The President needs a Super Majority in both Congress and Senate

[Hutzpa]

just thought I will pass this on.

Ok, back to celebrating tonite.


:dem:

[MrsCorleone]

1. Hey, where did my rec go?

Back down to zero.

Kick for super majorities!

:toast:

[Hutzpa]

2. Haters took it.... lol

Thanks


:fistbump:

[elleng]

3. Replaced it!

:toast:

[MrsCorleone]

19. Thanks!

Second round is on me!

:toast:

Here's to the fine folks who voted today! Onward to the upcoming WI recall (buh bye Walker!) and super majorities in Nov 2012!

[Tarheel_Dem]

4. It's astounding isn't it? On a "democratic" board we have saboteurs among us.

They give this president no credit for ANYTHING, and blame him for EVERYTHING. They get to have it both ways, even on a night like this.

[jeff47]

10. Well, my unrec came from 3 things

1) Tonight's not the night to piss in the punchbowl. Celebrate the turn-around from 2010. 2012 can wait until tomorrow.

2) It's not an accurate statement. Nowhere in the Constitution is a supermajority required. There's rules in the senate that should be changed at the beginning of the next Congress using a simple majority.

3) Seems to operate under the erroneous assumption that having a "D" after one's name is the only thing that matters. In that it's going to be used to pressure the liberal wing to support people like Nelson. And as Nelson demonstrates over and over again, having a "D" doesn't mean you'll vote with the "D"s when push comes to shove.

[Tarheel_Dem]

13. Then Nelson's constituents should primary him, NO? That all important "D"..

after the name gives us committee chairmanships. It gives us the ability to determine what gets debated, and what comes to the floor for a vote. I'm a "D"emocrat, and make no apologies for it. I just feel better when "D"emocrats are in control. So sue me.

We aren't called "The Big Tent" for nothing. I'm no fan of Nelson, Baucus or Landrieu, but would you have us all be dittoheads? :shrug:

[jeff47]

22. And that's why politics has slid so far to the right.

Gotta get the all-important D after the name, doesn't matter if the candidate is really an R.

Result: Politics moves further to the right. Leading to more R's-in-D's-clothing. D committee chairmen don't help when they follow the R agenda, and we get Democrats trying to dismantle Social Security and Medicare.

I refuse to go along with that anymore. It has not worked. It is enabling the extremism in the Republican party far more than electing Republicans because it gives cover to their extremism - it can't be extreme if it's "bipartisan".

[Tarheel_Dem]

24. Then by all means, go your own way. Lots of that third party advocacy happening here lately.

:hi:

[eilen]

29. Personally, I am a fan of quality. nt

[Tarheel_Dem]

30. Then go with your gut? Whaddya want from me? I'll never be a 3rd party person.

Like I said, I'm a (D)emocrat, and make no apologies for it. Third party advocates make me nearly as nauseous as the Teanutters. They continue to try and chip away at the infrastructure built by generations of (D)emocrats, instead of going away, and doing their own thing. There's a reason why they can't get the traction they desire, and I'll leave it to you to figure that out. ;)

[Hutzpa]

16. Why is it then that dem senators were talking about

60 majority to pass Obama's bill?

[jeff47]

21. Because Reid didn't reform the filibuster at the start of this Congress. (nt)

[Lionessa]

5. Unless they are progressive democrats, it'll be no better than last time.

he had nearly a super majority. Problem isn't the quantity, it's the quality first, then the quantity. But for example, Minnick out of Idaho was a Dem on Obama's coattails, but then voted like 98% Republican and was the only Dem nationwide endorsed by the TeaParty. If we have to settle for these, or Ben Nelsons, or gosh the list is one I don't want to think about right now, I want to enjoy the victories of the evening, but you get my drift.

[karynnj]

23. True, but he voted for Pelosi as Speaker

If nothing else has been proven this year, it is the value of which party has the speakership. Contrast the nightmare of the constant attempts to advance RW causes at the expense of the country defaulting.

Now, the Republicans do not have a 1 vote majority, but ask yourself, if the seat Minnick held was the deciding seat - with Pelosi up by one of Boehner up by one, would you still say he was useless? If so, you are ignoring the importance of having the chairs. The chairs, like Issa, who are trying to investigate and make criminal issues of everything - and of course, the speaker controls the agenda. I don't think Pelosi would have had the large number of abortion bills and the Ryan budget most certainly would not have come up for a vote.

[Hutzpa]

27. All good points

it really does matter who controls the house and the senate; case in point, the vote to re-affirm
'In God We Trust' is a wasted time on the tax payers dime whereas the Jobs Bill keeps getting voted
down.

[jeff47]

6. Nope, he doesn't.

House is straight majority. Extra votes there help, but aren't needed to pass legislation. A small margin with some horse-trading should get the President's agenda through.

In the Senate, just need to reform the filibuster, which can be done with a simple majority at the beginning of every Congress. Right now you have to break a filibuster. Change the rules so that you have to sustain a filibuster. Make the 40+ Senators who want to filibuster stay there day and night, voting to sustain it over and over again. Leaves the filibuster available as a tool against extreme bills/nominees, but also makes routine use of it very hard to do.

