"Dollar for dollar, Maine is the cheapest way to deliver a stinging defeat to the Wingnuts this year"

"It's easy to silo issues and to view the Maine campaign solely as an LGBT campaign. But, it's more than that. It is about generating momentum for the progressive movement."

-- Jesse Connolly ("a straight ally who believes strongly in equality for all"), campaign manager for "NO on 1/Project Maine Equality," blogging Friday on OpenLeft

by Ken

The quote at the top of this post comes from our friend Lane Hudson, who's referring of course  to the upcoming referendum in which the forces of darkness are pouring shitloads of money into Maine to try to persuade voters to repeal the law passed by the state legislature legalizing same-sex marriage. (I understand that Lane is going to be guest-posting about it here this weekend.)

It's getting down to the wire, and there's a lot of nervousness now. As "NO on 1/Project Maine Equality" campaign manager Jesse Connolly points out in the OpenLeft blogpost quoted above, "The same cast of characters is running the same campaign in Maine that succeeded in California."

The loons and thugs of the Far, Far Right, as you've no doubt noticed, seem to have forgotten their ancient mantra about keeping government off people's backs. On their issues they want government all over people's backs. I have to guess it's the rigidity hatefulness and misery of their own parched existences that make it so desperately important to them to do everything in their power to force their notions of proper conduct on people who think frankly that they're full of it.

As we've pointed out frequently here, one exceedingly terrible thing about this referendum movement is that it's legitimizing the idea of putting people's basic rights to a vote. A true democracy has to be irreducibly committed to respecting and protecting the rights of its minorities, and unfortunately putting those rights to a vote tends to have the opposite effect. For all sorts of unfortunate reasons, too many people are all too willing to strip away other people's rights.

Anyone who reads DWT probably doesn't need to be told that the Far, Far Right right now feels that it's fighting for its life, and will do anything it can to continue bullying other people into being told how to live their lives. To allow them to defeat us in Maine would be a nightmare for the personal rights of all Americans. Whereas a victory in Maine, as Jesse Connolly notes above, would provide a much-needed morale boost as well as a momentum-builder for pushback against the rampaging bigots and theocrats, as Jesse Connolly,

That's a pretty stark contrast. Then factor in Lane's brilliant formulation:

"Dollar for dollar, Maine is the cheapest way to deliver a stinging defeat to the Wingnuts this year."

If you want to help, you can contribute much-needed dollars to the "NO on 1/Protect Maine Equality" on our ActBlue page. You can get more information and look for other ways to pitch in -- there's a Volunteer Vacation Program, and I've been hearing that out-of-staters are eligible for phone-bank service -- in Jesse Connolly's OpenLeft post and on the NO on 1/Protect Maine Equality website.


A NOTE FOR NEW YORKERS (AND BOSTONITES TOO)

There's a local fund-raising event coming up, on Thursday, October 1, with "special guests" including Reps. Barney Frank and Jerry Nadler and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

(Perhaps I should have said "for rich New Yorkers." I actually checked out the prices this afternoon and discovered that the $250 tickets are sold out, but you can still buy in for $500 or $1000. If you're feeling more generous than that, you could also be a "sponsor" or a chair" Gulp.)

There's also a Boston event, on Tuersday, October 6.

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It's time for all 60 senators who caucus with the Dems to adopt the Sanders Rule: EVERYONE in the caucus votes against GOP filibusters

Cenk makes his case for the Sanders Rule: "It's genius."

by Ken

We've been talking, of course, about the implications of the Democrats reaching, more or less, the magic 60 threshhold in the Senate. The consensus is that there aren't any implication, considering the lack of cohesiveness of those 60 senators the 58 nominal Democrats and the two Independents who caucus with the Democrats.

Why, just look at those two Independents. You've got probably the most upright person in the Senate, Vermont's Bernie Sanders, and perhsps the most lowdown, Connecticut's Holy Joe Lieberman. Both New Englanders, but it's hard to think of much of anything else they have in common.

It turns out that Senator Sanders has been thinking along the lines of our friend Lane Hudson, whose thinking we passed on in one of our ponderings of the Democratic supermajority. Beyond the importance of making sure that we make Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid aware of our hopes and expectations,

he makes the eminently practical point that at the very least the leadership should be held to mustering its voting clout on cloture votes, requiring caucus members to toe the line on them. They would still be free to vote their conscience in the final vote on a bill, but they shouldn't be allowed to aid the opposition in preventing a final vote from happening.

