Charlie Cook, of Cook Political Report fame, is very good at what he does, and when he says that the Democrats are looking at significant losses in next year’s midterm elections, it’s worth paying attention (via the Atlantic’s politics channel):

“….confirm anecdotal evidence, and our own view, that the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Today, The Cook Political Report’s Congressional election model, based on individual races, is pointing toward a net Democratic loss of between six and 12 seats, but our sense, factoring in macro-political dynamics is that this is far too low.”

My hunch is that it’s still far too early to make any judgments about regarding either party’s success or failure next year.  There is a huge number of things which determine the outcome of any given election cycle, and many of those have yet to play out in full.  At this stage in the game, predictions – or at least confident ones – are almost completely unfounded.  That said, I can’t help but be terrified at the idea of significant Republican gains.

If there was any potential silver lining to the recent explosion of right-wing rage, or the shameless dishonesty on display from Republican leaders, or even the demagogic rantings of right-wing talk show hosts, it’s that it makes the GOP look insane.  Politically, the argument goes, it doesn’t matter if Obama is as successful as he wants to be, since the public recognizes that alternative is orders of magnitude worst.  Granted, that sounds very nice – and extremely comforting – but I’m not sure if it’s actually true.  American politics is, if anything, cyclical.  And there is a definite rhythm to election cycles.  Broadly speaking, party shifts occur when the opposition party is organized enough to capitalize on a significant screw up by the party in power.

If health care reform fails, I guarantee that Republicans will make significant gains next year.  And if Republicans make significant gains, we can look forward to a Republican Party even more unhinged from reality.  In light of a substantial electoral victory, dialing up the crazy wouldn’t seem like a terrible idea, after all, that victory was due – in part – to the near-constant outrage of the previous year.  And, for Republicans at least, it stands to reason that more outrage would prove to be more successful.  A Republican win next year would probably convince a large swath of the party that they have nothing to gain from sensible opposition, and everything to win by pressing forth with alarm-ism, hysteria, and implicit threats of violence.

At the risk of boring everyone with arcane institutional trivia (which I’m sure I did with the reconciliation post), I’m not quite sure what to make of the “two bill” idea being floated around by Senate Democrats.  For those of you who haven’t been paying too much attention, here’s the basic situation: as Ezra Klein explained a few days ago, there actually is a fair amount of consensus surrounding the core provisions of health care reform.  Here he is in his own words:

Here are the things that, broadly speaking, legislators agree about: insurance market reforms, including community rating, guaranteed issue, an end to rescission, an end to discrimination based on preexisting conditions, and an individual mandate. Subsidies for low-income Americans. Delivery system reforms. Health insurance exchanges. An expansion of coverage to about 95 percent of legal residents. Prevention and wellness policies. Retaining and strengthening the employer-based insurance market. Creating some kind of incentive for employers to offer, and keep offering, health benefits. Expanding Medicaid to about 133 percent of poverty.

Of course, this has all been overshadowed by the furor over the public option, and whether or not it will be included in this initial round of reform.  Centrist Democrats have repeatedly spoken against including a public option in the health care package, and because they have a lamentable fair amount of legislative clout (by virtue of their position as the median senators), they also have the power to kill a health reform bill that includes the public option.

The idea then, is that instead of passing a single large bill that includes the not-controversial provisions along with a public plan or health care co-op, Democrats would split the legislation into two pieces.  One piece would include the more controversial elements of the reform package and would be shepherded through the Senate via the reconciliation process.  The other piece would include elements of the health care overhaul – like universal community rating and the health insurance exchange – which have a broad base of support among Democrats and Republicans.  The policy benefits of going this route are pretty clear: by shepherding the entire bill through reconcilliation, you risk those provisions which are valuable, but which have very little to do with the budget/deficit reduction.  If you removed those provisions from the reconciliation bill, you’d be left with a bill that still has a lot of force to it, has a measurable impact on the budget/deficit, and is far less vulnerable to the (informed) whims of the Senate Parliamentarian.

That said, I’m not sure if any of this could actually work, in large part because I’m not sure if centrist Democrats are actually interested in passing any health care reform.  And, unfortunately, they are the most important players in this game.  After all, a Republican filibuster can only hold if your Ben Nelsons or Blanche Lincolns decide to vote against cloture.  If centrist Democrats are genuinely interested in reforming the system and do have honest opposition to a government-run insurance program, then the split bill strategy is a good one, since it holds on to their support for said insurance reforms.  Likewise, the opposite is true.  If our centrist friends opt follow the lead of Republicans and stand against all reform, regardless of content, then splitting the bill simply doesn’t matter.

