Harry Reid Surrenders His Sword

by Gaius Publius

We don't need much comment here. Harry Reid has just said he will surrender to most things the Senate Republicans want to do, if they have the votes to do them. The Hill (my paragraphing):

Reid: 'No desire' to obstruct GOP 
By Alexander Bolton

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday pledged to work with Republicans when they are in the majority and eschew the strategy of obstruction he has accused them of using against Democrats. “I am ready, Mr. President, to work with him in good faith to make this institution function again for the American people. I saw firsthand how a strategy of destruction was debilitating to our system,” he said, addressing the Senate chair. “I have no desire to engage in that manner,” he said. ...

With Republicans set to take control of the upper chamber in January, it has raised questions about whether Democrats might seek revenge by blocking Republican initiatives in order to run against a dysfunctional GOP Congress in 2016.

Reid said that would not happen.

“I have been able to strike compromise with my Republican colleagues and I’m ready to do it again. Regardless of how you may interpret last week’s election results, it’s clear the American people want us to join together to get things done for the middle class and all Americans,” he said. ...

Read the rest if you like. Reid's gone all "collegial," all bipartisan. I'll bet he's getting his ticket punched all over DC for this generous move. (Bonus points for spotting the one-word "tell" — I included it above — that tells you the writer is punching Reid's ticket as well.)

Now consider carefully. Reid's not stupid. He's fighting for something, achieving some goal. Is Reid fighting for you? Or just for himself and the other insiders — the "club" as George Carlin called it — in his bipartisan Coalition of the Wealthy, the group that serves the group that buys their lunch?

What if, next, Reid mouths progressive words? Will you be mollified? What if he goes so far as to bring Elizabeth Warren into a leadership position? Will it offset the fact that he surrendered his sword ahead of the very first fight?

Harry Reid is up for re-election in 2016, along with 33 of his millionaire buddies. Feel like un-rewarding him? Me too. I'm going to take an early look at those 2016 Senate elections shortly. Perhaps we can throw a spanner into the Coalition of the Wealthy and their bipartisan engine. Someone has to be bold enough to act; might as well be us.

No, Democrats Aren't Going To Win By Becoming More Like Republicans

Watch the video of Rachel above talking about what she called "a parallel universe in our politics." Towards the end she says that "Conservatives have built themselves a very popular, very successful media landscape that doesn't just tell conservatives things that they want to hear in terms of opinion; they just make stuff up. They make up news stories that aren't true. And when they are corrected in other places, they never disappear from the conservative media. And this is, increasingly, what American conservatives consume as their news diet. This is what they think news is. This is their information stream."

I don't believe that all the red-state Democrats are necessarily bad, corrupt people. I know some of them personally and I know for a fact they aren't bad people... for politicians. But they are politicians and they are fully aware that people in their states-- particularly surly, frustrated voters in their states-- are swimming in that information stream. On line, on Hate Talk Radio, on Fox, from reactionary religious hate mongers...

Sahil Kapur speculated Tuesday that McConnell may well be able to break filibusters by stretching his 54 vote majority (assuming the Republicans win Alaska and Lousiana) to 60 by picking up 6 conservative red-state Democrats. Joe Manchin (D-WV), easily the most right-wing Democrat in the Senate, was quoted all over twitter yesterday morning when he thundered, about Democrats filibustering an anti-family Republican agenda, "That’s bullshshit. … I’m not going to put up with that." Of course not; he's on the same payrolls that most of the Republicans are on. This is Kapur's take on the 6 most likely Democrats to back McConnell the most:

• Claire McCaskill (D-MO)

It took Todd Akin of "legitimate rape" notoriety to save McCaskill from electoral doom in 2012, and this second-term Missourian recognizes that she can't vote in lock-step with her party if she wants to stay in the good graces of her conservative-leaning state. Look for her to side with Republicans from time to time to appease her right flank, on issues such as the Keystone pipeline.

• Joe Manchin (D-WV)

This conservative Democrat has always looked for ways to make himself attractive to West Virginians, from literally shooting the cap-and-trade bill in a campaign ad to voting against Reid on filibuster reform. With the ranks of conservative Democrats diminished in the wake of the 2014 blowout, Manchin will look for opportunities to tout his bipartisan bona fides.

• Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)

Heitkamp won her first Senate election in 2012 by a razor-thin 1 percent margin in deep-red North Dakota. Not shy about breaking with her party, she was one of just four Democrats who voted to block the popular gun background checks legislation in 2013 — the other three have retired or lost reelection. Expect her to hunt for issues where she can align herself with the new Republican majority.

• Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)

Donnelly largely owes his seat to Indiana Republicans who threw out an untouchable incumbent in 2012 in favor of a candidate to imploded amid a rape gaffe in the general election. One of the more conservative Democrats, he'll likely be willing to partner with McConnell's Republicans in some cases, such as reversing the 30-hour work week definition under Obamacare.

• Angus King (I-ME)

King, a progressive-leaning independent who says he'll continue to caucus with Democrats, has often looked for ways to polish his nonpartisan credentials. In two years as a senator, King has tried to play deal-maker and split with Democrats on issues like gun control and student loans.

• Jon Tester (D-MT)

Tester survived reelection in the Democrat-friendly year of 2012, but his party got wiped out this year in the race for Montana's other Senate seat. Tester has been willing to buck Democratic leaders at times, most notably when he helped kill the DREAM Act by filibuster in 2010.

Manu Raju and Burgess Everett, writing yesterday for Politico claim that the Republican take-over is empowering ConservaDems like Manchin and Heitkamp because they can "determine whether Mitch McConnell or Harry Reid prevails on any given cliff-hanger vote, making these Democrats the new power centers in the Senate."

[A]lready, a host of red-state Democrats signal a willingness to cut some deals with the GOP on the initial items atop their agenda. Donnelly wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s medical device tax and restore the full-time workweek of 40 hours under the law, two major GOP priorities. Several senators-- like Manchin, Heitkamp, Donnelly and McCaskill-- want to move forward on the Keystone XL oil pipeline. And Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said he is pushing for three bipartisan bills — including overhauls of regulations, student loans, and parental and medical leave — that he hopes will get attention in the GOP Senate.

