Not Exactly Holding My Breath

 

US Senate Democratic leaders (Schumer et al.) promised two days ago that they would not provide the votes to get to the needed 60 to pass the Republicans’ stopgap spending plan needed to fund the government past Sept. 30, because the Republicans never involved them in negotiating and writing it. Democratic phones did not ring. Meanwhile, the House is sure to pass the plan, maybe today, with a majority margin of 3 probably, but if the Senate balks -- if Schumer actually follows through and leads a revolt against a thoroughly corrupt system, then we got ourselves an interesting moment in history. My folklore on corporatism sez that high-ranking Democrats always end up supporting the status quo, and they have high-minded goals to justify the vote: It's for the common good. It's to save government itself. It's also the embarrassing weakness of going-along-on-a-bad-sleigh-ride to a shindig where you and your values are irrelevant -- in fact, insulted and stomped on. 

I'm watching this standoff to see if Democrats hang together and actually buck this time.

Schumer offered the Republicans a compromise, hilarious on its face: You'll get Democrats' votes after you add $1 trillion (you read that right!) to the spending plan -- so that we can permanently extend Obamacare subsidies (set to expire at the end of the year) and repair the breach to Medicaid and other health programs inflicted on the public by the BBB (NYTimes). Negotiation counter-punch. And why not start with a very big number? And apply it to programs that Republicans absolutely hate for their proximity to socialism? I'm assuming that Schumer has that caucus unified. It would take only 8 Democratic senators to break ranks to pass the Republican CA.

If there's a government shutdown because Senate Democrats for once refuse to go along and help the Republicans get to 60 -- what's the fallout? Your guess counts with mine. Do Democrats get blamed and booed for wrecking the economy, like the Freedom Caucus did in the government shutdown of 2013? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe they'll be celebrated for being strong, and for throwing a wrench into a system that has already been effectively subverted, corrupted, and wrecked, where people are targeted for elimination, where there is growing chill over the freedom of speech, and the highest court is an enabler of arbitrary power, which is not allowed in our Republic (but is). 

More Democrats Like Texas Democrats!

 

Instead of more talk, including a presidential speech, we need elected Democrats to take action to protect the right to vote, like members of the Texas House did last night in chartering two planes and flying to the nation's Capitol to lobby US senators to pass the For the People Act. Without the 50-plus Democratic lawmakers, Texas Republicans are denied a quorum to pass their new voting restrictions. The special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott is set to end on August 7th. The Texas Democrats vow to stay away from the state until after August 7th.

"We are living on borrowed time in Texas,” top House Democrats said in a statement. “We need Congress to act now to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to protect Texans — and all Americans — from the Trump Republicans’ nationwide war on democracy.”

The massive Texas bill "includes a number of restrictions championed by former president Donald Trump. The measures would ban several election programs implemented last year to help people vote during the coronavirus pandemic, including drive-through voting and 24-hour and late-night voting. Voting rights advocates noted that voters of color disproportionately used these programs."

A war on democracy? Yeah, with no prisoners. Why aren't US Senate Democrats on a war-footing rather than eternally whistling through the graveyard -- "Someone-- someone might get mad if we did that. Or that. Or for that matter that." Someone might get mad. You bet, but you're looking the wrong direction.

Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, a leader of the absconded, pointed out that it's "an enormous sacrifice for many of the Texas Democrats," some of them with health problems, some single parents of young children, some of them in fear of losing their regular jobs. Not to mention the enormous expense of two chartered private jets and weeks of DeeCee guest services. Yikes.

Schumer, putative leader of the Democrats in the US Senate where all the bucks are piling up, said that he might have to cancel some of the August recess -- some of it, not all of it God knows and relax, you senators accustomed to your comforts! The canceling of the goddamn August recess ticks high on the list of demands from the Texas visitors. Why aren't the senators working through August to protect and expand the promise of democracy?

If Republicans are able to suppress the vote, nothing else in the political world, or in the real world, will count for a fart. Without our right to fight back at the ballot, all will be lost to an authoritarian regime with a cult leader.