At the risk of being too optimistic, I don’t think that’s the case.  None of the usual suspects have said anything about opposing the more commonsensical insurance reforms.  What’s more, there is a real political advantage to splitting the legislation; if the less controversial half makes it through the Senate, that gives President Obama a real, substantive victory after a summer of near-deafening right-wing rage.  In turn, that momentum can be directed towards the reconciliation fight, which will be a madhouse, I’m sure of it.

Among many – many – other things, I wish political commentators would stop explaining away our near-constant legislative gridlock as some inevitable, quasi-mystical part of the democratic process.  For instance, here’s Peter Suderman (guest-posting for Andrew Sullivan) describing the “problem with politics”:

No, I don’t think this is a failure of leadership so much as a feature of democratic politics — and a reminder of how unpleasant and unsatisfying to nearly everyone the business of politics can be.

Democratic politics is a messy business. It’s disorganized and frantic and unpredictable and frustrating. Politics is a matter of shouting, and dissent, and deal-making, and strategy, and slippery rhetoric, and compromise. It is not a matter of deciding on the “right” policy and then making it so — even when your party controls the White House, the House, and the Senate.

[...]

It’s not that people enjoy this; in fact, it seems to turn a lot of people off. As Robert Putnam wrote, “Most men are not political animals. The world of public affairs is not their world. It is alien to them — possibly benevolent, more probably threatening, but nearly always alien.” But to a large extent, the spasms and outbursts and irritations that come with the political process are inevitable — no matter who’s in charge, no matter what the polls and pundits and politicians say.

I am completely on board with the observation that democratic politics is a messy, unpleasant affair.  But I’m not so sold on the implication Suderman’s post, which is that the current legislative gridlock is an unfortunate, but fundamentally acceptable, part of the democratic process.  It isn’t acceptable, and more importantly, it isn’t inevitable.  At its heart, the problem facing health care reform – and really, the problem facing any substantive change in domestic policy – is institutional.  Congress is simply ill-equipped to deal with large, complex problems, a rule that goes double for anything requiring substantive changes to the status quo.  That’s not to say that a few tweaks will suddenly turn Congress into a paragon of effective legislating – of course it won’t – but it is entirely within our power to make Congress a more effective vehicle for pursuing and implementing good public policy.  And we need to begin by abandoning this absurd notion that there is something noble about having a deeply unresponsive and counter-majoritarian legislative branch.

I’m sure someone has already made this point, but if you take the idea of a “death panel” seriously, it doesn’t really seem like that terrible of an idea.  As I’m sure most of you know, you can apply the Pareto principle (more commonly known as the 80/20 rule) to the distribution of health care costs – the vast majority of health care costs are generated by a distinct minority of consumers (it doesn’t actually have to be 80/20, though in this case, I think it is).  And of course, the elderly are the overwhelming majority in that distinct minority.  After all, they cost the most. [Read more →]

On my twitter feed (which you should follow, by the way), a friend asks what I think about the potential use of reconciliation to pass health care reform.  For those of you unawares (or just need a bit more information), reconciliation is “triggered” when Congress passes a concurrent resolution (a legislative measured passed by both the House and the Senate) requiring the committee(s) in question to – by a particular date – report any changes in law which affects the budget.  If those budget instructions affect multiple committees, those committees send their recommendations to the Budget Committee, which then packages them into a single omnibus bill.  Once on the floor, debate is limited to 20 hours, and amendments are sharply limited.  What’s more – and most relevant for our discussion – reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered and only require a simple majority vote.

If that sounds a bit too simple… you’re right, it is.  In 1985, the Senate adopted the Byrd Rule which prevented senators from including into a reconciliation bill any provision which was irrelevant to the purpose of implementing budget resolution policies.  In 1990, the Congressional Budget Act was amended to include the Byrd Rule.  This rule allows any senator to raise a point of order against any provision held to be irrelevant or “extraneous” to the budget.  If the point of order is sustained, then the provision is removed from the bill.

That last point should make progressives wary of using reconciliation to pass a strong public option, or a health care bill more generally.  While there are rules describing what counts as “extraneous,” they aren’t terrible precise, and are very much open to interpretation.  For instance, according to a budget committee report on the Byrd Rule:

Subsection (b)(2) of the Byrd rule provides that a Senate-originated provision that does not produce a  change in outlays or revenues shall not be considered extraneous if the chairman and  ranking minority members of the Budget Committee and the committee reporting the provision certify that —

• the provision mitigates direct effects clearly attributable to a
  provision changing outlays or revenues and both provisions together
  produce a net reduction in the deficit; or
• the provision will (or is likely to) reduce outlays or increase
  revenues:  (1) in one or more fiscal years beyond those covered by
  the reconciliation measure; (2) on the basis of new regulations, court
  rulings on pending legislation, or relationships between economic
  indices and stipulated statutory triggers pertaining to the provision;
  or (3) but reliable estimates cannot be made due to insufficient data.

