Another Republican Party Filibuster Goes Down In Smoke-- So Why Do They Do It?

For some reason, no one wants to say aloud the obvious: that the Republican congressional delegation, under the leadership of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, is consciously trying to sabotage the economy for their own partisan reasons. They want unemployment to rise because they think it a disastrous continuation of the Bush/GOP economic calamities will help elect more Republicans in November. They want reforms to fail because they believe pain and suffering in the country will make voters want to throw out the Democrats, even while Republicans trade their anti-reform votes for campaign contributions from special interests determined to keep their predatory practices vaguely legalistic.

In the Senate the unprecedented filibustering of every single nomination and every single bill is a manifestation of the inherently racist underpinning of the GOP's rock-bottom belief that Barack Obama, despite being overwhelmingly elected, is not-- cannot be-- a legitimate President of the United States of America. This, of course, is one of the motivating factors of the Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh crowd's anger and nihilism. Their world crumbles at the concept of a black First Family. And the party that is catering to these Know Nothings has turned itself into the Party of No-- to everything.

Yesterday, Harry Reid started down the path of cleaning out the build-up in their stable of frivolous filibusters. He called for a cloture vote to end the filibuster of Lael Brainard to a position in the Treasury Department, an area of government the Waterloo Party is particularly eager to see undermanned and unable to do its job effectively. She was nominated just over one year ago and the GOP has prevented her-- with no attempt at any justification whatsoever-- from doing her job. This kind of sabotage hasn't happened in this country since before the Civil War.

Once Reid got the vote up before the Senate the only die hard obstructionists willing to publicly vote against her were 10 extremists with no respect for America and no respect for their own constituents who they judge to be too simpleminded to see through their tactics. Even radical obstructionist Richard Burr (R-NC), petrified that Elaine Marshall will get the Democratic nomination and pulverize him in November, voted to shut down the debate. The fanatics who refused to budge:

John Barrasso (R-WY)
Sam Brownback (R-KS)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Jim DeMint (R-SC)
John Ensign (R-NV)
Mike Enzi (R-WY)
James Inhofe (R-OK)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
David Diapers Vitter (R-LA)

The vote was 84-10. This week Reid will deal with another four nominees being obstructed for no particular reason: Christopher Schroeder, of NC, to be an Assistant Attorney General and three judicial nominees, Thomas Vanaskie, Denny Chin, and Marisa Demeo. Except in Demeo's case the Republican Party really does have a reason for opposing her, one that goes the very heart of modern Republicanism: pure bigotry. One of the GOP front groups, the Traditional Values Coalition, a traditional DC Hate Group, insists that Demeo can't be a judge because she's a lesbian:

As an open, radical lesbian, Demeo has openly condemned the effort to amend our Constitution to protect marriage as a one-man, one-woman union. Demeo supports gay marriage, claiming it is a constitutional right. She also claims that LGBT individuals are equal to racial minorities and can claim protection as minorities under our civil rights laws... Demeo's radical lesbianism, anti-marriage, anti-national security views are dangerous to our nation. She should not be confirmed to the DC Superior Court.

Judge Vic Rawl offers another side of South Carolina, distinctly different from DeMint's and, in fact, he's running for the Senate seat currently being occupied by DeMint. He doesn't believe in obstructing judicial nominations based on hatred, bigotry and a narrow partisan agenda. This morning he told us that “This sort of hatred has no place in America. Speaking as a former judge, challenging a nominee’s credentials on any basis other than their actual judicial qualifications is dead wrong, and this is just another power grab by DeMint and the radical Republicans to control the independent third branch of government. And it’s important to note that the negative term 'activist judges' is far more applicable to Republican nominees of late that to Democratic ones.” Yes, we know what DeMint and his allies are trying to accomplish; but... what would Jesus say? You think the Traditional Values Coalition ever thinks about that?