The filibuster, which in all its configurations has always been understood as a last resort, reserved for matters of do-or-die principle, has been transformed by the new Republican minority into a strategy of first resort. Having no program of their own, except to screech "Hell no" at any proposal made by Democrats, they now threaten it routinely, indeed automatically. What they have wrought is a substantial transformation of the way the Senate does business, so that the most routine Senate business now requires 60 votes.

Our friend Cenk Uygur (of the Young Turks) wants everybody to know about "The Sanders Rule: All Bills Get Up or Down Votes." He first quotes the senator:

"I think that with Al Franken coming on board, you have effectively 60 Democrats in the caucus, 58 and two Independents. I think the strategy should be to say, it doesn't take 60 votes to pass a piece of legislation. It takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster. I think the strategy should be that every Democrat, no matter whether or not they ultimately end up voting for the final bill, is to say we are going to vote together to stop a Republican filibuster. And if somebody who votes for that ends up saying, 'I'm not gonna vote for this bill, it's too radical, blah, blah, blah, that's fine.'" (emphasis added)

and then comments:

I love this Sanders Rule. It makes perfect sense. This is the whole point of having 60 senators in your caucus. I don't need or want ideological rigidity on the Democratic side. I believe in the Big Tent. So, how people vote is up to them. But getting these bills to the floor to get up or down votes is absolutely necessary. This is part and parcel of being in the caucus. Not just in healthcare, but all of the bills must have up or down votes (but by far the most important thing right now is to include a public option in the healthcare bill that gets an up or down vote).

I know Democrats bend over backwards to accommodate the Republicans and appeal to bipartisanship. Although the Republicans never, ever seem to reciprocate, that is all fine and dandy, as long as we get to vote on the legislative proposals. They can have bipartisan proposals come up. They can have progressive or conservative proposals come up. But no matter what they should all get a vote, as long as there are sixty senators in the Democratic caucus.

If the Democrats don't use their 60 seat majority to break filibusters, then they are absolutely complicit. There are no excuses left. It's one thing to say you're voting your conscience on a bill (though a great majority of the time they are in fact voting their pocketbook by voting with the lobbyists), it's another to say that you will join the Republicans in upholding a filibuster. That is not acceptable.

Everyone who voted for a Democrat in the country should absolutely insist that they follow the Sanders Rule. All bills must get up or down votes. That's the least they can do with the overwhelming mandate they have been given to get us real change.

If they squander this - with control of the White House, a huge majority in the House, a filibuster proof majority in the Senate and all of the national polls behind them - then they were lying. They never intended to bring us change in the first place. The lobbyists will have won. And Obama's presidency will be like all of the others. A lot of bullshit promises and no change despite every conceivable advantage. If they can't get it done under these circumstances, then they can never get it done - nor did they ever want to.

Tom Tomorrow wonders, with 72% of Americans for health care reform, how will the Dems blow it? But might the magic "60" inspire Senator Reid?

(You know the drill: Click to enlarge. And for a lookback

at Tom T's take on "the last time around," peek here.)

by Ken

"How will Democrats blow it this time," Tom? Well, I'm hearing from progressive colleagues that there's already a prevailing sense among netroots progressives that the Democrats have already tanked the health-care fight, and I've certainly voiced my pessimism (along with my grave reservations about the "pollluters' delight" ACES climate bill).

Just now, however, let's take the finally imminent seating of Al Franken to the Senate seat he won in November as an occasion for hope. Howie is going to have more -- a lot more -- to say in his next post about this notion of a "filibuster-proof" Dem majority. Just for now, however, I want to take the tack of seeing Al Franken's arrival in the Senate as a possible source of inspiration for Harry Reid and the rest of the Senate majority leadership.