While it is possible that the public option is a perfectly legitimate part of a reconciliation bill, it’s just as likely that it isn’t.  And if it isn’t, it’s not clear whether the public option counts as an exception to the rule.  Indeed, it’s fair to say that an exception is whatever the Senate Parliamentarian (who is responsible for deciding which provisions are ineligible under the rule) says it is.  What’s more, there is a fair chance that there are plenty of measures a liberal health care bill which would run afoul of the Byrd Rule, and thus be unceremoniously stripped from the final package.  In fact, it’s entirely possible that using reconciliation could result in a bill completely stripped of anything useful.

Honestly, I think progressives should stop worrying about reconciliation, and instead, focus on trying to break the inevitable Republican filibuster.  That said, I think I’m correct to say that the legislative drama over health care reform – and the preoccupation with arcane budgetary processes – serves as another data point in favor of repealing the filibuster.  Not only is it a tremendously anti-democratic tool (situated within a fairly counter-majoritarian institution), but to paraphrase a recent Hendrick Hertzberg post, the it is a clear impediment to those “who see democratic self-government as an instrument of public action.”  At the risk of sounding a little banal, we know that the United States is a vastly different country than what existed two hundred years ago, and we have tailored or changed most of our institutions to reflect this basic fact.  It’s time for the Senate to follow suit.

It’s the same deal as last week folks: I choose a song from my iTunes library, run “Genius,” and post the playlist for all eyes to see (and criticize).  I encourage you to do the same, but if you’d rather not, you can just let everyone know what you’re listening to in the comments.  Here goes!

Original Song: “I Lust U” by Neon Neon

1. “Hearts on Fire” – Cut Copy
2. “I Believe” – Simian Mobile Disco
3. “Running Up That Hill” – The Chromatics
4. “You Belong” – Hercules and Love Affair
5. “Marble House” – The Knife
6. “Colours” – Hot Chip
7. “Street Justice” – MSTRKRFT
8. “All My Friends” – LCD Soundsystem
9. “DVNO” – Justice
10. “So This is Goodbye” – Junior Boys

And below the jump are a few music videos to get you through your day:

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Ezra Klein is worried that our dysfunctional debate over health care reform is symptomatic of broader problems with our democracy:

What we’re seeing here is not merely distrust in the House health-care reform bill. It’s distrust in the political system. A healthy relationship does not require an explicit detailing of the “institutional checks” that will prevent one partner from beating or killing the other. In a healthy relationship, such madness is simply unthinkable. If it was not unthinkable, then no number of institutional checks could repair that relationship. Similarly, the relationship between the protesters and the government is not healthy. The protesters believe the government capable of madness. There is no evidence for that claim, which means that there is no answer for it, either. That claim is not about what is in this bill, or what government has done in Medicare and Medicaid and the VA. It is about what a certain slice of Americans think their government — and by extension, their fellow citizens — capable of.

And Will Wilkinson thinks that Ezra is being deeply – dangerously -  naive:

It requires an amazing kind of selective amnesia to think that there is “no evidence’ that the U.S. government is “capable of madness.” The government of the United States invaded Iraq and its agents have killed many tens of thousands people on the basis of the fact that some Saudis trained in Afganistan flew planes into the World Trade Center, plus some lies. Torture, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, etc. I call that madness. Of course, Ezra means the other parts of government concerned with domestic affairs. But not the parts that break into peoples’ houses and destroy their lives for selling contraband herbs, or that subject us constantly to mendacious propaganda about drugs. Our government — and by extension our fellow citizens — is capable of terrible things and proves it every single day. Is it really possible to love government so much, to invest so much hope in its benevolent efficacy, that we grow blind to its evident capacity for evil?

I’m inclined to side with Will here; as he notes, it doesn’t take much more than a quick glance at the past eight years (or the whole of American history, really) to understand that our government, like any other, has immense capacity for evil.  That said, I don’t want to completely dismiss Ezra.  Yes, he’s wrong about the government’s capacity for “madness” but I’m not sure that that actually invalidates his argument.  After all, even by fairly lenient standards, these protesters aren’t very informed: they don’t have a terribly sophisticated knowledge of American political history, and they almost certainly aren’t aware of the “madness” of the past few years.  In fact, if they are aware of the previous administration’s transgressions, I’d be surprised if they were actually bothered by any of them.  In all likelihood, these are the people who were stoked about invading Iraq, and cheered on the administration after Abu Ghraib.