UPDATE: More Mindless, Obstructionist GOP Judicial Filibusters Announced Today

This time the culprit is Kyl (R-AZ), a real racist piece of work. It was interesting that Burr (R-NC) went right along with Kyl on this. They're holding up these five nominees for no reason at all:

* Albert Diaz, of North Carolina, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit
* James A. Wynn, Jr., of North Carolina, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit
* Nancy D. Freudenthal, of Wyoming, to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Wyoming
* Denzil Price Marshall Jr., of Arkansas, to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas
* Timothy S. Black, of Ohio, to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio


UPDATE TWO: Today's Big Losers: Senate Republican Obstructionists

After winning the cloture vote on Brainard last night, Harry Reid brought up the motion to confirm this afternoon. Only 19 of the most extremist Republican fanatics voted against conformation, which passed 78-19. The "no" votes included Richard Burr (R-NC), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John McCain (R-AZ), John Thune (R-SD) and David Diapers Vitter (R-LA), all of whom are up for re-election in November.

With the successful vote, all major Treasury offices are now filled, more than 14 months after Obama arrived at the White House.

Democratic lawmakers have argued that Republicans are delaying a historically large number of administration officials, preventing the federal government from implementing much of Obama's agenda.

Brainard will play a key role on issues such as the delicate negotiations with China over the level of the yuan, and seeking international cooperation on the restructuring of the financial sector's regulatory framework.

"At this critical time for our global economic agenda, Lael's leadership will help bolster our partnerships abroad and increase economic opportunity for Americans here at home," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday.

The Boys Are Back In Town-- Republicans Fail To Filibuster Unemployment Benefits

Yesterday most senators got back from frolicking on the beaches of Cancun, South Padre Island, Cabo and Jamaica. Fit, fat and tanned, 94 senators got down to the business of how to deal with expired unemployment insurance for around a quarter million American workers-- plus another 200,000 who would lose their benefits this week if the GOP isn't stopped. Taking up the House's already passed H.R. 4851, Tom Coburn immediately mounted a filibuster to block discussion of the bill. Sick and tired of Coburn's and Bunning's zombie-like obstructionism, Reid asked for a cloture vote. All 56 present Democrats were joined by Scott Brown (R-MA), George Voinovich (R-OH), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) to beat back the filibuster 60-34. Among those voting against extending unemployment benefits were electorally vulnerable Republicans like Richard Burr (R-NC), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John McCain (R-AZ), Jim DeMint (R-SC) and David "Diapers" Vitter (R-LA).

We reached Judge Vic Rawl, the populist Democrat running for the South Carolina Senate seat currently held by DeMint. Rawl, a fierce advocate for working families, was disappointed in DeMint's vote yesterday, calling it "typically cruel, but sadly, not unusual. DeMint is not simply anti-labor, he is anti-worker. His grandstanding is causing unnecessary suffering for thousands of South Carolinians earnestly looking for work and trying to feed their families while they do... Workers will permanently lose weeks of benefits so that DeMint can be a show-pony on Fox and brag about how he’s being 'responsible.' What he is responsible for are more hard times for South Carolinians who need our helping hand the most right now. More and more, it seems like Jim DeMint’s plan to lower taxes is to first eliminate jobs, then eliminate benefits for the jobless. Shameful."

The $9 billion cost of the aid would be added to the deficit, which Democrats said was justified because of the grim national employment picture.

“Let us help the families who are struggling in this difficult economic time,” said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, who said the infusion of federal aid would help the overall economy recover.

Most Republicans insisted that, Congress should find a way to pay for the legislation rather than add to the escalating federal debt.

“We refuse to do the same things that families across this country do every day and that’s make a choice about priorities,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma and a main advocate of finding a way to cover the costs of the benefits through cuts in other programs.