“If the Republicans have an affirmative agenda, things they want to do, they are going to need Democratic or independent votes,” said King, who caucuses with Democrats. “I remember telling people back in Maine, everybody down here thinks they’re in charge. The reality is that anything that gets done has to have bipartisan support.”

Predictably, the DC Establishment blames the defeats of conservative Democrats like Mark Pryor and Kay Hagan on "their inability to exert their independence and distinguish themselves legislatively from an unpopular White House, partly because of the perennial gridlock in the Senate" rather than on their failure to motivate enough Democrats to bother to vote for their conservative asses. But the 10 most conservative Democrats in the Senate-- the ones who have voted most frequently with the GOP on crucial votes-- don't inspire discerning Democrats because they are so conservative, not because they're not conservative enough. These are the 10 worst-- from bad to worst-- along with their lifetime ProgressivePunch crucial vote scores:

• Heidi Heitkamp- 75.95
• Mark Warner- 75.38
• Angus King- 74.68
• Joe Donnelly- 74.36
• Tom Carper- 72.32
• Claire McCaskill- 72.16
• Kay Hagan- 71.01
• Mark Pryor- 66.50
• Mary Landrieu- 65.48
• Joe Manchin- 62.15

Four of these conservatives were up for reelection last week. Pryor and Hagan were defeated outright, he by an incredible 17% (after spending $13,484,442, significantly mnore than his opponent) and she by 1.7%. Landrieu was forced into a runoff almost no one thinks she can win, with the 3 Republicans on the ballot scoring a total of 55.8% to her 42.1%. And Mark Warner-- considered untouchable, retained his seat by a tiny margin, winning 1,071,283 (49.2%) to 1,054,556 (48.4%). Voter turnout was abysmal in all their states and Democrats just stayed home rather than vote for conservatives. In the states where Democrats did well, progressive senators like Jeff Merkley (OR) and Al Franken (MN) turned out their bases and swept back into office. Oregon had a 52.0% turnout and Minnesota had 51.3%. North Carolina-- the race with the most money spent in the country-- only had a 40.7% turnout; Arkansas' turnout was 41.2%, lots of Republicans at the polls while plenty of Democrats sat on their hands and watched the conservative senator, conservative candidate for governor and 4 conservative candidates for the House all lose. In Virginia, Warner almost lost because only 36.7% of the voters bothered showing up-- and the ones who did weren't Democrats. Being more conservative and more disappointing to Democratic voters will not help save weak "centrist" Michael Bennet (CO) in 2016. He's probably the most endangered Democrat up for reelection. But Democrats never learn so watch him turn further right over the next two years.

Are any pundits going to claim reactionary John Barrow (GA) lost his seat because he wash;t conservative enough? There was no Democrat up for reelection in either house of Congress who voted as frequently with the Republicans on crucial matters than Barrow. In the current session, his ProgressivePunch score is a breathtaking 26.87, more conservative than Justin Amash (28.19) and much more conservative than Walter Jones (41.28). Democratic voters didn't turn out for Barrow because he was too Republican, not because he wasn't Republican enough.

That's all, folks

Globalization's Impact On The 99% Is Overwhelmingly Negative-- So The New Congress Is Sure To Push It

Obama, Boehner and McConnell, political enemies, all feel they need to show the American people they can do something together that they can cooperate on. Remember Obama on Wednesday assuring the American people he heard us? "I'm eager to work with the new Congress to make the next two years as productive as possible. I'm committed to making sure that I measure ideas not by whether they are from Democrats or Republicans, but whether they work for the American people." He's looking for places to cooperate across the aisle-- and he isn't the only one.

"When the American people choose divided government, "lisped McConnell after his big win last week, "I don't think it means they don't want us to do anything. I think it means they want us to look for areas of agreement." Now all he has to do is persuade the fascist-end of his party-- the Ted Cruz wing, kooks like Joni Ernst, while poor Boehner convinces the new sociopaths elected to House seats in a party whose agenda is increasingly set by hyperbolic, drug-addicted Hate Talk Radio hosts jonesin' for ratings in a narrow-band, fragmented radio market. Alan Simpson-- of Simpson-Bowles-- is worried that the GOP may blow its opportunity to prove it can govern.

"My view is that they're going to have to govern... I would think that the object of the game is not to see how much they can punish Obama and twist him in a knot. The object of the game is to make Republicans look like they can govern instead of just saying no and... giving each other the purity test."

Even if many in on the far right fringes of their caucuses don't see it this way, both McConnell and Boehner realize the GOP can't spend the next two years voting to shred Obamacare and Dodd-Frank while making their top legislative priority deporting millions of immigrants.

Since the Republican party represents the interests of the very rich and powerful, interests that are antithetical to the interests of the working class that the Democrats are, at least in theory, representing, there isn't much leeway. However, all three mentioned moving forward on the trade agenda (i.e., globalization). That's the easy way out for the DC conservative consensus. Cooperation for the sake of cooperation looks like it wins while the corporate agenda gets a big boost and no one loses-- except the American people.

Last March the NY Times published an OpEd for Joseph Stiglitz, On The Wrong Side Of Globalization. When Obama and the Republicans start working on sacrificing the interests of working families on the pyre of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, probably immediately, we need to not lose sight of what Stiglitz explained about the bill's disastrous "side effects."

The conflicting views about the agreements are actually tearing at the fabric of the Democratic Party, though you wouldn’t know it from President Obama’s rhetoric. In his State of the Union address, for example, he blandly referred to “new trade partnerships” that would “create more jobs.” Most immediately at issue is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which would bring together 12 countries along the Pacific Rim in what would be the largest free trade area in the world.

Negotiations for the TPP began in 2010, for the purpose, according to the United States Trade Representative, of increasing trade and investment, through lowering tariffs and other trade barriers among participating countries. But the TPP negotiations have been taking place in secret, forcing us to rely on leaked drafts to guess at the proposed provisions. At the same time, Congress introduced a bill this year that would grant the White House filibuster-proof fast-track authority, under which Congress simply approves or rejects whatever trade agreement is put before it, without revisions or amendments.