This is all to say that Ezra is, in some sense, completely right.  For the protesters and the teabaggers, there is absolutely nothing in their political ideology which would lead them to believe that the government was capable of madness.  Yes, you could say that these are “small government” conservatives with an inherent distrust of authority, but again, most of these folks sat through – and probably applauded – the massive Bush-era expansions in the size and scope of government.  My guess is that these are folks who have completely lost their faith and trust in the ability of government to represent them in their interest.  But, insofar that they lack trust, I don’t think it’s because they are hyper-aware of the government’s various misdoings and moral failings.  Instead, they no longer believe that America has the moral bearings to choose an adequate leader.  To them, Obama is utterly foreign and it defies belief that a majority of Americans could have elected him.  That they did not only signals that the system is broken, but that they are at its absolute mercy.

It’s that, I think, which is the source of the fear, the rancor and the sheer, unvarnished hatred.

*I’ve been looking for a way to use this song as a post title for weeks.

Marc Ambinder is right to say that vacuous, unintelligible outrage is kind of a bad strategy as far as trying to stop a popular president’s health care reform package is concerned.  Unfortunately, he can’t seem to make that point without relying on the usual “split-the-difference”/”pox on both houses” calculation: [Read more →]

Via Jeremy’s twitter feed (whose blog Social Science Lite is a must-read) is this post over at Daily Mathematics by “Blackneck”, arguing for some sort of legalized prostitution.  Which normally wouldn’t be worth commenting on, since these sorts of arguments are a dime a dozen.  Obviously though, I’m commenting on Blackneck’s argument, which suggests that there’s something novel about it.  And, as it so happens, there is:

Last week, this dude, George Sodini, went apeshit in a Pittsburgh LA Fitness health club and shot up the joint, killing 3 women before murking himself. News of his blog rantings about his problems and planned “shoot ‘em up” spread like crazy on the internets and old media systems. The running theory is that he’s a little crazy and was pissed at women for not giving him any ass. I’m thinking the problem was that he was just plain batshit, but let’s run with the no sex angle.

[...]

The reason this dude didn’t get any of that nook-nook is sort of a chicken and egg question: -Did dude not get any ass because he was crazy? I know women have a great sense of intuition and the fact that he had the propensity to go Columbine might have set off women’s senses not to fuck with him. That was probably was the case with that Virginia Tech kid too… And the Columbine kids. -Or was he crazy because he didn’t get any ass? A dry spell of a few months might make a nigga flip out. But nineteen years would probably send the Pope on some Helter Skelter type shit. It’s  just not natural. I don’t need to search the internets to know that there are of plenty psychological studies that show that sex depravation will drive a person crazy. Just think: old people  and a house full of cats… or homeless people who mumble to themselves. Dudes who can’t get any on their own power  should have unfettered access the world’s oldest profession. For those who have a medical case of not non-pussy-getting, like Sodini, there should be a public option.

I understand the argument, but that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.  Blackneck is wrong.  George Sodini didn’t kill those women (and injure many more) because he was sex deprived.  There are many – many – men (and women for that matter) who either haven’t had sex, or haven’t had it in a long time.  If sex deprivation were really that terrible, we would see many more killings of the kind witnessed last week.  Let’s be clear.  George Sodini killed those women because they were women.  It’s abundantly clear, from his blog and from his journals, that Sodini harbored a deep-seated hatred towards women, and sex happened to be the lens through which he focused those hatreds.  And judging from the intensity of Sodini’s hate, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that there is little that would have dimmed Sodini’s disdain and disgust for women.

All of the legalized prostitution in the world wouldn’t have stopped Sodini (and might have even intensified his hatred).  To suggest otherwise – to suggest that maybe, perhaps, women do bear some of the blame for his actions – is more than a little offensive, and comes dangerously close to victim-blaming.  Which isn’t terribly surprising, to be honest.  We are fairly sensitive to instances of racism, kind of sensitive to classism, and absolutely tone-deaf when it comes to misogyny.  Which, as Bob Herbert noted this past weekend in the New York Times, is kind of a problem when you consider that the United States is – as he puts it – “saturated with misogyny.”  Blackneck’s post, well meaning as it is, is reflective of that tone deafness.  If he (and I’m going to assume that Blackneck is a he) had a better grasp on the deep misogyny that permeates our society, then his solution to Sodini-types wouldn’t be to legalize prostitution in the hopes of staving off another massacre, it would be to preempt another massacre by directly addressing the rampant – and perfectly acceptable – disdain for women which permeates our mainstream discourse.

