pursue individuals and organizations with suspected ties to al Qaeda. The law provided the legal groundwork for the administration’s aggressive counterterrorism strategy, from armed drone strikes to “kill/capture” missions, raids similar to the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011.

Although anti-war elements in Congress have long complained about the broad scope of the scant 60-word law, over the last several years members on both sides of aisle have increasingly raised concerns with the law, worried that it can be used for attacks across the globe against people or groups that were never intended by Congress.

“We are still operating in a war declared on Sept. 14, 2001,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said Wednesday during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And both the Bush and Obama administrations have determined that that war can be carried out against members of al Qaeda, against anyone who associates with affiliates or associates of al Qaeda, no matter when those associates pop up … so long as the al Qaeda or affiliated organizations have violent intentions against the U.S. or coalition partners. That’s sort of a vague phrase.”

“I don’t think Congress passing that AUMF Sept. 14, 2001, that 13 years later we’d be still engaged in war,” Kaine added.

The Warren Terrah will be 13 years old in September.  That's how long we've been at "war" with Al Qaeda and terrorism, a third of my entire life.  It's ridiculous and it needs to end.  I'm glad we're finally taking the first steps to see this come to a close.  It's cost us millions of lives and trillions of dollars over the last 13 years.

It has to end.  Now's the time.  I'm all for this.

Honey Badger Mode Activated

Sen. Harry Reid came out swinging Monday afternoon as the US Senate returned to work, noting that recent Republican filibustering of a Russian sanctions bill may not only have not helped portray the US as weak, but actually contributed to the Russian invasion of Crimea.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday that Republicans may have helped Russia annex Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in a surprisingly sharp attack ahead of a test vote on a bill authorizing more U.S. sanctions on Russia and $1 billion in loan guarantees to Ukraine.

Outlining the Senate's agenda after a one-week recess, the Nevada Democrat said the first item would be the Ukraine bill that Republicans blocked just before lawmakers went on break. He urged Republicans to consider "how their obstruction affects United States' national security as well as the people of Ukraine" and said their delay of any congressional action "sent a dangerous message to Russian leaders."

"Since a few Republicans blocked these important sanctions last work period, Russian lawmakers voted to annex Crimea and Russian forces have taken over Ukrainian military bases," Reid said. "It's impossible to know whether events would have unfolded differently if the United States had responded to Russian aggression with a strong, unified voice."

Reid's charge comes despite widespread support among Republicans and Democrats in Congress for providing Ukraine with much-needed economic assistance and hitting Russian President Vladimir Putin's government with sanctions.

And GOP Senate aides noted the House has passed different legislation, meaning the Senate bill could not have become law before recess anyhow. They blamed Reid and Democrats for blocking the Senate from taking up the House legislation.

Nice to see the former Golden Gloves boxer actually throw a few punches for once instead of constantly taking Republican shots on the jaw.  Yes, Republicans did block Senate legislation on Ukraine sanctions, and it's good that somebody pointed this out.

Last Call For Honey Badger Mode

Sen. Harry Reid isn't wasting any time, for as soon as the Senate reconvenes next week, extended jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed will be on the table and up for a Monday vote.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told The Associated Press in an interview that the Senate will vote Monday on a three-month extension of federal unemployment benefits.

Calling the House a “black hole of legislation,” he offered no prediction on whether the lower chamber would take up the extension as well.

“We’ll see what happens,” he told the AP on Monday.

Reid had previously said taking up the extension would be his first priority when the Senate returns in January. Monday is the first day the Senate is back in session in the new year.

President Obama and Democrats are pressuring Republicans to pass an extension of the jobless aid, which expired on Saturday for about 1.3 million people. 

The Senate is expected to take up a bill sponsored by Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.), which would temporarily extend the benefits without offsetting the cost.

“I hope we can get that done,” Reid said.

President Obama has endorsed the proposal, but Republicans in the House have insisted that any renewal of the extended jobless benefits be offset.

It's that last part that guarantees problems for the House GOP.  Voting against jobless benefits in an election year with a down economy isn't going to make you friends...so they'll simply never vote on the Senate proposal, and pass a extended jobless benefits bill that makes brutal cuts elsewhere, then blame Reid.

Or at least, that's the plan.  Lately that hasn't always worked out for the GOP.  We'll see if they overplay their hand again.

Meanwhile, millions lost their benefits over the weekend and are facing a very hard New Year this week because Republicans cut an extension out of the latest budget deal.  Every week that goes by, things are only going to get worse.

Will The Honey Badger Finally Push The Button?

Sen. Harry Reid has barreled forward without giving too much of a damn about the Republican Party's tender feelings, but he's been skittish to make any major changes to the Senate's filibuster rules.  That is until the Republicans blocked all three DC Circuit Court federal judges nominated this month for no reason other than President Obama was doing it.  Apparently, this is enough of a violation of the "gentleman's agreement" for Honey Badger Harry to push the Big Red Button.  Greg Sargent:

Senator Harry Reid appears set to go nuclear — before Thanksgiving. 