Controversy has erupted, and justifiably so. Based on the leaks-- and the history of arrangements in past trade pacts-- it is easy to infer the shape of the whole TPP, and it doesn’t look good. There is a real risk that it will benefit the wealthiest sliver of the American and global elite at the expense of everyone else. The fact that such a plan is under consideration at all is testament to how deeply inequality reverberates through our economic policies.

Worse, agreements like the TPP are only one aspect of a larger problem: our gross mismanagement of globalization.

...The focus [of trade negotiations] has shifted to “nontariff barriers,” and the most important of these-- for the corporate interests pushing agreements-- are regulations. Huge multinational corporations complain that inconsistent regulations make business costly. But most of the regulations, even if they are imperfect, are there for a reason: to protect workers, consumers, the economy and the environment.

What’s more, those regulations were often put in place by governments responding to the democratic demands of their citizens. Trade agreements’ new boosters euphemistically claim that they are simply after regulatory harmonization, a clean-sounding phrase that implies an innocent plan to promote efficiency. One could, of course, get regulatory harmonization by strengthening regulations to the highest standards everywhere. But when corporations call for harmonization, what they really mean is a race to the bottom.

When agreements like the TPP govern international trade-- when every country has agreed to similarly minimal regulations-- multinational corporations can return to the practices that were common before the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts became law (in 1970 and 1972, respectively) and before the latest financial crisis hit. Corporations everywhere may well agree that getting rid of regulations would be good for corporate profits. Trade negotiators might be persuaded that these trade agreements would be good for trade and corporate profits. But there would be some big losers-- namely, the rest of us.

These high stakes are why it is especially risky to let trade negotiations proceed in secret. All over the world, trade ministries are captured by corporate and financial interests. And when negotiations are secret, there is no way that the democratic process can exert the checks and balances required to put limits on the negative effects of these agreements.

...There are other noxious provisions. America has been fighting to lower the cost of health care. But the TPP would make the introduction of generic drugs more difficult, and thus raise the price of medicines. In the poorest countries, this is not just about moving money into corporate coffers: thousands would die unnecessarily. Of course, those who do research have to be compensated. That’s why we have a patent system. But the patent system is supposed to carefully balance the benefits of intellectual protection with another worthy goal: making access to knowledge more available. I’ve written before about how the system has been abused by those seeking patents for the genes that predispose women to breast cancer. The Supreme Court ended up rejecting those patents, but not before many women suffered unnecessarily. Trade agreements provide even more opportunities for patent abuse.

...Today, there are 20 million Americans who would like a full-time job but can’t get one. Millions have stopped looking. So there is a real risk that individuals moved from low productivity-employment in a protected sector will end up zero-productivity members of the vast ranks of the unemployed. This hurts even those who keep their jobs, as higher unemployment puts downward pressure on wages.

We can argue over why our economy isn’t performing the way it’s supposed to-- whether it’s because of a lack of aggregate demand, or because our banks, more interested in speculation and market manipulation than lending, are not providing adequate funds to small and medium-size enterprises. But whatever the reasons, the reality is that these trade agreements do risk increasing unemployment.

One of the reasons that we are in such bad shape is that we have mismanaged globalization. Our economic policies encourage the outsourcing of jobs: Goods produced abroad with cheap labor can be cheaply brought back into the United States. So American workers understand that they have to compete with those abroad, and their bargaining power is weakened. This is one of the reasons that the real median income of full-time male workers is lower than it was 40 years ago.

American politics today compounds these problems. Even in the best of circumstances, the old free trade theory said only that the winners could compensate the losers, not that they would. And they haven’t-- quite the opposite. Advocates of trade agreements often say that for America to be competitive, not only will wages have to be cut, but so will taxes and expenditures, especially on programs that are of benefit to ordinary citizens. We should accept the short-term pain, they say, because in the long run, all will benefit. But as John Maynard Keynes famously said in another context, “in the long run we are all dead.” In this case, there is little evidence that the trade agreements will lead to faster or more profound growth.

...[T]he high level of inequality in the United States today, and its enormous increase during the past 30 years, is the cumulative result of an array of policies, programs and laws. Given that the president himself has emphasized that inequality should be the country’s top priority, every new policy, program or law should be examined from the perspective of its impact on inequality. Agreements like the TPP have contributed in important ways to this inequality. Corporations may profit, and it is even possible, though far from assured, that gross domestic product as conventionally measured will increase. But the well-being of ordinary citizens is likely to take a hit.

And this brings me to the second point that I have repeatedly emphasized: Trickle-down economics is a myth. Enriching corporations-- as the TPP would-- will not necessarily help those in the middle, let alone those at the bottom.

There's probably not much else the government can get done but a bad trade deal. So never mind we'd be better off with nothing than the TPP... the optics of faux-cooperation is all that matters... and the fat cats counting their money and cutting in the political careerists. With income inequality growing drastically and ominously around the world-- although worst, by far, in the U.S.-- politicians are refusing to deal with the ramifications for whatever is left of any social contracts between governed and governors. These trade deals are just fuel on that fire.

Bipartisan Corporate Establishment Turns Back Challengers, Strengthens Hold on Congress

​by Gaius Publius

There will be much analysis of the 2014 election (including here), but I want to add a few preliminary notes of my own.

1. DC insiders and corporatists have increased their hold over the House and the Senate. It took a joint, bipartisan effort, but the effort paid off on election day. Bad for corporate Democrats, who sacrificed their numbers for the cause, but good for the Corporate Congressional Coalition (hereby the "CCC") as a whole.

2. In the Senate, conservative Democrats Hagan, Pryor and Begich have lost or will likely lose to conservative Republicans. (Begich is good on Social Security, but not on much else.) Conservative Republicans Perdue and McConnell (he who kissed the Koch Bros ring) fended off challenges from DSCC-sponsored conservative Democrats Nunn and Grimes. Economic conservative incumbent Mark Udall lost to extreme conservative Cory Gardner and right-wing Democrat Mark Pryor lost to extremist ideologue Tom Cotton

.