Hey, I'm not naive here. I don't know of anyone who was more dubious than I was back on Election Night about the possibility of the Dems achieving the mystical "filibuster-proof" majority, regardless of how many Senate seats they wound up controlling. If nothing else, that elusive "60" was going to include His Holiness, the Shame of Connecticut, Joe Lieberman. After all, Holy Joe votes "with us" except on the war -- or any other damned thing he takes it in his head not to. But even if the Dems could push their total to 61, the caucus has an entire mini-caucus of mini-Liebermans.

Think "Ben Nelson," for starters -- hey, I didn't say this was going to be painless. Or Evan Bayh, the reputed favorite of both 2008 Democratic presidential finalists for the VP nomination, who instead returned to the Senate and promptly set about organizing an anti-Democratic Senate Democratic voting bloc.

(Question: Might the passing over of Evan Bayh have been a miscalculation on the president-elect's part, a glitch in his "team of rivals" approach to coopting his potential party-leadership rivals by bringing them into his administration? Is it possible that he thought so little of the poor senator that he didn't feel any need to coopt the wretch? Following this train of thought, might the senator's miserable attempt to prove that he is too somebody be in some measure a form of "I don't get no respect"-type payback?)

Nevertheless, those 58 Democratic plus two Independent Senate votes count for something, even allowing for the uncertain availability of Senators Byrd and Kennedy because of their precarious health situations. Our friend Lane Hudson has been putting this in the form of a challenge to the majority leadership: Now is the time, he suggests, to urge Senator Reid to rise to the opportunities presented by that within-the-grasp vote threshhold.

When I chided Lane for his optimism, he asked if it isn't at least our responsibility to ask. And he makes the eminently practical point that at the very least the leadership should be held to mustering its voting clout on cloture votes, requiring caucus members to toe the line on them. They would still be free to vote their conscience in the final vote on a bill, but they shouldn't be allowed to aid the opposition in preventing a final vote from happening.

Once again, I come back to what seems to me the ultimate case in preposterousness: the currently imperiled nomination of Dawn Johnsen to head the Justice Dept's Office of Legal Counsel, because there are apparently "only" 57 yea votes. What kind of pass have we reached when it's possible for a presidential appointment to fail because it garners "only" 57 votes?

By Lane's thinking, Senate Democrats would be required at least not to oppose their president on the all-important cloture vote. "They need to stop using cloture as an excuse," he says. "Period. Procedural votes do not equal policy."

I'm persuaded, even inspired. It's time for the leadership to take control, to put some "whip" back in the "whipping" of its members -- not to mention encourage Republican senators who aren't totally beyond the reach of reason that they have a responsibility, to the country and even their own continuing careers, to separate themselves occasionally from the utter loonies.

Go for it, Harry!


PLEASE HELP US HELP SENATOR REID 
"WHIP" DINO DEM BLANCHE LINCOLN

While we're indulging this heady fantasy of the Democratic leadership in Congress doing some old-fashioned "whipping" of its members, we don't want you to forget the campaign the Blue America coalition has launched, the Campaign for Health Care Choice, to do some whipping of our own, starting with the TV spot that's already been made -- written by Digby, don't forget! -- to encourage Arkansas voters to let their wayward Sen. Blanche Lincoln they'd like her to vote their interests.

You can read all about it on our ActBlue page. Here's a sample:

Perhaps it's not surprising that Lincoln is showing so much compassion for the poor insurance companies. She's taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from them over the years. In fact, she's already received $14,500 from insurance companies for her 2010 campaign, the second highest of any senator up for re-election next year. And the only reform they support is reform that will get the taxpayers to pay the overpriced premiums for the 47 million uninsured without having to change their ways. The fact is that insurance companies are not in any danger of going out of business because of the public plan choice unless they continue the kind of practices that have brought us to this crisis.

A quality public plan is the only way we can ensure that health care reform will reduce costs and increase coverage. It's imperative that Senator Blanche Lincoln get off the fence and support it.

Blue America needs your help to run some ads in Arkansas to persuade her that selling out to her insurance company supporters just won't do. We need for people to tell her that she must stand with the American people who are desperate for real health care choices that will reduce costs and increase coverage.

Please donate what you can to our campaign. And if health care reform is something that does interest you, by all means take a look at this piece in the Arkansas News about how Lincoln is selling out working families for her Insurance Industry allies. “One of our biggest concerns," she admitted, "is that it doesn’t need to be a government plan that usurps that ability to compete in the marketplace, which I’m concerned that a totally government-run option would do."

