US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

like what? aren't conservative democrats basically already playing this role?

Good point. I was going to make it.

The right wing -- esp by infiltrating the supposed "progressive" left wing -- have done a damn good job at crippling governmental ability to regulate certain industries. Gov't's main duty should be is (other than defense) to regulate products/companies/people that are harmful to the public wellbeing. The fact that the right is constantly screaming "Gov't can't get anything done" isn't just fearmongering, it's a victory cry. The free market is winning and the future is a bright shining corporately-run fascist state.

Several years ago, I suggested to all of my friends that we join the Republican Party and spend all of our political time, effort and energy trying to make them into a liberal party. They all scoffed at me.

Looking at conservative Democrats and the success conservatives have had in fragmenting the Democrats, I shake my head at their folly.

Wasn't that one of Clinton's goals as president, though---enlarging the tent (not "his" tent, get your mind out of the gutter)?

So was Reagan's. And Nixon's.

yes, true---that elusive middle, or whatever else you want to call "Reagan Democrats".

to me the question is whether the Clinton/Dem shift to the right opened up the Democratic party to voters that would have been scared off otherwise or whether the shift simply moved the nation's political compass to the right. (picking up the Reagan Democrats vs. making more of them?) I think the answer is somewhere in-between.

Yeah, both in the short term, but the latter also in the longterm.

The free market is winning and the future is a bright shining corporately-run fascist state.

adam i think you need to relax a little

No, that sounds right on to me.

haha i was just about to post the same thing, had it in the clipboard and everything

i mean i get the sentiment and all, but i always gotta wince a little bit at the lefty version of OMG SOCIALISM IS HERE

Did anyone read the Harper's article about new technologies designed to crack down on protests? You can read the start here: http://harpers.org/archive/2010/03/0082866
Kinda has me worried Adam's right.

?? there's always some less-than-lethal weapon in development: microwave emitters, sonic screaming guns, water guns with a little electricity in them, etc etc. our military has found itself in hostile civilian populations for 8 years, it's no surprise they're looking at this stuff. these stories run all the time.

besides, cops use tasers like once every 3 minutes in this country, if corporatist-fascism comes out of the barrel of a not-gun, then it's already here basically.

When I hear the word democracy, I reach for my not-gun.

Oh Mr. D. thx for the wonderful new user name here.

― demonic splendor, demonic majesty (Abbott), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 15:50 (2 hours ago) Permalink

100% my pleasure!

Wasn't that one of Clinton's goals as president, though---enlarging the tent (not "his" tent, get your mind out of the gutter)?
_______________________________

So was Reagan's. And Nixon's.
_______________________________

yes, true---that elusive middle, or whatever else you want to call "Reagan Democrats".

i'm not sure that nixon was pursuing "the middle," per se.

now that the loonies are now in charge of the right

be nice. those loonies will soon nearly or actually control a house of congress.

Can anyone make sense of this article for me, if possible

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2010/03/polls-show-gop-gaining-in-election-year.html

Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Levin:

Levin Will File Lawsuit If Dems Use Slaughter Rule [Daniel Foster]
From CNS News:

Conservative talk-radio host and attorney Mark Levin said he plans to file an immediate lawsuit if House Democratic leaders try to utilize a little-known maneuver under House rules to pass the health-care bill without actually having to vote on it.

“I cannot predict if we would win or lose — this is not as simple as some would have you believe — but I want to put the marker down right now and make it clear to members of the House of Representatives who think the quickest way to pass this is to adopt a rule that assumes that they voted on an underlying bill when they didn’t — that is going to be challenged if they do it,” Levin said on his nationally syndicated radio show Tuesday evening.

hahaha this strategy fits into the Republican theory of tort reform

oh wait

little-known maneuver

LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES

LIES.