[Hutzpa]

8. Agreed

we can also avoid all the headaches by just going for 60+ Senate majority.

[jeff47]

9. 60+ is extremely unlikely. Hasn't happened since FDR.

And Democrats were beloved back then.

As Lieberman and Nelson demonstrated, being numbers 59 and 60 gives way too much power to assholes. Better to take away that power and force the filibuster-ers to do the work.

[Hutzpa]

11. It may seem as a mountain now but

nothing is impossible.

There is always a first.

[jeff47]

12. It's not a first, and doesn't solve the asshole problem I mentioned. (nt)

[Hutzpa]

14. The only way to solve the asshole problem is to find

grass root progressives/liberals.

[totodeinhere]

42. To get to 60 the Democrats would have to win virtually every contested seat

including in several deeply red states. It's barely mathematically possible but extremely unlikely. The Democrats will have to defend 23 seats while the GOP defends only 10. If you count Sanders as a part of the Democratic caucus, the Democrats would have to hold all 23 seats they are defending and pick up 7 out of 10 seats the GOP is defending. Or in other words to get to 60 they would have to win 30 of 33 seats. Good luck with that.

However, I do think that the Democrats have a good chance to hold their majority which in itself would be an accomplishment given the difference in the number of seats that each party is defending.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. He needs to embrace traditional Democratic values

and end his worship of bankers. Otherwise we're sunk.

He's showing a flash of Democratic rhetoric these days, let's hope it's not just an election-time thing.

[rug]

15. Let the excuses commence!

[Ter]

17. He'll never have one

In 2012, there are 21 Democrats, 10 Republicans and 2 Independents up for election. Maximum total pickups in the Senate for Democrats in 2012 is 12, if they win every single race.Of course, that's impossible, and even if it weren't, that would still only give them 59 seats. It's extremely unlikely Dems gain more than 2 seats, but the odds are they lose three+.

[Hutzpa]

18. And which are the three do you see dems losing?

nt

[Ter]

28. Let's see...

It's a little hard to predict before we have official nominees, but here are a few potential losses:

Connecticut: Lieberman is not a Dem, but an indy. He's retiring. Probably leans Dem, but could be close if Peter Schiff is the Repub nominee.

Florida: Democrat Bill Nelson is retiring. Who will run? Leans Repub, for now.

Montana: Dem Jon Tester is running for re-election. Probably leans Dem, but barely.

Nebraska: Will Ben Nelson retire? If he does, a puke win is likely.

New Jersey: Will Bob Menendez be re-elected? My take is that he's not that popular.

North Dakota: Democrat Kent Conrad is retiring. This should be a Republican lock.

Virginia: Jim Webb is retiring after one term as a moderate Dem. Probable Repub pickup, but will be close.

Wisconsin: Democrat Herb Kohl is retiring. I have no idea about this one, however.


Now, we also may pick up a couple of seats to offset any losses. The most likely is Scott Brown's seat in MA. It should be a fun year!

[Hippo_Tron]

31. I haven't seen anything indicating that Bill Nelson of Florida is retiring

The DSCC indicates that he is running for re-election.

http://www.dscc.org/featured_races?blog_entry_KEY=830

The fun thing about Senate races it that there's ALWAYS at least one that's much closer (or goes the other way entirely) than initially expected at the outest.

[Fearless]

20. We need to remove corporate personhood and reform campaign finance to level the playing field.

[woo me with science]

25. We need a primary.

President Obama will never back a Democratic agenda, because he is not really a Democrat.

Obama's Conservative Presidency: The Manchurian Candidate - Republican-in-Democratic-Clothing
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/11/08/obama-s-conservative-presidency-the-manc

By Eric Zuesse

This article will be the basis, the documentation, for the "No" position, in the first official national forum among Democrats, on the following question: "Should Barack Obama be the next Democratic candidate for president of the United States?" This meeting will be held in the Whiting, Vermont Town Hall, on Rt. 30, at 6:30 PM, on Tuesday November 15th, 2011, and it will be open to everyone everywhere -- everyone is invited to attend. This forum is sponsored by the Democratic Committee of the Town of Whiting.
....

Soon after Barack Obama was elected, on a platform of providing every American with a “Public Option, to keep the insurance companies honest” (by providing nonprofit government competition for the health-insurance companies), and of providing accountability for Wall Street and other elite crimes, Obama appointed Bush’s N.Y. Fed chief Timothy Geithner (who had pushed for and organized a 100 cents-on-the-dollar bailout for investors in Wall Street’s toxic assets to come from U.S. taxpayers) as his Treasury Secretary, and appointed Eric Holder (who had wrangled a Presidential pardon for billionaire commodity trader Marc Rich) as his Attorney General, and Obama also told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to block any movement for single-payer health insurance, which the Congressional Progressive Caucus had wanted to introduce as the left-most position for the bargaining and horse-trading that was to come on health care. Once Obama was ensconced in office, he chose the anti-public-option conservative Democratic Senator Max Baucus as the person to write his new health care plan. Baucus’s staff aide, Liz Fowler, formerly the VP of the nation’s biggest health insurance company, Wellpoint, promptly set about drafting the Obama plan. Right out of the starting-gate, Barack Obama was doing everything he possibly could to block any fight from the left against extremist right-wing Republican legislative initiatives in Congress. This drove everything farther to the right. He was thus doing exactly what a secret conservative fake “Democrat” would do to cripple Democratic opposition to Obama’s actually conservative legislative initiatives.