I acknowledge the Texas reality, as described by the Texas Tribune: "Even if Democratic lawmakers stay out of state for the next few weeks, the governor could continue to call 30-day sessions or add voting restrictions to the agenda when the Legislature takes on the redrawing of the state’s political maps later this summer." 

So facing sure and ultimate defeat, why shouldn't the Texas Democratic minority shoot the moon, grab the attention of a floundering Democratic Senate majority that could still redeem itself by forcing the issue on Manchin and Sinema. There's got to be a showdown some time somehow. Maybe the Texas Democrats can be its predicate.

We Love You, Howard Dean, And Always Will

Howard Dean taught us modern campaigning. He pioneered social media outreach and fundraising. As chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009, he preached and enacted the "50-state strategy," an effort to put staff and resources into every state to bolster the grassroots. Which worked. Which lives on today in North Carolina as "a candidate in every single House and Senate district" -- all 120 House seats and 50 Senate seats, contested -- no matter how improbable the prospects, and the literally hundreds of new candidates in every state that are running strong right now, with clear positive platforms, and who owe absolutely nothing to the political establishment.

When he led the Democrats, he encouraged county parties to return to retail politics, one-on-one voter outreach, and he taught everyone the importance of social media for fundraising and for message propagation -- where boomlets happen like lightning. Howard Dean was leading the DNC when Watauga Democrats flipped the county commission from red to blue in 2006, and Cullie Tarleton and Steve Goss won House and Senate seats. We learned so much.

Dean's tenure at the DNC coincided with Jerry Meek's chairmanship of the NC Democratic Party, a renaissance of grassroots activism and retail politics. Jerry Meek came to Watauga and participated in the biggest ever "kickoff canvass" in 2006. Unfortunately, Jerry Meek passed the torch after two terms, and we didn't hardly see his like again, until recently.

Howard Dean made the right kind of enemy. Rahm Emanuel hated his guts. Emanuel favored a different political model that ignored some states -- actually, many -- and poured all the money into boosting the presidential candidate rather than building local parties. Emanuel got rid of Dean as soon as Obama became president. Senator Chuck Schumer participated in that purge. He didn't like Howard Dean either. As far as I'm concerned, Rahm Emanuel was everything that was wrong with Barack Obama's first term, and Chuck Schumer is everything that's wrong with sucking up to money-pimping Democratic donors today, particularly the ones with Wall Street addresses.

Howard stirred excitement among punked-out Democrats and bored independent voters during his presidential run in 2004. It was such excitement. If you were a part of it, you remember it. I see the same vibration around many new Democratic candidates this year. They're rewriting the Party and rewiring the Party brain, just like Howard Dean did.

Trump: Full Frontal with the Democrats

Photo by Al Drago for the NYTimes

House Speaker Paul Ryan had earlier in the day yesterday called "the deal" that Trump struck with Congressional Democrats "ridiculous" and "disgraceful." Yet Trump jumped at the offer from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to tie Hurricane Harvey relief to a three-month extension of government funding and increase in the debt ceiling.

In other words -- and the short version -- Schumer and Pelosi ate Republican lunch.

Besides Schumer and Pelosi, representing the Democrats, who else was there? Trump, yes, but also House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. All those Republicans opposed the Schumer-Pelosi plan -- one might say, opposed it bitterly -- but Trump ignored them. In fact, later on Air Force One, on his way to North Dakota, Trump deliberately praised Schumer and Pelosi for striking a deal with him while not even mentioning the Republicans who were also in the meeting.

Schumer and Pelosi now have more than just leverage. Their three-month deal on the debt ceiling will force another painful vote for Republicans around Christmas time, with every chance of political disaster. Paul Ryan had wanted a debt ceiling extension of 18 months, which would have put another vote beyond the 2018 mid-term elections. Trump in effect shat in Ryan's hat.

Trump also later talked up the mutual willingness among the Trump-Schumer-Pelosi triumvirate to make the "Dream Act" (DACA) into solid law. Trump now wants the Democrats in Congress to save him from the blowback over his tromping on DACA on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Ryan and McConnell fumed in the corner like jilted spouses in a nasty divorce.