Update: Apparently Blackneck’s post was satire, and somehow (I usually notice those things), I missed that.  My apologies.

So, I went blackberry picking this weekend, and now I have an unreasonable number of blackberries in my fridge.  I made a cobbler last night – and I intend to make another – but I’ll still have a ton of blackberries left over.  Any suggestions for what to do with them (besides nom them as is, which is a very real option). [Read more →]

It’s taken me awhile to get to this – mostly because I’ve been (unusually) busy with real life – but I wanted to offer a few  thoughts on Mark’s post on Wyden-Bennett, and particularly his broader issue with liberals and Democrats assuming the worst of conservatives and Republicans.  Here’s Mark in his own words, if you didn’t read the post:

I’m usually one of the more cynical people when it comes to politicians, but in this case the evidence that Republicans would turn against Wyden-Bennett if it came to a vote is pretty weak.  It appears to me that liberals who assume that Republican support for Wyden-Bennett would disappear were it actually pushed are committing the cardinal sin of underestimating their opponents, attributing the worst possible motives to all of those opponents despite clear evidence to the contrary and without any supporting evidence.

I don’t think liberals are underestimating their opponents as much as they are drawing lessons from the past few years of conservative governance.  On issue after issue, conservatives (or, to be more accurate, Republicans) have regularly argued and negotiated in bad faith.  Take the stimulus, for instance.  The Obama administration’s first move in pushing for a stimulus package was to argue from the center.  Tax cuts made up a significant chunk of the stimulus package, and the administration was more than willing to cut money from various provisions, even those – like direct aid to states – which were the most useful.  In return, the administration got a nearly party-line vote against the stimulus, and the charge that Democrats were taking us on the road to fiscal irresponsibility.  Indeed, Republicans have been haranguing the administration about the deficit from the beginning, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it is, in significant part, a legacy of George W. Bush’s presidency.

Looking at the current “debate” over health care, it is abundantly clear that Republicans aren’t actually interested in constructive criticism.  As Andrew Sullivan has recently (and repeatedly) noted, far from attempting a vast overhaul of the health care sector, Democrats are proposing a series of modest reforms aimed at expanding coverage to low-income Americans and reforming the insurance industry.  And as Matt Yglesias has pointed out, there is plenty of room in those proposals for conservatives to make substantive input.  But that’s not at all what we’re seeing.  Honest efforts to reduce costs or raise revenues are met with screeching and accusations of socialism, and innocuous provisions in the bill become fodder for incredibly outlandish claims (the Democrats what to kill your grandparents!).  Republican leaders are actively spreading lies and misinformation, and encouraging their supporters to respond to Democratic outreach with quasi-violent confrontations.

For all of the Republican support that Wyden-Bennett has received, pace Mark, I don’t think the Republican response would be any different if that bill were up for serious consideration.  And I don’t necessarily blame Republicans for taking this approach; politically, it’s in their best interest.  Even a successful bipartisan bill will solidify Democrat gains for at least the next two or three election cycles, and Republicans know that their path back to relevancy is much easier if they can sink a Democratic health care bill.  It’s almost unreasonable to expect them to do anything else.  That said, Mark’s right, it is unfair of liberals to assume bad faith of Republicans.  But in an argument, you have to earn the assumption of good faith, and Republicans clearly haven’t.

One thing I’ve tried to do with regularity at my own digs is a “Friday Genius Ten.”  The idea is pretty straightforward: you choose one song from your iTunes and run the “Genius” program, which creates a playlist featuring similar music in your music library.  I’m going to try to make this a regular feature at the League, with one small twist: I want to know what you’re listening to!  So, if you’re so inclined, post your own Genius Ten in the comments, or if you’d rather not go through the trouble, just post what you’ve been into recently!

Original Song: “Capitalism Stole My Virginity” – The (International) Noise Conspiracy

Genius Playlist

1. “Words and Guitar” – Sleater-Kinney
2. “Refused are F*ckin Dead” – Refused
3. “Ex Lion Tamer” – Wire
4. “Outtathaway!” – The Vines
5. “Supply and Demand” – The Hives
6. “Break My Body” – Pixies
7. “Loretta’s Scars” – Pavement
8. “Fear of Drowning” – British Sea Power
9. “I Found that Essence Rare” – Gang of Four
10. “Pattern Against User” – At the Drive-In

And here are some videos:

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