Senate Republicans will be playing a lot of defence in 2016

By Richard K. Barry

Of the 34 U.S. Senators up for reelection in 2016, 10 are Democrats and 24 are Republicans, which will provide a great opportunity for Democrats to take back the Senate.

One race worth considering in the early stages is Republican Ron Johnson's Wisconsin Senate seat, which Public Policy Polling finds to be very competitive should Russ Feingold jump in for the Democrats. PPP has Feingold at 50% to Johnson's 41% at this point in a hypothetical rematch of their 2010 contest.

Johnson hasn't proven to be very popular during his first term in the Senate. Only 32% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 40% who disapprove. 28% of voters with no opinion about him also suggests he hasn't made a terribly strong impression on people over the last 4 years. Meanwhile Feingold is still relatively popular despite his 2010 loss. 46% of voters see him favorably to 35% with an unfavorable opinion. That makes him more popular than any other politician in the state who we looked at on this poll.

After the disaster in 2014, it will be great fun to watch a bunch of Republican sweat it out. 

Early days, but I'm looking forward to it.

Holding freedom hostage

By Mustang Bobby 

Paul Krugman writes that the Republicans have dusted off an old argument from years ago to block the agenda of President Obama and the Democrats. Instead of arguing the merits of, say, expanding Medicaid to people who need it, they now say that giving people a guarantee that they will have health insurance is an assault on freedom:

Conservatives love, for example, to quote from a stirring speech Reagan gave in 1961, in which he warned of a grim future unless patriots took a stand. (Liz Cheney used it in a Wall Street Journal op-ed article just a few days ago.) "If you and I don't do this," Reagan declared, "then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free." What you might not guess from the lofty language is that "this" — the heroic act Reagan was calling on his listeners to perform — was a concerted effort to block the enactment of Medicare.

These days, conservatives make very similar arguments against Obamacare. For example, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has called it the "greatest assault on freedom in our lifetime." And this kind of rhetoric matters, because when it comes to the main obstacle now remaining to more or less universal health coverage — the reluctance of Republican governors to allow the Medicaid expansion that is a key part of reform — it's pretty much all the right has.

They trot out this pony for lots of other things, too. Universal background checks and liability insurance for gun owners shreds the Second Amendment. Giving free or reduced lunches to impoverished children takes away the parents' rights to feed their children the way they see fit. Banning interracial marriage is an assault on the rights of states to protect their own traditions, and of course the one we've been hearing a lot of recently, permitting marriage equality is a blatant attempt to muzzle the freedom of the "religious" to bully and harass the LGBT community.

David Brooks' column last week where he said that granting gays more freedom actually meant less was a caricature of the argument, and this is how we know that they're getting down to the fumes. When they have to tell you that more is actually less and up is actually down; that more choice for more people is tyranny and that finding a way to stop a madman from sweeping a kindergarten with 154 bullets in less than five minutes is the last step before Stalinism, it makes you wonder at what point will it dawn on them how utterly contemptuous of freedom they really are.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Craziest Republican of the Day: Ron Johnson

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, it goes to the junior senator from Wisconsin, the Tea Party Republican who beat incumbent Russ Feingold in 2010 (largely because he got caught up in the Republican wave and because no one knew what he was really about politically, having never run for office before -- and because Wisconsin was crazy, as is frequently the case). From The Raw Story:

Tea party-backed Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) says that the right to own high-capacity ammunitions magazines like the 100-round drum that was used to kill at least a dozen people in Colorado last week is a "basic freedom" that is protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday asked Johnson why people needed military-grade weapons like the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and large ammunition clips used by the shooter in Aurora, Colorado where at least 12 were killed and 58 were wounded.

"The left always uses the term 'assault rifle,' and they're really talking about semi-automatic weapons that are used in hunting," Johnson explained. "That's what happens in Wisconsin. These are rifles that are used in hunting. Just the fact of the matter is this is really not an issue of guns. This is about sick people doing things you simply can't prevent. It's really an issue of freedom."

Really? Hunters use these weapons? If that's really the case, how insanely fucking ridiculous.

And, really? It's a "basic freedom"? Because the Founders were worried about the defence of a new and vulnerable nation in the late 1700s, that means they approved the private ownership of weapons beyond anything they could have imagined at the time?

"Does something that would limit magazines that can carry 100 rounds, would that infringe on the constitutional right?" Wallace wondered.

"I believe so," Johnson insisted. "There are magazines — 30-round magazines — that are just common all over the place. You simply can't keep these weapons out of the hands of sick, demented individuals that want to do harm."

First, you can't entirely prevent these weapons from getting in the hands of dangerous individuals, but you can certainly make it extremly difficult. But crazy (and crazed) pro-gun absolutists like Johnson are against even that -- against even trying.

Second, it's too easy to write off what happened as the actions of a "sick, demented" individual. That's not to say that James Holmes isn't sick and demented or was acting as part of some concerted effort, or that he was motivated by specific ideological attachments. No, it's just to say that he didn't act in a vacuum, which is to say, that he acted within a certain culture -- in this case a culture of violence that while not exclusively American is certainly more prevalent in the U.S. than in other Western countries. It's the culture of the Second Amendment, the culture of the NRA, the culture of extremists like Ron Johnson.

There won't be nearly enough examination of that culture and its political underpinnings in response to the shooting in Colorado, largely because the right screams bloody murder whenever it comes under scrutiny, and whenver it looks like there might be momentum towards meaningful gun control, but we won't achieve any meaningful understanding of what happened, and specifically why it happened, until there is.

Why are Republicans trying to violate the Constitution?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The answer, of course, is because they're Republicans.

But Steve Clemons, in this case, provides the details:

A handful of newly elected Republican US Senators have written to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid trying to undo the Constitutional authority of other elected incumbent US Senators.

That's right. Even the so-called strict constitutionalist Rand Paul is engaged in lobbying that would impose illegal burdens on incumbent elected representatives violating the word and spirit of the United States Constitution.


According to the 20th Amendment to the US Constitution, the respective terms of US Senators and US Representatives ends at noon on January 3rd...

Senators "elect" Roy Blunt (R-MO), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rob Portman (R-OH), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) have written to Senator Reid stating, as reported by Joshua Rogin:

On Election Day we were elected to represent the constituents of our respective states in the Senate. Out of respect for our states' voters, we believe it would be improper for the Senate to consider the New START Treaty or any other treaty in a lame duck session prior to January 3, 2011.

Too bad guys!

Yes, too fucking bad.

You're not senators yet and the Senate as currently constituted (with duly-elected members) has every right -- it's in the Constitution, for the gods' sake! -- to take up anything it wants (within the parameters of its Constitutional powers), including START.

You are not yet elected and the incumbent Senators seating in seats they "won" previously have ALL the powers embedded in their positions until 12 noon, January 3rd.

Your efforts to impose your will beforehand are extralegal, irresponsible, and unconstitutional.

Rand Paul -- you owe many of your supporters a note of regret for having agreed to sign on to this letter giving your strict Constitutionalist views.

Rob Portman -- an old friend, and someone I respect for his sensible Republican pragmatism -- you too should know better than try to disrupt the operations of our government before your time has clicked in. De-sign this letter please.

Roy Blunt -- this was clever, but you know it was wrong. Dial down please.

Ron Johnson and Marco Rubio -- don't follow the leader so quickly.

This is an inappropriate request of Reid, and the US Senate should move post haste to whatever issues its elected body agrees to move to -- including the START Treaty.

Then again, when did the Constitution prevent Republicans from trying to get their way?