Coburn's sudden concern with fiscal responsibility coincided with the election of President Obama. Like all of his conservative colleagues, he favored years and years of unrestrained spending and tax cuts for the wealthy under Bush. Sickened by the hypocrisy of these obstructionists, Scott Brown, in voting with the Democrats, said "I have pledged to do my best to change the tone in Washington, and my vote to continue the debate rather than obstruct it serves as a step in that direction," a clear slap at Bunning, Coburn and, of course, McConnell.

Backers of the unemployment relief say the severity of the economic collapse has caused millions of Americans to go without work for six months or more, making the federal help essential for those struggling to hold on to their homes and feed their families while looking for work.

“We know what they’ve been through,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat. “They’ve lost their life savings and have nowhere to turn.”

He and other Democrats noted that many Senate Republicans last year supported the bank bailout without the costs being covered and that the response to national disasters is typically provided on an emergency basis, with the funds added directly to the deficit.

Unlike Republicans who spend all their time with their wealthy backers in countryclubs, Olympia Snowe visited with unemployed workers and the their families in Maine during the Spring Break. "There are people who are in desperate need and depend on these unemployment benefits," she said during the debate. "I visited a number of career centers in Maine and I talked firsthand with people who had been long-term unemployed or recently unemployed, and you know, they need their benefits and they don't need this added anxiety about whether they're going to get them. We need to streamline programs, and if there's ways to pay for it that would be great. But let's not add to their burdens." Her colleagues on that side of the aisle say they are angry that people think of them as cold-hearted, selfish shills of wealthy interests who led the country over the financial cliff with their policies of unrestrained greed and self-interest.

North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall has the double task of ending the shameful career of reactionary Wall Street puppet Richard Burr while preventing a conservative Democratic version of the same species, Cal Cunningham, from replacing him. Last night Elaine told us that Burr's vote was wrong for North Carolina families. Her perceptive analysis of what's gone wrong over the long term appears to be beyond the comprehension of not just Burr and the pack of anti-family Republicans around him, but something that the DSCC corporate shill using lobbyist money to try to defeat her in the May primary can't understand either. "After supporting the policies that wrecked our economy and left millions unemployed, Richard Burr is turning his back on those who are victims of his irresponsible record. He does not seem to realize that actions have consequences and his actions have hurt many American families."

Do You Think You Know Who Jim DeMint Is? It's Worse Than You Thought-- But There Is An Antidote

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) is a political product, bought and paid for by massive corporations that have grown far beyond understanding and control, in some measure as a result of everything DeMint believes in and works for in Washington.

The paucity of his Wikipedia biography is remarkable. He was born, attended college, went to work for a public relations firm, moved into politics as a three-term Congressman and then won Fritz Hollings' seat in the Senate. That’s almost all you learn of him there. The one remotely interesting biographical fact is that he once played drums in a cover band called Salt and Pepper. Even in this one slight glimpse of humanity, he is parroting other people’s material as his own.

It's not much of a story, because Jim DeMint isn't much of man. He has not seen war, backpacked Europe, worked shoulder to shoulder with the poor or faced any transformative personal struggles that can produce greatness. He has no Valley Forge, no charge up San Juan Hill, no Freedom Rides. As much as he reveres Ronald Reagan, he doesn’t even have made-up stories to tell.

The America of WalMart, strip malls and Fox News which produced Jim DeMint is a culture stripped of nearly everything that might relieve the empty pursuit of material possessions. It is increasingly cheap, manipulative and disposable. It is not the flawed decency of the small towns of the old South. It is not American in the sense that it really means anything. It is a shopping cart full of cheap Chinese goods purchased on credit, oblivious to the consequences: that our children will have less of everything that is of value unless we change.

As you read the endless stream of press releases that pour out of DeMint's noise machine, the numbing repetition of manipulative words strung together is striking, because they once were words that really meant something. Prayer, freedom, free enterprise and individualism are invoked paragraph after paragraph and day after day. The message is simple and sadly seductive: "America is in trouble, and it's all the fault of the powerless, the poor and the people who are different. If they could all be driven out of our society, the cheap gas and secure middle class life people remember would return for all of us 'real Americans.'"