While modestly-progressive Jean Shaheen held seat, unloved-by-DC-insiders Shenna Bellows and Rich Weiland (both true progressives) were successfully defeated by conservative Republicans Mike Rounds (to flip the seat) and Susan Collins (to hold the seat). Collins was endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters, a pro-environmental group that wants to curry favor with both sides. (Wonder who's going to speak at their annual big-donor dinner? It won't be the first time a conservative politician said thanks in this way to a "progressive" group backing conservative policies.) The seat held by mainly-progressive Tom Harkins was captured by ultra-conservative Kochist Joni Ernst.

If you're scoring the Senate D. vs R., the R's went up by +8 (if Begich loses). If you're scoring it Rich vs. the Rest or Corporatists vs. Progressives, the Corporatists went up +2 (or +1½, depending on your opinion of Mark Udall) — flipping the Harkins and Udall seats — and in true bipartisan fashion, supporters of both parties jointly turned back two potentially strong but mainly un-DC-supported progressive challengers, Weiland and Bellows. Way to win, Friend of Corps. Team effort.

3. The House analysis is going to take more time, but if all current leads hold, Steve Israel turned a 35-seat deficit into a 61-seat deficit. You can talk "wave election" and "gerrymandering" all day, but when Dems don't even compete in 21 winnable seats, your problem starts closer to home — the boss is throwing the race (my emphasis below):

All of these [Republican] incumbents represent districts where Obama won in 2008 and/or 2012 but where Israel has refused to back the grassroots local candidate or has frightened off anyone from running against his Republican pals:

    • NJ-02- Frank LoBiondo- D+1
    • MI-06- Fred Upton- R+1
    • WA-08- Dave Reichert- R+1
    • FL-27- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen- R+2
    • PA-06- Jim Gerlach- R+2
    • MN-03- Erik Paulsen- R+2
    • PA-07- Pat Meehan- R+2
    • MN-02- John Kline- R+2
    • PA-15- Charlie Dent- R+2
    • MI-08- Mike Rogers- R+2
    • WA-03- Jaime Hererra Buetler- R+2
    • VA-10- Frank Wolf- R+2
    • CA-25- Buck McKeon- R+3
    • WI-01- Paul Ryan- R+3
    • MI-11- Kerry Bentivolio- R+4
    • IL-06- Peter Roskam- R+4
    • PA-16- Joe Pitts- R+4
    • CA-49- Darrell Issa- R+4
    • IL-16- Adam Kinzinger- R+4
    • MI-03- Justin Amash- R+4
    • MI-04- Dave Camp- R+5

To put this in numerical perspective, it takes 218 seats to control the House. Democrats started this election with 199 — meaning they were 19 seats away from the majority. The list above is itself 21 seats.

Think about that — 21 low-PVI Republican-held seats where Israel has either blocked progressives or protected Republican incumbents. Again, the boss is throwing the race.

I don't have a Corporate vs. Progressive count for House races, but a number of progressives lost or are losing as of this writing, including the under-supported New Hampshire progressive, Carol Shea-Porter. (Well-supported corporatist Ann Kuster won handily, 55% to 45%. I wrote about both races here.)

As you can imagine, none of the new Republicans is likely a populist, and since most of the losses on the Democratic side were by corporatists, the CCC held serve. Did they increase their numbers in the House? Likely, but a later analysis will have to determine that. 

4. Does the newly-minted corporate Senate majority favor real filibuster reform? I kind of hope so — especially since our "collegially-minded" Democrats wouldn't take full advantage of a robust filibuster anyway. The old-minted corporate majority favored only weak filibuster reform, and then only because, with Democrats in the nominal "majority" they had to make a show of doing something. They did the least something that looked like a thing.

(I know that the short-lived reform insurgency led by progressive Jeff Merkley was sincere in wanting reform, but the bipartisan majority had its way. Then, when it came time to either hide or expose the names of Democrats who wanted to help Republicans keep the filibuster alive — Merkley's group chose not to expose the "old lions" to censure. How collegial — progressives and corporatists, together again, united to defend the corporatist plan. I will definitely come back to this.)

5. I earlier identified Obama's four high-priority legacy items as:

▪ Health care “reform” — a privatized alternative to Medicare expansion
▪ A “Grand Bargain” in which social insurance benefits are rolled back
▪ Plentiful oil & gas, and passage of the Keystone pipeline
▪ Passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement

He accomplished the first as his first major legislative effort. The second was stymied when back-bench Republicans joined with House progressives and refused many times to approve it. On the third, Obama is indeed giving us "plentiful oil & gas" despite a great show of caring about trying to begin to start the ball rolling on climate fixes. On the fourth, TPP is stalled.

Look for Obama's unfulfilled dreams — Grand Bargain, Keystone pipeline approval, TPP corporate empowerment masked as a "trade agreement" — to come back alive, thanks to the strengthened corporate Congress. Will Obama find himself "forced" (by collegiality?) to sign them?

If he does, he'll get a four-point legacy "sweep," as I count them. Mission accomplished. On to his next task...

Elizabeth Warren Has Already Been In Office 6 Months-- Where's The New Glass-Steagall Act? Oh... Here

I think most Members of Congress, financed and sold out as they are to Wall Street, abhor the idea of going to war with the banksters over regulations. The finance sector spends more on bribing federal elected officials-- $663,265,994 last cycle alone-- than any other industry. And, although they give a bit more to Republicans, they give plenty to both corrupt Beltway parties. Here are the 10 biggest recipients of bankster cash last year in the Senate and in the House:

Thursday Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), John McCain (R-AZ), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Angus King (I-ME) introduced the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act, a modern version of the Banking Act of 1933 (Glass-Steagall) that reduces risk for bank customers and for American taxpayers in the financial system and decreases the likelihood of future financial crises. This is how much each of the senators sponsoring that bill took in bribes from the banksters last year:

• Elizabeth Warren- 0
• John McCain- 0
• Maria Cantwell- $621,581
• Angus King- 0

If the bill passes the Senate and House and Obama signs it, it will separate traditional banks that have savings and checking accounts and are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from riskier financial institutions that offer services such as investment banking, insurance, swaps dealing, and hedge fund and private equity activities. The legislation would clarify regulatory interpretations of banking law provisions that undermined the protections under the original Glass-Steagall and would make "Too Big to Fail" institutions smaller and safer, minimizing the likelihood of a government bailout.