With Senate Republicans blocking a third Obama nomination to the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide tells me Reid is now all but certain to move to change the Senate rules by simple majority — doing away with the filibuster on executive and judicial nominations, with the exception of the Supreme Court – as early as this week. 

At a presser today, Reid told reporters he was taking another look at rules reform, but didn’t give a timeline. The senior leadership aide goes further, saying it’s hard to envision circumstances under which Reid doesn’t act.

“Reid has become personally invested in the idea that Dems have no choice other than to change the rules if the Senate is going to remain a viable and functioning institution,” the aide says. That’s a long journey from where Reid was only 10 months ago, when he agreed to a toothless filibuster reform deal out of a real reluctance to change the rules by simple majority. 

Asked to explain the evolution, the aide said: “It’s been a long process. But this is the only thing we can do to keep the Senate performing its basic duties.”

If this finally is the last straw, the Republicans broke that particular bunch over and over again.  No Senate in history has used the filibuster to block nominations as much as the GOP has to block President Obama's picks for federal positions.

The difference is Republicans are making the argument not that the nominees are bad, but that President Obama doesn't have the right to make nominations period, because it would "change" the makeup of a federal court to favor the President's party.

Reid has concluded Senate Republicans have no plausible way of retreating from the position they’ve adopted in this latest Senate rules standoff, the aide says. Republicans have argued that in pushing nominations, Obama is “packing” the court, and have insisted that Obama is trying to tilt the court’s ideological balance in a Democratic direction — which is to say that the Republican objection isn’t to the nominees Obama has chosen, but to the fact that he’s trying to nominate anyone at all. 

Reid believes that, having defined their position this way, Republicans have no plausible route out of the standoff other than total capitulation on the core principle they have articulated, which would be a “pretty dramatic reversal,” the aide continues. 

“They’ve boxed themselves in — their position allows them no leeway,” the aide says, in characterizing Reid’s thinking. “This is not a trumped up argument about the qualification of a nominee. They are saying, `we don’t want any nominees.’”

So once again we're in a situation where 43 other Presidents could do things that apparently this President should not be allowed to do.  One has to then ask "well what's different about President Obama?"

What indeed, Republicans?

Push the button, Harry.

Another ENDA Run Past Republican Hate

President Obama took to the Huffington Post this weekend to call for Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

Here in the United States, we're united by a fundamental principle: we're all created equal and every single American deserves to be treated equally in the eyes of the law. We believe that no matter who you are, if you work hard and play by the rules, you deserve the chance to follow your dreams and pursue your happiness. That's America's promise. 

That's why, for instance, Americans can't be fired from their jobs just because of the color of their skin or for being Christian or Jewish or a woman or an individual with a disability. That kind of discrimination has no place in our nation. And yet, right now, in 2013, in many states a person can be fired simply for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. 

As a result, millions of LGBT Americans go to work every day fearing that, without any warning, they could lose their jobs -- not because of anything they've done, but simply because of who they are. 

It's offensive. It's wrong. And it needs to stop, because in the United States of America, who you are and who you love should never be a fireable offense. 

That's why Congress needs to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, also known as ENDA, which would provide strong federal protections against discrimination, making it explicitly illegal to fire someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. This bill has strong bipartisan support and the support of a vast majority of Americans. It ought to be the law of the land. 

Americans ought to be judged by one thing only in their workplaces: their ability to get their jobs done. Does it make a difference if the firefighter who rescues you is gay -- or the accountant who does your taxes, or the mechanic who fixes your car? If someone works hard every day, does everything he or she is asked, is responsible and trustworthy and a good colleague, that's all that should matter.

ENDA is definitely something that needs to be passed, but I'm 99.99% sure that as long as Republicans control the House, nothing's getting past the bigots in the GOP.  And please note, the "moderates" in the GOP will vote against ENDA as surely as they did last time.

This time may be different, hence that .01% chance this bill gets through the House, because it's looking like every single Democrat will back the Senate version of the bill coming up for a vote this month.  It also looks like a number of Senate Republicans will back the measure and get it past a guaranteed filibuster attempt. However, all that means is that ENDA will die in the House again, just like immigration reform, jobs bills, and so on.  Tea Party groups are already threatening to go after any Republican who votes for the measure and it's very possible the bill could collapse in the Senate as a result.

The vote could come as early as this week in the Senate and Harry Reid has promised action before Thanksgiving recess, so we'll see.

Last Call For A Deal Maybe?

Looks like Harry and Mitch have banged out the terms of the GOP surrender.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have finally hammered out what seems to be a viable deal both to fund the government and raise the nation’s debt limit, opening up the potential to end the government shutdown and pull the country back from the brink of default. 

The plan will only work if House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) agrees to take it to the House floor for a vote; there, an estimated 30-50 Republicans would surely vote against it, but it would garner enough bipartisan support to pass.

Details of the plan are still emerging, but Politico reports that it will likely include funding the government through January 15, and raising the debt limit through February 7th. It would keep in place the the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration, but would give government agencies flexibility in how they cut funding. 

January 15, 2014 is also the date when sequestration will bring more austerity to government programs in the form of an additional $21 billion in cuts. 

