An outgoing paean

By Carl 

Y'know, we bitch and moan about Democrats, but compared to Republicans, they can actually get shit done: 

The outgoing 111th Congress is among the most productive in history, in spite of its reputation for gridlock and 13 percent approval rating. Democrats controlled the House and the Senate, and used their large majorities to push through landmark legislation with barely any GOP support.

The post-election lame-duck session – typically a mopping-up operation to get out of town – also made history, passing key pieces of legislation, often with greater input from Republicans than had earlier been the case. People can argue the merits of what Congress did, but it’s hard to quibble with the scope of the undertaking. 

Granted, much of the legislation runs antithetical to the interests and values of liberals, and we should note that too. But a lot of what was done was good for a progressive agenda. Let's take a look, in chronological order:

1) The American Recovery and Re-Investment Act -- Everyone points to the "stimulus" portion of the bill, but the largest part of the bill was a tax cut for you and me. 98% of Americans saw a tax break out of this bill, incremental and therefore obscured by just sloppy minimalism. Too, the roll-out of the spending portion of this bill, which favored pet liberal projects like education, came down the road a bit and the agenda had already been co-opted by Teabaggers. But we ought to make note of the true progressive nature of the stimulus package.

2) Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act -- Health-care reform. It was nasty, it was ugly, and the ultimate law was a shamble of progressive and conservative philosophies, but it got done and it's a first step in a highly charged and volatile conservative atmosphere.

3) Financial Regulatory Reform -- Want to know how progressive this bill is? It's been priority targeted for budget cuts in the new Republican Congress.

4) Tax Cut Extension Plus Stimulus Spending -- Sadly, when liberals want spending, we usually force ourselves to raise taxes. Here was an instance where the evil of Republicanism, tax cutting, forced liberals to actually borrow to spend. I know, odious, right? But we got the ok to spend to try to get some jobs created, and that's good. It's all about jobs, this economy. We have to get to work on that.

5) DADT -- Nuff said.

6) START Treaty -- This is a great achievement in ratcheting down the threat of mutual annihilation. I don't think anyone... well, after 1962, at any rate... seriously believed any nuclear power would use nukes in any capacity. Until those weapons started to spread to countries who will be less than scrupulous in their use. With both Russia and the U.S. in accord on this issue, we can now turn to those nations and start asking them to dismantle them, with the full authority of speaking on behalf of the rest of the world. What happens then is a different story, but we accomplished a step towards world peace.

Could there have been more? Oh, hell yes, and that's where I think most liberals get upset. It took so long to get the modest healthcare reform we did get and that vote alone probably took the wind out of the sails for a true energy policy, for carbon trading, and for any number of other progressive items that we could have easily obtained with supermajorities in both houses.

I blame Obama for not taking the lead on his initiatives, but I also blame Harry Reid for having little stomach for beating up his constituency.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Beyond New START

By Peter Henne

Jonathan Swift once said, "Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." (I've always attributed this to Swift, but while trying to find the citation, I also found it as an apparent quote of both Alexander Pope and Benjamin Franklin.) I've adopted this as my motto when pondering U.S. politics, especially concerning things like the crucial New START treaty.

That is why I was completely wrong about this treaty. As was reported earlier today on this site, the Senate ratified New START today. And as I said several times, I didn't expect it to pass, due to GOP obstructionism and the waning days left in this year's session. But it did, with 13 Republicans' support.

What does this mean for U.S. foreign policy? A lot, actually. The treaty keeps the inspections of nuclear stockpiles going and decreases the number of nuclear weapons maintained by the United States and Russia. More importantly, it preserves and possibly accelerates U.S.-Russian dialogue, which is crucial on issues such as the Iranian nuclear program.

What is the likelihood of the New START treaty leading to further arms control agreements or reductions in nuclear stockpiles worldwide? Probably minimal. As The New York Times' David Sanger argued, further steps towards Obama's goal of nuclear disarmament will be exponentially more difficult than was the ratification of New START.