"Since core provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act were repealed in 1999, shattering the wall dividing commercial banks and investment banks, a culture of dangerous greed and excessive risk-taking has taken root in the banking world," said McCain, who joined every other Republican in the Senate to vote for repeal. "Big Wall Street institutions should be free to engage in transactions with significant risk, but not with federally insured deposits. If enacted, the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act would not end Too-Big-to-Fail. But, it would rebuild the wall between commercial and investment banking that was in place for over 60 years, restore confidence in the system, and reduce risk for the American taxpayer."

"Despite the progress we've made since 2008, the biggest banks continue to threaten the economy," said Senator Elizabeth Warren. "The four biggest banks are now 30% larger than they were just five years ago, and they have continued to engage in dangerous, high-risk practices that could once again put our economy at risk. The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will reestablish a wall between commercial and investment banking, make our financial system more stable and secure, and protect American families."

The original Glass-Steagall legislation was introduced in response to the financial crash of 1929 and separated depository banks from investment banks. The idea was to divide the risky activities of investment banks from the core depository functions that consumers rely upon every day. Starting in the 1980s, regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reinterpreted longstanding legal terms in ways that slowly broke down the wall between investment and depository banking and weakened Glass-Steagall. In 1999, after 12 attempts at repeal, Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to repeal the core provisions of Glass-Steagall.

With Wall Street banksters popping open the champagne bottles, the disastrous repeal passed the House 343-86-- only 16 Republicans, 69 Democrats and, of course, independent Bernie Sanders, standing up to be counted against the obvious disaster-in-the-making. Among the House Members in 1999 who were smart (and honest) enough to vote know were this dozen, all folks who are still pretty well known today:

• Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
• Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
• John Conyers (D-MI)
• Barbara Lee (D-CA)
• John Lewis (D-GA)
• Ed Markey (D-MA)
• Jerry Nadler (D-NY)
• Ron Paul (R-TX)
• Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
• Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
• John Tierney (D-MA)
• Maxine Waters (D-CA)

And among the Members of Congress too corrupt and too stupid-- the two conditions often go hand-in-hand among Members of Congress-- who backed this legislation were this two dozen, who are also still active today and still working harm to make life miserable for the ordinary American family:

• Roy Blunt (R-MO)
• John Boehner (R-OH)
• Richard Burr (R-NC)
• Dave Camp (R-MI)
• Joe Crowley (D-NY)
• Jim DeMint (R-SC)
• Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN)
• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
• Johnny Isakason (R-GA)
• John Kasich (R-OH)
• Ron Kind (D-WI)
• Peter King (R-NY)
• Buck McKeon (R-CA)
• Rob Portman (R-OH)
• Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
• Ed Royce (R-CA)
• Paul Ryan (R-WI)
• Matt Salmon (R-AZ)
• Mark Sanford (R-SC)
• John Thune (R-SD)
• Pat Toomey (R-PA)
• Fred Upton (R-MI)
• David Diapers Vitter (R-LA)
• Anthony Weiner (D-NY)

Which list would you rather be on-- those who saw the problem and tried to stop it from happening... or those who caused the problem? More from Elizabeth Warren on the need for this legislation:

Banking should be boring. Savings accounts, checking accounts-- the things that you and I rely on every day-- should be safe from the sort of high-risk activities that broke our economy.

The way our system works, the FDIC insures our traditional banks to keep your money safe. That way when you want to withdraw money from your checking account, you know the money will be there. That’s what keeps our banking system safe and dependable.

But the government should NOT be insuring hedge funds, swaps dealing, and other risky investment banking services. When the same institutions that take huge risks are also the ones that control your savings account, the entire banking system is riskier.

Coming out of the Great Depression, Congress passed the Glass Steagall Act to separate risky investment banking from ordinary commercial banking. And for half a century, the banking system was stable and our middle class grew stronger. As our economy grew, the memory of the regular financial crises we experienced before Glass Steagall faded away.

But in the 1980s, the federal regulators started reinterpreting the laws to break down the divide between regular banking and Wall Street risk-taking, and in 1999, Congress repealed Glass Steagall altogether. Wall Street had spent 66 years and millions of dollars lobbying for repeal, and, eventually, the big banks won.

Our new 21st Century Glass Steagall Act once again separates traditional banks from riskier financial services. And since banking has become much more complicated since the first bill was written in 1933, we’ve updated the law to include new activities and leave no room for regulatory interpretations that water down the rules.

The bill will give a five year transition period for financial institutions to split their business practices into distinct entities-- shrinking their size, taking an important step toward ending “Too Big to Fail” once and for all, and minimizing the risk of future bailouts.

In The Bag-- Most Of Congress... But Not Bernie Sanders

When Boehner and Cantor offer a motion to suspend the rules and pass a bill, requiring a 2/3's vote for passage, it doesn't mean the bill isn't controversial; it does mean there's huge bipartisan support for the bill though. And, more often than not, it means lobbyists have greased the way for passage. When Congress got back in session Monday, they kicked off the proceedings with 3 such bills-- H.R. 1341, H.R. 1564 and H.R. 1171. The last of the three really was a nonpartisan vote that everyone-- except bizarre sexual predator Mark Sanford of South Carolina-- agreed to. It passed 387-1 and authorizes "the transfer of federal surplus property to a state agency for distribution through donation within the state for purposes of education or public health for organizations whose membership comprises substantially veterans and whose representatives are recognized by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) in the preparation, presentation, and prosecution of claims under laws administered by the Secretary." In other words, it gives veterans service organizations access to Federal surplus personal property. Don't ask me why Sanford voted "no;" he's a very sick man and should be in a mental hospital, not Congress.