The deal struck between the Democrats and Trump still has to go for votes in both House and Senate, and many Republicans are steaming mad about it. “The Pelosi-Schumer-Trump deal is bad,” Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska tweeted. Representative Mark Walker of North Carolina, chair of the Republican Study Committee, said, “I’m still processing this, but my first instinct is I’m not very happy about it." But can Republicans afford to vote against it?

Score one for Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

It's plain embarrassing that Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer attended this bonfire of the vanities (thanks, Progressive Pulse). And Martha Stewart!? Have you no shame?

Okay, it's the perfect venue for Martha, but for a Democratic politician to show just how beholden he is to such bread-butterers should be a matter of deep personal chagrin.

Like we said.

[Sigh]

We mentioned a week or so ago that there is no federal shield law for journalists. We were reviewing a movie at the time, a fictional work about a journalist who goes to jail rather than reveal a confidential source that spilled the identity of a CIA spy.

The non-fiction truth of the matter is that since 2001 at least 19 journalists have been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors for information about confidential sources, and four have been imprisoned for refusing to comply, including Judith Miller of the NYTimes who was involved in the outing of Valerie Plame. Prosecutors have also threatened to put two San Francisco Chronicle reporters in jail for reporting leaked grand jury information about steroid use by professional athletes.

Following the Plame affair, legislation began moving in Congress to shield reporters from giving up confidential sources. Former President George W. Bush, that great expander of executive power, naturally opposed the bill, but a strong version has already passed the House and its twin is now pending in the U.S. Senate, introduced by senators Chuck Schumer and Arlen Specter.

Enter the Obama White House, which has sent word to the senators that "it opposes legislation that could protect reporters from being imprisoned if they refuse to disclose confidential sources who leak material about national security." The big problem with that "national security" classification is who gets to decide what it is. Under the expansive definitions of the Bush White House and its g.d. U.S.A. Patriot Act, "national security" can be almost anything. And who's to say when an administration is simply lying about what they're labeling off-limits? Abu Ghraib, anyone?

Instead of breaking with the Bush past, the Obama White House seems content to let the secrecy ride. Boo.

If the American Taliban wants to attack our president on something meaningful, how about this, instead of stoopid stuff like his lobbying for the 2016 Olympics or the complete lie that some religious/civic group is actually praying to Obama rather than to God.

'Course, if the Right Wing did protest the current White House's stance on extending the secrecy prerogatives of The Littlest Bush, we'd probably be forced to point out, once again, their utter hypocrisy.

Cal Cunningham

There's chatter this a.m. over at BlueNC about Cal Cunningham, who's obviously itching to get into the Democratic senatorial primary for a chance to face "Bank Panic Dick" Burr, the Invisible Senator, next year. A whole host of possible candidates -- including Cunningham, Elaine Marshall, Dennis Wicker, and Bob Etheridge -- are waiting for Sen. Robert Menendez, head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, to tap the DSCC's pick, since a lot of money and tactical support would come with the tapping. Coronation by the DSCC would also winnow the field pretty quickly.

We've had a chance to meet and hear Mr. Cunningham speak a couple of times recently, and we're impressed that he would take the fight to Burr and is probably best equipped to generate enthusiasm among that newest Democratic demographic, the 18-30 age group. He's honing his attack on Burr and drawing the necessary distinctions.

Chuck Schumer, head of the DSCC two years ago, picked Kay Hagan to run against Liddy Dole. Robert Menendez will do the picking this year. It's not necessarily the way we'd like to see our senatorial candidates picked, but that's the way it is. Period.

Anyone Up for Dominoes?

If this news doesn't make your throat go a little dry, you've maybe drunk more of the George-Bush-Virginia-Foxx economic Kool-Aid than is necessarily good for you.

"The federal government took control of Pasadena-based IndyMac Bank on Friday in what regulators called the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history."

Yep, "defaulted mortgages" cited as the prime cause.

T-Men also are standing by this weekend to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together hold almost half of the nation's mortgage debt.

IndyMac is the fifth FDIC-insured failure of the year. No one expects it to be the last.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blamed (in part) Bush administration regulators for allowing IndyMac to run out of control; Bushies and IndyMac executives blamed Schumer for prompting a run on the bank. It's always nice to have someone else to blame.