This is partly due to the nature of the treaty. As I, and many others, pointed out one of New START's biggest selling points was its endorsement by numerous foreign policy luminaries, including Republicans. The objections of Senate Republicans notwithstanding, there was a pretty broad consensus on the necessity of this treaty. Other arms control topics -- such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and general nuclear disarmament--are more divisive, with reasonable arguments for and against the relevant international agreements.

It is also due to who voted for the treaty. Republican supporters included some who will not be around next year -- due to retirement or election losses -- including George Voinovich, Judd Gregg, and Bob Bennett. It also included moderates and pseudo-moderates like Scott Brown, Susan Collins, Dick Lugar, and Olympia Snowe, all of whom will face increasing pressure from GOP leaders to oppose Obama's initiatives as 2012 approaches, especially with some of them up for re-election. And that's not even counting the Democratic Senators who won't be in office after this session.

So the combination of lessened societal cohesion surrounding foreign policy issues and a decreased liberal/moderate pool of votes means Obama will struggle to add to this foreign policy victory. That is not to detract from the victory, as it is a great success for the President, Democrats, and -- I would argue -- US national security. And I don't want to take away from the admirable support for the treaty from numerous Republican Senators. I just need to salvage some of my pessimism in the wake of such an uplifting week.

Still pleased

By Creature

Days like today don't come around often. DADT, START, 9/11 first responder bill, then a kick-ass press conference. Good stuff.

Senate likely to ratify New START today

By Michael J.W. Stickings

NYT:

An arms control treaty paring back American and Russian nuclear arsenals won a decisive vote in the Senate on Tuesday, clearing it for final approval and handing President Obama an important foreign policy victory.

The Senate voted 67 to 28 to end debate on the treaty, known as New Start, mustering the two-thirds majority needed for ratification despite a concerted effort by Republican leaders to sink the agreement. Eleven Republican senators joined every Democrat present to support the treaty, which now heads to a seemingly certain final vote of approval on Wednesday.

This would indeed be a big, big win for the president, not least because ratification could end up with almost 70 votes (despite McConnell's obstructionist opposition).

Stay tuned. (In the meantime, check out our foreign policy blogger Peter Henne's posts on the politics of New START here, here, and here.)

Republican obstructionism: McConnell opposes START ratification

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

CNN:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky voiced opposition Sunday to the New START - a nuclear arms treaty with Russia - saying that members of his party need more time to consider the legislation.

"I've decided I cannot support the treaty," McConnell said on CNN's "State of the Union." "I think if they'd taken more time with this, rushing it right before Christmas strikes me as trying to jam us."

He said trying to get a vote before Christmas was not the best way to "get support of people like me," and that GOP senators are "uneasy" about the legislation. 

Bullshit. This is pure spin, and you shouldn't believe a word of it. McConnell's strategy ever since President Obama took the oath of office was to try to block every Democratic initiative in order to deny the president any possible legislative victories heading into 2012. He wants Obama to be a one-termer, after all.

Now, all Republicans want Obama to lose in 2012, of course, but McConnell has made it his mission not to allow for compromise on anything. Given this, yesterday's DADT repeal was all the more amazing, as eight Republicans joined with Democrats to put an end to that bigoted policy.

McConnell doesn't want or need "more time" to debate START, he wants to kill it. And he hopes to do that by delaying and procrastinating as much as possible, by claiming he's all about a meaningful legislative process (and hoping to win public support that way, by duping people into thinking he's sincere) while being a partisan obstructionist behind the scenes.

In other words, there's no way "people like [him]" will ever support START -- or anything else of significance, for that matter. I realize it's his job to be full of shit, but it's oozing out of his pores with alarming intensity.

This, as we head into 2011, is simply the Republican way.

Truth in Comics

By Creature



If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

Some progress on New START?

By Peter Henne

It looks like I might have been wrong on New START, the arms reduction treaty currently being deliberated over in the Senate. Back in November I argued that the continued objections of Senator Jon Kyl -- among other Senate Republicans -- to the treaty made its passage unlikely, even though most of the critiques of the deal make little sense. In addition to Kyl's objections, Jim DeMint -- GOP Senator from South Carolina -- also threatened to force the Senate to read through the entire treaty, a process that could last 10 hours and prevent passage this year.