As Howie always points out, even the smallest contributions help; Blue America has made a specialty of making those small individual contributions add up to collective healthy chunks o' cash for our carefully selected recipients.

Here again is the link to our ActBlue page. Thanks for whatever you can contribute.

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Cheney Says NO To Moderation But Will Obama Go Along To Get Along-- At Least In Terms Of Equality For Gay People?

The always despicable Dick Cheney was interviewed by North Dakota radio host Scott Hennen yesterday. Cheney urged his political party to stick to an extremist strategy:

Hennen: Some people are wringing their hands saying, "This is an example of why the party needs to change, to hear the message of Specter," that, as Colin Powell said, the Republican Party needs to moderate. Do you think the Republican Party needs to moderate? Is that the message of the Specter defection, or the state of the party these days?

Cheney: No I don't. I think it would be a mistake for us to moderate. This is about fundamental beliefs and values and ideas...what the role of government should be in our society, and our commitment to the Constitution and Constitutional principles. You know, when you add all those things up the idea that we ought to moderate basically means we ought to fundamentally change our philosophy. I for one am not prepared to do that, and I think most us aren't. Most Republicans have a pretty good idea of values, and aren't eager to have someone come along and say, "Well, the only way you can win is if you start to act more like a Democrat." I really think we go through these cycles periodically Scott, and I've been through them before. I remember campaigning across the country with Gerald Ford in 1974 when I was his Chief of Staff. This was the Watergate Election, the first one since Nixon had to resign. It was a train wreck; I mean, we got blown away in every part of the country. In 1976 we lost the presidency. By 1980 Ronald Reagan was president, we'd had a major resurgence in the party and we'd captured control of the Senate, and obviously embarked upon the Reagan Era in American politics. So I think periodically we have to go through one these sessions. It helps clear away some of the underbrush...some of the older folks who've been around a long time (like yours truly) need to move on, and make room for that young talent that's coming along. But I think it's basically healthy.

Most Americans think Cheney should follow his own advice and move on, but he's become-- along with Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michele Bachmann-- the voice of an America-hating fringe element that is actually driving the Republican Party off a cliff. They're defining themselves by what they oppose and what they obstruct-- even if they don't know themselves what they're opposing and obstructing, like Obama's Supreme Court nominee; they just know that whoever it is, they're against it.

My concern though isn't with the nuts and kooks still knife fighting each other in the ever shrinking Republican pup tent. Back in mainstream America there is some serious business that's being attended to and last night Rachel Maddow highlighted one aspect that hasn't been getting much attention lately: the human tragedy of American military men and women still being drummed out of the service just because they are gay-- one of the awful Clinton legacies, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, something supported by only 33% of Americans.

Obama clearly states he's against it-- as you can see in the letter he wrote this week to Sandy Tsao, a young woman who's being kicked out of the military because she's a lesbian.


Last night Rachel Maddow interviewed Dan Choi, a gay West Point graduate who is also being kicked out of the service for being gay-- not for doing anything gay, but just for being open about the fact that he is gay. It makes as much sense as kicking someone out of the military for being redheaded. You can watch the segment below. It includes an interview with Rep. Joe Sestak, a retired admiral who is also the highest ranking ex-military officer to have ever served in the House and one of the co-sponsors of a bill to get rid of the heinous Don't Ask, Don't Tell legislation.

It's politically inconvenient for Obama to do what he knows-- and says-- is the right thing. Just now. So he sent Rahm over to get the Inside-the-Beltway gay sell-out groups to go along with putting all this inconvenient stuff on the backburner. But when will something like this ever not be inconvenient? I did a reality check with the guy who really understands how these Inside-the-Beltway advocacy group work, Lane Hudson. He told me this morning that they do "appear to have unprecedented access to the White House. While we'd think that meant they were inside fiercely advocating for full civil equality as soon as possible, public comments indicate they are instead taking orders from the White House. That's not how it is supposed to work. If Obama isn't being the 'fierce advocate' he promised and our advocacy organizations aren't being a 'fierce advocate', then then we're dangerously close to squandering this unique, precious, historic moment ripe for major advances towards equality on the Federal level."