It was the other two bills, however, that drew my attention to the voting Monday. Both passed overwhelmingly and with bipartisan support. But a quick look at who was pushing the bills and who voted against them, set off some serious alarms here at DWT. Both are Wall Street bills written by bankster lobbyists and both bills were opposed by the few honest Members of Congress who aren't in the pockets of the banksters. In the words of the NY Times this morning, Congress and "the Securities and Exchange Commission has all but invited hucksters, rip-off artists and other bad actors to prey on individual investors. The new rules are another disturbing sign that under the leadership of the new chairwoman, Mary Jo White, the S.E.C. will pursue deregulation at the expense of investor protection."

The first of the two, H.R. 1341 passed 353-24, all 24 being progressives Democrats-- Xavier Becerra (CA), Steve Cohen (TN), John Conyers (MI), Pete DeFazio (OR), Donna Edwards (MD), Keith Ellison (MN), Sam Farr (CA), Alan Grayson (CA), Gene Green (TX), Raul Grijalva (AZ), Mike Honda (CA), Barbara Lee (CA), Zoe Lofgren (CA), Alan Lowenthal (CA), Ben Ray Luján (NM), Ed Markey (MA), Jim McDermott (WA), Jim McGovern (MA), Jerry Nadler (NY), Rick Nolan (MN), Chellie Pingree (ME), Jan Schakowsky (IL), José Serrano (NY) and Louise Slaughter (NY). The bill was sponsored by 4 crooked Republicans-- Stephen Fincher (R-TN), Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (R-Mafia), and Bill Huizenga (R-MI) plus one corrupt Blue Dog/New Dem, David Scott (GA). The purpose of the bill is to allow even smaller margin requirements for Wall Street derivatives bets, a blueprint for calamity.

The second, H.R. 1564, amends the Sarbane-Oxley Act and attracted a lot more opposition, again all from Democrats. It passed 321-62, Democratic leaders Steny Hoyer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Steve Israel, and Jim Clyburn pushing the caucus to vote for what Wall Street wanted but with the Progressive Caucus leaders plus Nancy Pelosi and Xavier Beccera pulling in the other direction. Joining some of Wall Street's favorite shills like Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Ed Royce (R-CA) and Steve Stivers (R-OH) in sponsoring this were two of the most corrupt Democrats in the House, again Blue Dog/New Dem David Scott (GA) and, of course, New Dem Patrick Murphy (FL). All the crooked Democrats who have been working in the House Financial Services Committee to dismantle Dodd-Frank and allow the banksters to tank the economy again-- Jim Himes (New Dem-CT), David Scott (New Dem-GA), Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY), Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL), Gary Peters (New Dem-MI), John Carney (New Dem-DE), Denny Heck (New Dem-WA), Bill Foster (New Dem-IL) and John Delaney (New Dem-MD); Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ), one of the most odious of this lot, was stuck on a plane and couldn't vote and her hideous doppelganger from Florida, Patrick Murphy, ducked out of the proceedings and hid instead of voting-- joined the Republicans to pass this.

Bernie Sanders is a senator now, but he used to be in the House and was one of the leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. This kind of legislation is the antithesis of what his whole career has been about and there's no doubt that he'll be fighting these two bills when they come over to the Senate. He is still demanding-- tirelessly-- that "Congress and the White House start responding to the needs of ordinary Americans-- not the big money interests." More from Bernie:

You know as well as I what’s going on in our country today. The rich get richer while the middle-class continues to disappear. The multi-national corporations enjoy record-breaking profits, while unemployment remains sky-high and more and more Americans slip into poverty. And, as a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision the billionaire class has gained even more political power while, at the same time, right-wing governors are making it harder for low-income people to vote.

...I am also a co-sponsor of legislation that would impose a Wall Street financial transaction tax on the sale of derivatives, credit default swaps and large amounts of stock. Wall Street greed, illegal behavior and speculation helped drive this country into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. With Wall Street speculators today making huge profits, while continuing to endanger the stability of the world’s financial system, they must begin paying their fair share of taxes. With the six major Wall Street financial institutions larger today than they were before they were bailed out, having assets equivalent to two-thirds of our GDP, I have also introduced legislation to break up these huge financial entities.

...As you know the Republican Party, once a moderate-conservative party, has become a right-wing extremist party. With the help of the Koch brothers and their other corporate sponsors, Republicans in Congress are now trying to roll back virtually every piece of legislation passed in the last 80 years which protects the needs of working families. Whether it is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition, child care, tax policy, women’s rights or workers’ rights, the main function of Congressional Republicans is to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful against the middle class. They have also become an anti-science party-- rejecting the research of virtually the entire scientific community regarding the planetary crisis of global warming.

Poll after poll tells us that today’s Republican ideology-- tax breaks for billionaires and massive cuts to important social programs-- is way out of touch with what the American people want. And yet, Republicans stand likely to retain control over the U.S. House in 2014, have a chance to become a majority in the U.S. Senate and are doing well in state elections. Why is that? How is it that a party with such an extremist ideology has not been relegated to marginal status in American political life?

All of which brings me to the Democrats. While the Republicans have moved from a center-right party to a right-wing extremist party, the Democrats have also moved to the right-- going from being a center-left party to a centrist party. This means that while they attempt to address the needs of trade unions, seniors, low income Americans, environmentalists, women, students, minorities and the gay community, they also pay a great deal of attention to Wall Street, the wealthy, corporate America and their big campaign contributors. Needless to say, these competing forces have irreconcilable differences.

In my view, the great crisis of American politics today is the demoralization of the American people and their belief that virtually no one in Washington is fighting for the collapsing middle-class. In 2009, after eight disastrous years of George W. Bush as president, the Democrats controlled the White House and had large majorities in the House and Senate. Where was the simple, straight-forward legislation that took on the insurance companies and provided health care to all, that ended Wall Street domination of our economy, that created the many millions of jobs we desperately needed, that made college affordable, that allowed America to become the world leader in reversing global warming? Where was the political offensive which made clear to all Americans that the Democrats were fighting for working families while the Republicans were the party of Wall Street and the big money interests?