Here is the result, issue by issue: (snip)

(Further sections in the article: )

Obama’s Rejection of Democratic Economics
Obama’s Passion to Cut Social Security & Medicare
Obama’s Ditching the Public Option
Obama’s Other Lies During the 2008 Contest
Obama’s Protection of Republicans
Obama’s Subservience to Wall Street
Obama’s Subservience to Big Oil
Obama’s Subservience to BP as an Example
Afghanistan, Torture, etc.
Obama's Perversion of Justice

The Bottom Line for the Democratic Party

Obama has been so conspicuously bad, that the Washington Post/ABC News Poll on 2 November 2011 found that 61% of American voters wanted a third-party candidate to run in the 2012 Presidential race. If Democrats nominate Obama, then a Ralph Nader type of candidacy will be likely, but if an authentic Democrat represents the Party instead, then the Republicans won’t stand a chance, not even with all their Wall Street cash. We need a candidate who won’t be dragging around Obama’s ugly baggage, which Republicans hate because he calls himself a Democrat, and which independents despise because he’s so obviously a hypocrite who stands with the aristocracy against the public. Moreover, a real Democrat as our standard-bearer could fire up the Democratic Party, but the fake Democrat Obama won’t be able to do that. Too many people now know the reality about this man. The Democratic Party needs an authentically Democratic candidate.

__________________________________________
It is time to face reality and give up the charade.

[Marrah_G]

26. It will doubtfully ever get any better then we had his first two years.

The problem is not making the GOP vote against or filibuster when we did have both majorities. This not putting anything up to a vote that you aren't positive you have the votes for allows members of congress to not own their actions. Make them vote. Make them put their views down in the history books.

They didn't do this. They just caved time after time and are still doing so. Ever notice the compromises only come from our side? There is a reason for that.

[bigwillq]

32. I hope that neither (or any) party ever has a super majority (nt)

[Hutzpa]

35. Why is that?

Have you notice the gridlock these past few years, what do you think caused that?

Partisanship, Bi-partisan or non corporation from both sides (blue dogs from our side)

[bigwillq]

44. I don't want the repukes

to have super majorities. If the DEMS get it, then there's always the chance that the repukes could.
We should be careful of what we wish for.

[MNBrewer]

33. Congress = House of Representatives + Senate

[Hutzpa]

34. But you understood my thread right? nt.

[MNBrewer]

38. I think I get what you're saying

I don't necessarily agree.

It just struck a "pet peeve" of mine. As in, " Call your congressman and Senators".... Senators ARE Congressmen.

[Hutzpa]

40. Unfortunately

I'm not about to get caught up with a 'pet peeve' when there are more pressing issues
confronting this president and as we all know one of them is that gridlock which we
have all become accustomed to in Congress.

If we all keep looking for pet peeve which I know majority of us do have, we will never
move forward, our focus instead will be about pet peeve which will then overcome our
daily judgment... and sometimes it does, in this instance I'm willing to overlook
your misconception, what I meant by that is the ability to differentiate a public
community forum of like minded individuals from university environment (some might
even refer to it as transformation).

[certainot]

36. best way to get a super majority is to finally mount an organized opposition to their best weapon

the talk radio monopoly.

petition students to get their university sports off limbaugh radio stations and the local sponsors will follow. and local sponsors can be encouraged to find alts in blue communities, especially, with a few phone calls.

universities have no excuses for not breaking their contracts with radio stations that routinely do shit contrary to the uni mission statements- racism, sexism, and global warming denial.

the unis are requiring their students to listen to those stations in the sense that they are the only place the games can be heard on radio, and almost all of those stations are exclusively partisan and do global warming denial.

the recent climate reports demands unis find alternative broadcasters.

last year 15 of 16 NCAA baketball finalists broadcast on limbaugh stations.

[Cali_Democrat]

37. And if he doesn't have one?

[MNBrewer]

39. Republican Presidents seem to get things they want done without Super Majorities

Why do you think that is?

If it walks like a Republican, talks like a Republican, and VOTES like a Republican, but has a big ol' D after their name, some Democrats will STILL vote for them.

[Hutzpa]

41. Then that will be an issue to address at grass root level

during the screening process of nomination.

[Mass]

43. That does not include people like Lieberman and Nelson or McCaskill.

Not if you want progressive legislation to be passed.

[opihimoimoi]

45. Thanks to the current crop of GOPer Malcretins....The Blue Landslide is a POSSIBILITY

Heavy Odds the GOPers will Crash n Burn

[boomerbust]

46. Super Majority?

Another squandered opportunity?