Now Jim DeMint seems to have "backed down," partially under pressure from GOP Senate leaders. If the treaty moves forward in the Senate before the Democrats lose several members of their caucus in the next session, its chances for ratification are rather good.

Notice, however, that I said I might have been wrong. Republicans are hardly supporting the bill, and it is very likely they could still delay a vote. So I'm not getting my hopes up yet.

Beyond redemption

By Mustang Bobby

It's hard for a lot of people to remember a time when there were Republicans who were considered moderate and open to working with people who didn't march in lockstep with the far-right agenda, but there actually were members of the House and Senate who did just that. Most of them, though, have either retired or been marginalized. So it's a little poignant to hear one speak nowadays, especially when it's someone like former Sen. John Danforth, Republican of Missouri, when he's talking about the ones he left behind and the danger they face from within their own party.

"If Dick Lugar," said John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, "having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption."

Mr. Danforth is considered an authority on redemption; before he was elected to the Senate, he was -- and remains -- a priest in the Episcopal Church.

Mr. Danforth's concern has real implications. Mr. Lugar is defending the Obama administration's attempt to ratify the New Start treaty with Russia, and it is running into opposition from the Republicans based on nothing other than the fact that the GOP does not want to hand the president any sort of accomplishment. The leader of the opposition to the treaty in the Senate is Jon Kyl of Arizona, who so far has been able to come up with no clear reason to oppose it on any other grounds. The new treaty has the support of conservatives ranging from Pat Buchanan to Henry Kissinger, but Mr. Kyl is adamant.

It's obvious that Mr. Kyl and the Senate leadership have decided that it is in their best interest to oppose the Obama administration on everything, regardless of the logic or the benefit to the country. It's not just the New Start treaty, either. On a variety of issues that at one point had their support -- or at least a lack of organized opposition -- the Republicans have either turned around completely or invented new reasons to block their passage: the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, warrantless wiretapping, the closing of Gitmo, the Bush tax cuts, cap and trade, Wall Street reform, TARP, and any number of other issues, they were for them before they were against them. They're doing it because they can, and also, perhaps, because they are afraid of being held hostage by the fringe elements of their party. After all, Mr. Kyl saw that several of his colleagues in the House were defeated in primaries, including Robert Bennett of Utah, as was John McCain. So they're putting their own political interests and futures first.

It also proves one certainty we learned in the War on Terror: when a prisoner is threatened with torture -- in this case by the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin -- they will say and do anything to avoid it.

 

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

New START, modernization, and Thanksgiving

by Peter Henne

Today I am thankful for many things, but #1 on the list is the fact that I am in no way responsible for getting GOP Senators to sign on to the New START treaty. Senator Jon Kyl's recent objections to the treaty made its ratification--in my opinion--rather unlikely, but he has graciously outlined his objections to the treaty in a recent memo to Senate Republicans. In it, Kyl expresses concerns over the modernization of the US nuclear weapons infrastructure, while barely mentioning New START itself.

Modernization is all fine and good, but it's unclear whether our nuclear weapons are really at risk of being made obsolete. As Page van der Linden wrote in a September piece in Foreign Policy, the Obama Administration has directed significant resources towards maintaining and modernizing our nuclear weapons. And as Cato's Benjamin Friedman and Christopher Preble argued recently, the United States could likely get away with significant cuts in our nuclear stockpiles and still protect our vital interests.

Beyond that, it's really unclear what this has to do with New START ratification. The issues are certainly related, but negotiating bilateral arms reductions does not inherently threaten US nuclear capabilities. The answer, I think, lies in the perverse effects of the contemporary Senate on US foreign policy.

As I argued early in the Obama Administration, debates in the Senate--then involving spurious GOP objections to political appointees--could have pathological consequences for US foreign policy. This is the case with the New START debates as well. If opposition to the treaty represented a broad consensus over the dangers of arms limitations, that would be one thing. That they are driven by a separate issue that is already being addressed indicates either irrational approaches to crucial foreign policy issues or the hijacking of national security by petty partisan squabbles.