Now, in 2013, the Democrats control the White House and the Senate but it appears to many Americans that the Republicans determine the agenda. Why hasn’t there been a major effort to overturn Citizens United and move toward public funding of elections? Why has almost all of the recent emphasis been on deficit reduction, rather than creating the millions of jobs we desperately need? Why is anybody in the Democratic Party (least of all the President) talking about cutting Social Security and benefits for disabled veterans? Where is the outrage regarding the massive NSA surveillance practices recently revealed?

Clearly, what is needed right now is a massive grass-roots movement which fights for the needs of working families and which elects progressives at the national, state and local level. We should not accept the conventional wisdom of a red state/blue state America. There is no state in this country which is not heavily populated by working families. And they all need strong and effective representation to stand up to the billionaire class which dominates our economic and political life.

Rush Holt is a progressive congressman from New Jersey running an uphill race against Wall Street's top pick for 2013, shameless corporate whore Coy Booker, a so-called Democrat who once tried to privatize the Newark Water System and is the darling of the worst Big Money interests that normally back Republicans. Do you think someone like Booker could ever get behind anything like the Wall Street Speculation Tax?

So America Decided To Turn Itself Into A Surveillance State?

The Patriot Act should have been repealed the second the Democrats won control of Congress. Instead, many Democrats worked with Republicans to keep it in place. Same for FISA. Now people are demanding Congress investigate the NSA's and Verizon's indiscriminate, bulk spying on American citizens. Congress? Investigate? What a joke! Congress is responsible for this-- and in a very conservative consensus ("bipartisan") way. Lindsey Graham, hardly an Obama apologist, was just on Fox saying "I’m sure we should be doing this.”

Yesterday, the NY Times slapped the Obama Administration down big time:

Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive-- whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism-- especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability. The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.

...This stunning use of the act shows, once again, why it needs to be sharply curtailed if not repealed.

When FISA came up for reauthorization last year it passed the House in a landslide, 301-118. 74 Democrats joined 227 Republicans in favor, including Hoyer of course, but also, very disappointingly, Pelosi. Meanwhile 7 Republicans joined the 111 Democrats who opposed it. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, led by Raúl Grijalva and Keith Ellison, rallied votes against it. The one member of the Democratic House leadership who bucked that leadership and voted "no" was Xavier Becerra (CA). It's worth noting that then-Senate candidates Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) voted "no" and were elected and wretched New Dem Shelly Berkley (NV) voted "yes" and was defeated.

Bernie Sanders wasn't as surprised as he was ready to tear someone's head off. "As one of the few members of Congress who consistently voted against the Patriot Act, I expressed concern at the time of passage that it gave the government far too much power to spy on innocent United State citizens and provided for very little oversight or disclosure. Unfortunately, what I said turned out to be exactly true. The United States should not be accumulating phone records on tens of millions of innocent Americans. That is not what democracy is about. That is not what freedom is about. Congress must address this issue and protect the constitutional rights of the American people."

Voting with the Republicans in favor of reauthorizing FISA was one of the last votes in the dreadful careers of Jason Altmire (Blue Dog/New Dem-PA), Joe Baca (Blue Dog-CA), Howard Berman (D-Israel), Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Leonard Boswell (Blue Dog-IA), Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY), Mark Critz (PA), Kathy Hochul (New Dem-NY), Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA), Larry Kissell (Blue Dog-NC), Silvestre Reyes (TX), Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR), and Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC). Ed Markey (D-MA), who will face Massachusetts voters June 25, voted against reauthorizing FISA. The Republicans in opposition to Boehner and Obama on this included libertarian-leaning conservatives like Walter Jones (NC), Ron Paul (TX), Jimmy Duncan (TN), Tom McClintock (CA) and Justin Amash (MI).

And I might add that corrupt New Dem Colleen Hanabusa of Hawaii, currently challenging progressive Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz, was a proponent of FISA, voted for it and continues to be one of the most shady Democrats when it comes to taking legalistic bribes from the worst players in the Military-Industrial Complex President Eisenhower warned us against. Hanabusa has been a real problem in the House and she wants to get into the Senate-- where she can do even more damage. You can help keep her out of the Senate by backing Schatz's reelection bid. He has a very different approach to domestic spying than Hanabusa:

"My first vote as United States Senator was against the FISA Amendments Act because it failed to provide transparency, accountability and reasonable limits when the federal government conducts surveillance for intelligence purposes. While I recognize that the FISA Amendments Act has helped to produce useful intelligence, I fear that we do not have a full understanding of the impact that this law has on the privacy of Americans. We need a comprehensive review of the FISA Amendments Act to ensure that Americans’ privacy and civil liberties are protected."

Not just different... better, much better.

Etzioni Explains How Beltway Conseratives Rule America

I was a sociology student in college. The most revered contemporary writer at the time was Amitai Etzioni, an Israeli who had escaped from fascist Germany as a child and who I assumed was Italian because if his name. His first book, Modern Organizations made such an impression on me that years later I used it to run my record company. I feel there are a lot of people who had great influence on how I've turned out, my grandfather for example, but Etzioni sure fits into that category. I'd like to share a short essay he wrote for Salon this week, How conservatives still run America, despite losing elections. If you're a regular DWT reader I think you'll recognize his premises. The Conservative Consensus really is what this blog has always been all about.

There is more than may appear in President Obama’s plan to cut the social safety net in his new budget proposal. The offer, on the face of it, reflects a significant violation of a major liberal creed, discarding the strongest liberal political card and Obama’s peculiar negotiation style of making major concessions at the opening of a give-and-take session. But it also reflects the sad but true fact that the dynamics of American politics cannot be understood in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans. Party labels aside, the nation is still being ruled by what I call a majority “conservative party.”