The deal also apparently sets up further budget negotiations (which in all likelihood would mean more cuts), to be figured out by a bipartisan group made up of both Senators and Representatives. Their proposal would need to be completed by December 13th.

So, the question then becomes "Can Orange Julius sell this in the House?" which is a very viable and unknown concern due to his near zero influence in the GOP right now, and given the fact that the Tea Party will certainly make some sort of move to oust him again if he does try to sell it.

It's still possible of course that Ted Cruz or another Republican senator or three could simply use the byzantine rules of the Senate and try to kill the deal there, too.  What Harry Reid would do in response to that is also unknown, but we're down to 48 hours and some change now left.

The Honey Badger Rises

With the House going nowhere, Harry Reid and Senate Democrats are going to try to pass a clean debt ceiling hike in order to call the GOP out, and they believe they have enough Republican votes to beat a filibuster.

Senate Democrats are planning to start the process this week for a Senate vote on a clean debt limit increase, sources tell me – a move that could call the bluff of Republicans in both chambers and force them to take a stand on whether they will allow default and economic destruction if Dems don’t accept their unilateral demands. 

The move has the backing of the White House, according to a source familiar with discussions. 

The idea is that Senate Dems will move their own clean debt limit bill, rather than wait for the House GOP to hold its own vote on either a clean CR funding the government (which Senate Dems have already passed with broad bipartisan support) or on a debt limit hike. Dems would be challenging Senate GOP moderates to vote for or against averting default and economic havoc outside of any set of conditions House Republicans insist must be attached to any measure raising the debt limit. 

Senator John Cornyn is claiming no clean debt limit hike can pass the Senate, but Dems believe there may be at least half a dozen GOP Senators who would be willing to support one. A vote would put that to the test.

So we'll soon see if indeed Harry Reid can pull this off.  He'll have to at some point for the Democrats to stop GOP extortion politics, but I'm getting more and more afraid that it's going to take a multi-trillion dollar economic catastrophe caused by a GOP default before this will all end.

Another Honey Badger Moment

Winger blogs are screaming this morning that Sen. Harry Reid has "finally given us the truth about fascist Obamacare" or something.  The news?  Reid mentioned in a panel discussion Fiday on a Las Vegas PBS show that Obamacare is a step towards single payer health care.

Reid said he thinks the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program “Nevada Week in Review.”

“What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said.

When then asked by panelist Steve Sebelius whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it, Reid said: “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”

The idea of introducing a single-payer national health care system to the United States, or even just a public option, sent lawmakers into a tizzy back in 2009, when Reid was negotiating the health care bill.

“We had a real good run at the public option … don’t think we didn’t have a tremendous number of people who wanted a single-payer system,” Reid said on the PBS program, recalling how then-Sen. Joe Lieberman’s opposition to the idea of a public option made them abandon the notion and start from scratch.

Eventually, Reid decided the public option was unworkable.

“We had to get a majority of votes,” Reid said. “In fact, we had to get a little extra in the Senate, we have to get 60.”

Reid cited the post-WWII auto industry labor negotiations that made employer-backed health insurance the norm, remarking that “we’ve never been able to work our way out of that” before predicting that Congress would someday end the insurance-based health care system.

Only if you haven't paid any attention whatsoever to the debate over Obamacare on the left is this actually news in the sense that it is a new development.  Again, the public option and single payer debate came up in 2009 and early 2010.  Oh, but look who we're talking about suffering from epistemic closure?

And yes, these idiots are calling it fascism.  How horrible to have health care coverage from your government.

The Return Of The Honey Badger

Dem Senate majority leader Harry Reid actually pulled his filibuster move off, and broke the GOP's back on filibustering cabinet nominations.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) office confirms to ThinkProgress that a deal has been reached to avert the so-called “nuclear option” on what appear to be very favorable terms to Democrats. In a nearly unconditional surrender to Senate Democrats, a core group of Senate Republicans agreed to a deal that will confirm most of the nominees currently subject to Republican filibusters, and replace two nominees to a key labor agency. While the identity of those new nominees are, as yet, unknown, two Democratic Senate sources tell ThinkProgress that the new nominees to the National Labor Relations Board can be “any two we want,” so long as it is not the two people currently serving on the NLRB via recess appointments.

In return for a virtually complete capitulation to Democratic demands, Republicans get to postpone the question of whether filibusters can still exist for executive branch nominees. Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) rejected an offer from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to confirm the pending nominees if Reid agreed to take the nuclear option off the table, so Reid retains the option of changing the Senate Rules in the future if Republicans obstruct future nominees. Senate Republicans will also get to make the rhetorical point that they prevented two NLRB nominees whose recess appointments were called into question by a pair of court decisions handed down by five Republican judges from being confirmed to their seats on that agency.

Indeed, one of those seven nominees, acting Consumer Financial Protection Board head Richard Cordray, has been cleared through cloture with 71 votes and will be the first to get an up-or-down vote from the full Senate.

This is a full fold on the part of Mitch McConnell and the Senate GOP.

Welcome back, Harry "Honey Badger" Reid.  We've missed you.