Happy Thanksgiving.

This is what Jon Stewart was talking about

By Edward Copeland

To paraphrase the old Clinton campaign battle cry, "It's the media, stupid."

When the whole TSA media explosion began, it was one of those rare stories where all sides of the political spectrum seemed to agree from the likes of Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake to an assortment of conservative talking heads. It even had its own variation of "Don't tase me, bro" with "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested" before true horror stories came out of passengers who had colostomy bags broken and urine collection bags ruptured, women who had their prosthetic breasts which they got after cancer surgery moved around as if they were puzzle pieces, etc. (Read Capt. Fogg's post for some of the examples.) It all pointed to improper training. Well, cable can't stand something like that, so they had to find political sides.

Suddenly, the left decided the whole issue was raised by neocons and the right to try to use racial profiling, even though days earlier they agreed with some of the ridiculousness of the system that still doesn't really add to protecting our skies nine years after 9/11. What makes this completely nonsensical and infuriating is that there is real news going on.

North Korea attacks a South Korean island in the most serious engagement between the two countries since 1953 in the same week we learn that North Korea has built another uranium enrichment facility. Do cable news shows want to discuss the serious implications of this? They could even put a political spin on it, if they wanted, as Jon Kyl continues to oppose the latest START treaty for no apparent reason.

I just watched Ed Schultz throwing a conniption fit about racial profiling and the TSA and Rush Limbaugh and I just couldn't take it anymore and I did what I do more and more when I need reasonable news coverage: I watched PBS' the NewsHour. They, of course, had in-depth coverage of the Korean situation as well as the fake Taliban negotiator, a promising drug that might actually prevent HIV infection and details of the financial reform. In fact, they went an entire hour without mentioning the TSA or what the cable channels would have you believe is today's other story of monumental importance: Prince William and Kate Middleton have set a wedding date!

Of course, I'm not even mentioning MSNBC's corporate synergy with NBC by using its nonstop coverage of the TSA imbroglio to play the Saturday Night Live skit about it from last weekend about it (which they do every time there is a new SNL on) as if it's an essential part of illustrating the story. Chris Matthews went as far as calling it the greatest SNL sketch ever. It aired on Olbermann, Maddow and O'Donnell last night and Morning Joe, Hardball and Schultz today.

Politico's Mike Allen had a funny tweet earlier today pointing out that Good Morning America actually did lead with the North Korean situation, but the Today show actually chose to go with the wedding date. As Fran Lebowitz said in the wonderful documentary about her that premiered on HBO last night, Public Speaking, I remember when news used to mean information.

It's like Jon Stewart said during his interview with Rachel Maddow. Was the Juan Williams story really as important as cable news made it out to be? No, but it fit their narrative and their template. There are far too many important things going on both domestically and overseas to waste our times on this nonsense anymore. Our "leaders" in D.C. can play politics, but they've lost the ability and the interest to govern and none of the talking heads on either side have any role in governance. Enough.

START the insanity

By Peter Henne

This should be no shock to anyone (although it's still distressing and aggravating); it looks like Jon Kyl -- Republican Senator from Arizona -- will not support the New START treaty. The treaty -- whose full name is the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty -- deals with US and Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles, and basically follows the arms control paradigm set forth by Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Despite the treaty's moderate, almost conservative nature, and the support it has from several Republican luminaries -- such as Henry Kissinger -- it has faced significant opposition from many on the right. Much of this seems tied to neoconservative distaste for any arms control agreements, but I suspect the anti-intellectual mood of the current Republican Party might play a part in this (Kissinger is hardly a Christine O'Donnell).

The critiques of the treaty barely make sense. I'm not an expert on nuclear issues, but Fred Kaplan brilliantly skewered an op-ed by John Bolton and John Yoo that attacked New START. And Rob Diamond has pointed out Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen's support for the treaty.

There is no reason this treaty should not be ratified by the Senate. Of course, that means it probably won't be.