If Democrats and Republicans were the true divide, the meager gun control measures recently introduced in the Senate would have the majority needed to pass. After all, there are 53 Democratic Senators (and two Independents who generally side with them). Moreover, this time, the threat of a GOP filibuster is not to blame. Yet the Democratic majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, removed the assault weapons ban from the draft bill because some 15 Democratic senators, in effect, supported the conservative pro-gun position, making up-- with the Republican senators-- that majority “conservative party.” Thanks to this party, the same legislative defeat is about to befall liberal proposals to curtail high-capacity magazines. This leaves only better background checks on the table, but these, too, will inevitably be rendered ineffective by the conservatives via the underhanded gutting of enforcement (more about this shortly).

Social security and gun safety are but a couple of the numerous issues on which conservatives in Washington get their way and the minority liberal party loses out. Most recently, every Republican and 33 Democratic conservatives came together to repeal a tax on medical devices, a major source of funding for Obamacare. And on Dec 28, the conservative party-- 42 Republicans, 30 Democrats and 1 Independent senator-- voted to extend the foreign intelligence law known as FISA, opposed by civil libertarians. We should further expect that the conservative party will keep winning on many fronts, from greatly limiting all new investments in education to unduly slashing social spending.

Some argue that the president is trying to build up a broad following so that, come the 2014 elections, the Democrats will carry the House and he will be able to push through a progressive agenda in the second half of his term. These doe-eyed optimists disregard the fact that, even if the Democrats hold both chambers, the additional Democrats elected in 2014 will largely be from so-called red (i.e., conservative) districts. The situation then will be much like it was in 2009 when the Democrats had a majority in the House, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a president in the White House and yet still could enact very little progressive legislation. The reason? Very much the same: conservative Democrats voting with the GOP to extend the Bush tax cuts, cut social spending, weaken financial regulations and so on.

I must regretfully add that the situation in Washington is even bleaker than what I have laid out so far. While gun control legislation makes its way through Congress (we may get slightly stricter background checks), the conservatives in Congress have passed various measures that eviscerate the agency charged with enforcing these background checks, new and old, thereby ensuring that they will remain weak and ineffective. Liberals tend to focus on passing laws; conservatives, when they cannot block or weaken the laws themselves, see to it that they are not enforced.

Conservatives in Congress have a long history of undermining the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and new moves to this effect pile on top of old ones. The Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 bans the ATF from inspecting gun dealers more than once in any 12-month period, even if violations are uncovered, and it reduces record-keeping violations from a felony to a misdemeanor offense, the result being that they are very rarely prosecuted. The 2003 and 2004 Tiahrt amendments, named for their sponsor Rep. Todd Tiahrt, require that records from the background checks of gun buyers be destroyed within 24 hours, bar requiring gun dealers to conduct inventory checks to monitor gun thefts, and prevent crime gun trace data from being used in court, even when a dealer has broken the law. In addition, Congress has barred the ATF repeatedly from creating a computerized database, so when a gun is recovered at a crime scene, agents must manually search through boxes of paper records to trace the firearm to dealer or purchaser.

Most recently, with the prospect of new gun-safety legislation on the horizon, the House and Senate appropriations committees-- including both Republicans and Democrats-- have tacked “riders” onto a short-term spending agreement that make permanent what had previously been a set of temporary, pro-gun provisions. The bill prohibits the Justice Department from keeping an inventory of gun dealers. It also prevents the ATF from refusing to renew the licenses of dealers “due to a lack of business activity,” thereby hampering law enforcement’s ability to clamp down on illegitimate dealers, and includes a requirement that the ATF disclose in its reports that gun trace data “cannot be used to draw broad conclusions about firearms-related crime.” The details of these amendments are “boring”-- they rarely make headlines. However, they do tie the hands of the ATF and send a message to the dealers: We have your back. And the ATF agents would be foolish to ignore the implied warning: Take it easy or expect new obstacles. Case in point: In January 2013, President Obama sought to reinvigorate the agency by giving it a director (something it has not had in six years), but his nominee, B. Todd Jones, has yet to be confirmed because of conservative opposition. This further hamstrings the ATF, as there are many operations that agencies without a director are banned from undertaking.

A favorite line of the National Rifle Association is, “Why not just enforce the laws that are already on the books?” A very good question, and the answer is exceedingly clear: Because the conservative party won’t let us. Further, we will not progress in curbing gun violence-- or on most other political fronts-- until we correctly read the political layout.

We have a conservative majority and a liberal minority, not two more or less equal parties. How we may change this line-up is the political challenge of the generation. But one thing is for sure: Simply voting for Democrats will not do the trick.

For sure. Let me add that among House Democratic freshmen elected in November only three-- Matt Cartwright (PA), Tony Cardenas (CA) and Mark Pocan (WI) have perfect 100% progressive voting scores. Half a dozen others are close enough-- 94.44: Joyce Beatty (OH), Alan Grayson (FL), Jared Huffman (CA), Hakeem Jeffries (NY), Joe Kennedy (MA), and Rick Nolan (MN). No one else is over 90%. And around two dozen of them are below 65%, helping explain what Etzioni means by the conservative party. Vaguely from bad to worst. Much of this is the garbage that was recruited and nurtured by the arch-conservatives who run the DCCC (thanks Nancy):

• Elizabeth Esty (New Dem-CT)
• Tulsi Gabbard (HI)
• John Delaney (New Dem-MD)
• Suzane DelBene (New Dem-WA)
• Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM)
• Julia Brownley (CA)
• Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX)
• Joe Garcia  (New Dem-FL)
• Gloria Negrete McLeod (CA)
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)
• Bill Enyart (IL)
• Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL)
• Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)
• Cheri Bustos (IL)
• Bill Foster (New Dem-IL)
• Annie Kuster (NH)
• Dan Maffei (New Dem-NY)
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Raul Ruiz (CA)
• Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ)
• Ron Barber (New Dem-AZ)
• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ)

Asked to comment on the Obama-Boehner "compromise" to destroy Social Security, which he media calmly calls "the chained CPI scenario," liberal Sen. Sherrod Brown told Salon, “This is unacceptable. There are common-sense ways we can reduce the deficit that do not demand sacrifice from the most vulnerable Americans.” I hope that means he'll join Bernie Sanders' filibuster that keeps it from happening and uses a conservative toll against a bad conservative idea. and then there's the new/old conservative schemes to disenfranchise voters-- like "character tests:"