Dan Choi, Sandy Tsao and thousands of other gay American men and women serving our country are being treated like trash. It's outrageous that it should go on for even one more minute, just so some unreconstructed right wing hatemongers can feel the satisfaction of waking up in the morning and knowing their sociopathic hatreds and bigotry trumps the president and the American people.

[F]or more than a month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen and most recently national security adviser and former Marine General James Jones have made clear that if repeal is on the agenda, it is pretty far down.

In a Washington Post profile, Jones said that when Obama was under pressure recently to review the ban on gays in the military, Jones went to see him and advised him to avoid taking on another issue. He said Obama agreed.

"Don't ask, don't tell" is a compromise forged during a pitched battle between the military and former President Bill Clinton that consumed the first months of his administration. Since then, at least 12,500 gays and lesbians have been discharged. An estimated 65,000 are believed to be currently serving in the military.

...Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, a public policy think tank at UC Santa Barbara that has studied the issue of gays in the military and was the first to call attention to Choi's case, said Obama could lift the ban now by executive order.

"The president obviously wants to avoid a fight with conservatives in both parties in Congress, but what's tragic about the delay is that he could suspend the discharge process for gay soldiers with the stroke of a pen," he said.

Belkin said military law experts have found that while the law requires the military to discharge service members found to be gay, "nothing requires the military to reach such findings" and Obama could just order the military to stop.

Polls show strong public support for repeal, but some surveys say the majority in the military that supports it is smaller.

These are real men and women with real lives and what's happening to them is happening right now. I appreciate that Obama is letting it leak out that two lesbian judges are on his short list-- despite raging homophobic asshole John Thune's (R-SD) threats-- of Supreme Court nominees. (Looks like someone got Jeff Sessions the official talking points in time for him to step back from his completely uncharacteristic "all men are created equal" messaging of the other day.) And it's still unacceptable for a indefensible policy like Don't Ask Don't Tell to continue ruining the lives of thousands of people. As Eugene Robinson suggested in today's Washington Post, it's time for Obama to stop playing footsie with gay Americans and get off the sidelines and show some leadership... now. We're not talking about a Cheney vision of the world here; this is the Barack Obama presidency.

It's official: People in gov't who write honest reports not only expect their drafts to be falsified by regime loyalists but are trying to fight it

You've probably heard about the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the results of the Iraq surge, which was requested by Congress and will be delivered in final form Tuesday. Today's Washington Post carried a report ("Report Finds Little Progress on Iraq Goals") on a "strikingly negative GAO draft" that was leaked to the paper.

This is not to be confused, of course, with the pack o' lies 'n' spin--er, report--that the White House will be serving up the second week in September. That will be the official response to the "just wait till September" line of bull the Bush regime has been feeding us all summer. Congress has taken the precaution of commissioning more reliably objective reports: this one from the GAO and an evaluation of Iraqi security forces from an independent commission headed by retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones.

Lane Hudson was struck, in a News from the Left post, by a curious detail in the Post report caught, detailing how the paper got hold of the draft: "The person who provided the draft report to The Post said it was being conveyed from a government official who feared that its pessimistic conclusions would be watered down in the final version -- as some officials have said happened with security judgments in this month's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq."

I think by now all DWT readers are familiar with this drill as practiced by Bush regime loyalists. The very definition of a "draft report" in this regime is a report that hasn't been "fixed" yet. I think it's safe to say that there's no such thing as a report that a really loyal Bush loyalist can't "fix," especially if he/she is blessed with total ignorance of the facts. (This comes in really handy when it's time to rewrite reports that were once science-based--before the regime hoodlum took his/her ax and crayon to it.)

Now, Lane notes, we have an indication that government insiders are coming to grips with, and looking for ways around, this reality:

Interesting, huh? Government officials are now leaking reports because they fear the White House or the Pentagon will change them so much that they will no longer accurately reflect the truth. It's pathetic that I'm not surprised one tiny little bit. That's how far gone my trust in the Administration is. It's also all the more reason why Congress needs to stand up and put an end to this charade and stop the War.

Contrary to Planet Denny Hastert's repeated bellicose denials, it appears that the House will soon have to do without his galactic presence

It's been pretty much a foregone conclusion here at DWT that former House Speaker "Planet Denny" Hastert now carries so much baggage that he wouldn't dare submit his planetary presence again even to "his" voters.