This is how the GOP "dominates" the "discourse." They're meaner and more ruthless than Dems. Look at this fool.

http://blog.american.com/?p=11467

Hypocrisy: A Parliamentary Procedure

By Norman J. Ornstein
March 16, 2010, 4:24 pm

Any veteran observer of Congress is used to the rampant hypocrisy over the use of parliamentary procedures that shifts totally from one side to the other as a majority moves to minority status, and vice versa. But I can’t recall a level of feigned indignation nearly as great as what we are seeing now from congressional Republicans and their acolytes at the Wall Street Journal, and on blogs, talk radio, and cable news. It reached a ridiculous level of misinformation and disinformation over the use of reconciliation, and now threatens to top that level over the projected use of a self-executing rule by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier used the self-executing rule more than 35 times, and was no stranger to the concept of “deem and pass.” That strategy, then decried by the House Democrats who are now using it, and now being called unconstitutional by WSJ editorialists, was defended by House Republicans in court (and upheld). Dreier used it for a $40 billion deficit reduction package so that his fellow GOPers could avoid an embarrassing vote on immigration. I don’t like self-executing rules by either party—I prefer the “regular order”—so I am not going to say this is a great idea by the Democrats. But even so—is there no shame anymore?

yes that link is from the AEI

Totally. But if the Dems pass a big law for once, this whole repartee will be forgotten immediately.

xp to Alfred

like, it's cool for political commentators to wring their hands about procedural matters---that's what they do, talk---but let's not confuse that with politics.

I'm just very, very doubtful of the idea that an unregulated and unwatched free market will lead to a good future for a majority of people on this planet. Time and time again it has been proven that the single-minded pursuit of the bottom line is harmful to society economically, environmentally, physically, and biologically. That the only real message I can discern from the Right at the moment is that gov't is bad and corporations should be free to do whatever they want; to do otherwise, and to even treat people the same as you treat corporations, is socialism.

TY Norman Ornstein, another dude from my HS trying to keep Washington real.

congrats on going to high school with that guy

I didn't - he's like a zillion years older than me, HOOS. Every time Norm offers something intelligent, fellow alums can forget about Friedman for a bit, basically.

wow so wait your parents let you skip middle school so you could go to high school with Norm Ornstein? that's rad.

I've said this before but the only famous person from my high school is Craig Kilborn ;_;

craig kilborn is better than no one--no one cool went to my high school

Except, perhaps, you. Someone's got to be the first, right?

Honestly there are like no truly famous *gentiles* from my HS.

thank god

pass it without a vote! brilliant! frankly at this point the republicans seem a little pathetic. how lame do you have to be to allow the other side to pass a bill without a vote??

oh that's not actually happening, you say? somebody should tell the republicans then, i guess

Having a political party organized around anything but ideology makes no moral sense.

since when do politics make moral sense

^^^^

you know what doesn't make moral sense? democracy

???

i presume shakey mo is talking about the dubious ethical aspects of pure majority rule

though he might just be high

when fascism comes to the usa it will be wrapped in a longhaired californian

i presume shakey mo is talking about the dubious ethical aspects of pure majority rule

yes

thanks for the vote of confidence

np

Back at The Corner:

Are the GOP Hypocrites on the Slaughter Rule? [Daniel Foster]

He strings together a lot of sentences, but none of them seem to have anything to do with each other.

I sat in on the rules committee meeting today, they essentially spent the whole freakin' time arguing about how many cameras were/should be there.

Posted more http://sumofchange.blogspot.com/2010/03/grandstanding-at-rules-committee.html

kucinich switches to 'yes'

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/17/evening-buzz-kucinich-switches-health-care-vote-from-no-to-yes/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_ac360blog+%28Blog%3A+AC360%29&utm_content=Twitter

I think the best thing for HCR politics is the CBO score that Maddow is talking about which should come out soon. It will evaluate the econopmic side of HCR. I was watching Countdown on MSNBC and there was a commercial for anti-HCR. It starts with "americans still losing their jobs, more buisnesses struggling... trillion $ health care bill, billions in new taxes, more mandates on buisnesses, health care costs will go even higher making a tough economy worse.. tell congress we can't afford to pay - employersforahealthyeconomy.org)".

thought the CBO score was supposed to be released earlier today? . . .