Even if he didn't face a heap of legal and, shall we say, "public relations" problems, it was clear from the time he announced he would give up his leadership role in the House that he wasn't going to find much interest as a plain old member of Congress, in particular as a member of the party whose new minority status he did so much to bring about.

Of course Planet Denny has heaped ridicule on suggestions, notably last January, that he wouldn't run for reelection. Now it appears that, exhibiting the same stalwartness displayed by the growing procession of Republicrooks who have made made those whiplash-quick 180-degree turns from pusilaminous protestations of innocence to monotonal recusals at plea-bargain time (although, disappointingly, we have yet to witness another display as dramatic as the famous Niagara-like cascade of "Duke Cunningham tears"), our Denny will announce at a press conference Friday that--gasp!--he will not be running for reelection! Who'da thunk it?

As of last night, Chicago's channel 2 was reporting on its website:

CBS 2 Exclusive: Hastert Leaving Congress

News Conference Scheduled for Friday

Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert is in Asia, but he's scheduled a news conference in Kendall County for Friday.

CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports exclusively sources say that they expect Hastert to announce he will not seek re-election next year.

Flannery took big-time heat in January when he reported this same news, only to be slapped down by the Planet Man.

But, the sources believe this time it's real, and they point to sure signs of [Planet Denny's] decision not to run again. Several key players in previous Hastert campaigns have already signed on with other politicians this time, including important advisors and a top fundraiser. Republican State Senator Chris Lauzen of Aurora said Hastert's political Web site is now out of action.

Lauzen is apparently only one of a number of Republicans preparing to jump into the race as soon as the news becomes official.

There is as yet no confirmation of rumors that the onetime wrestling coach wants to devote his energy to opening his new Planet Denny Hastert Academy for Young Wrestlers.


UPDATE: OUR FRIEND LANE HUDSON HAS A PERSONAL
STAKE IN THE NEWS OF PLANET DENNY'S DECISION

It's safe to say that Lane, a former congressional staffer, is taking Planet Denny's retirement from the House personally. On his new blog, News For The Left, he provides this introductory note:

My first experience with blogging, www.stopsexpredators.blogspot.com, was the anonymous blog where I posted the emails from Mark Foley to a sixteen year old House Page. That began the saga that has become famously known as Foley-gate. This site is for liberals and progressives for news and commentary. It will evolve over time, so please visit often.

Not suprisingly, Lane has posted today on the subject, writing in part:

I haven't forgotten that the House Ethics Committee Report on the Foley scandal gave us clear evidence that [Planet Denny] knew that Mark Folely was engaged in unethical behavior with House Pages. In spite of this, he did nothing to stop Foley from continuing his inappropriate behavior.

Further, he was fully willing to allow his staff to blame the entire ordeal on Kirk Fordham and Jeff Trandahl, Foley's Former Chief of Staff and the Former House Clerk, respectively. We know from that same Ethics Report that Kirk and Jeff are the only Republicans that did anything to stop Foley's actions. In fact, they went to great lengths to stop it.

He adds video of a local news report from that time of troubles "where Hastert does what Republicans do best, blame Democrats and the media for their troubles," and concludes: "Yesterday, Karl Rove. Today, Dennis Hastert. This could be a good week."

In a note to friends and colleagues Lane expresses the particular hope that we "remind folks that [Hastert] knew about Foley's penchant for pages for at least 3 years and chose to ignore it." Consider yourselves reminded.


UPDATE FROM HOWIE: JOHN LAESCH FOR CONGRESS

I want to remind everyone that although progressive Fightin' Dem John Laesch has softened Hastert up for the kill, an opportunistic self-proclaimed Blue Dog, with millions of dollars to buy himself a seat, is trying to insert himself into the equation. This is a good time for grassroots, anti-war progressives to step up for John Laesch. So unless it's just Planet Denny Hastert's personality and corruption you don't like and you actually would like to see the Representative from IL-14 working to end the occupation of Iraq and working for universal health care and for a wide array of progressive values, maybe that Foster Blue Dog would be fine for you. For people who do care about progressive issues, let's do what we can for John.