DeMint is against nearly everything. Saying "no, No NO" to everything is easy, and can be-- in the short term-- very emotionally satisfying. Just ask any two-year-old. He opposes health care, public education, unemployment insurance, student loans, bicycle paths, public transit, high-speed rail and attempts to slow global warming. If you sit on a bench in a public park, watching your children play on a tax-funded swing set, DeMint's against the park, the bench and the swing set. He's against taxes for the sidewalk you walked there on.

What DeMint is for is the relentless concentration of power and wealth in the huge corporations who fund his own campaigns and those of Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey and Chuck DeVore, whom he wants to join him as his brotherhood in the Senate.

He communicates the messages of his corporate funders, using the money they send him, over right-wing media outlets like Fox News, where he has become a favorite show pony since Obama became President. He has gone all in with the Tea Party. He famously said that healthcare reform would be Obama’s “Waterloo,” and has strutted like a Napoleon ever since.

DeMint did not emerge as the leader of the far right in America because of any particular talent. There are probably some conservatives with principled, thoughtful, if wrong, ideas about social policy and taxation. But DeMint would not be one of them.

DeMint has risen because he is the emptiest of men. He is needy enough and empty enough to become whatever is needed. He was willing to serve as the author of a book other people had written. He will demagogue any issue for profit. He has been willing to frighten elderly people into believing they would be better off if their social security was gambled in the stock market, and eager to convince his constituents that they would be better off if "government kept their hands off Medicare" and left decisions of life and death to the market.

Eighteen months ago, a new President promised hope and change. It is an open question and fair argument whether he can, or has the will, to deliver it, one that will continue here and elsewhere. But when you consider Jim DeMint and all he stands for, and all he wishes and intends for this country, that isn’t what’s on the table.

For DeMint and his corporate masters, the real money, the big take at the end of the game, comes by delaying the moment that problems can get solved to a point past solution. There is a huge corporate killing to be made when people will surrender everything they have just to survive. Then those who already have so much will be able to take all the chips off the table.

DeMint is their man. He wants South Carolina to be the low-budget test bed for the future he wants for all of America: emaciated government, privatized everything, overtaxed charity, a degraded environment, no unions and low pay.

DeMint is working now to bring that time on, if he can. He will try to take over the Republican Party in the US Senate. He will fill it with his friends using corporate-funded campaigns driven by fear, if he can. And make no mistake, if he wins re-election this year, Jim DeMint’s next play is a Presidential run in 2012 against his personal demon, Barack Obama.

DeMint and his friends have no massive, secret agenda. They don't want to turn our children into robot lizards or implant chips in our brains. Their agenda is massive and public: they want to own it all and keep it all.

They already own Jim DeMint. They want to own some more senators, and they’re spending mad money to do that. They want to own our government. They would like to own our future. All they need is our frightened consent and they'll quietly arrange the rest, assisted by an empty man willing to do whatever they ask: Jim DeMint.

There is a red pill to DeMint’s blue pill. A man named Vic Rawl has very recently entered the South Carolina Senate race against DeMint, following the abrupt withdrawal of DSCC favorite Chad McGowan. Rawl is an actual progressive Democrat, and not just by the low bar set for such in South Carolina. And even as a genuine progressive, he has a pedigree that might actually beat DeMint.

Rawl is a former statewide judge, four-term State House member and National Guard colonel in a state that reveres the military. He is principled, pragmatic and, yes, progressive. While he faces nominal opposition in the June 8 primary, he will be our candidate in November against DeMint.

He’s gotten in the race late, very late to raise enough money to compete against what will be a formidable DeMint war chest ($3.2m as of 12/31/09, doubtless more in the first quarter report coming next week). It’s a serious lift, but Judge Rawl is a serious man.

Vic Rawl is exactly the sort of candidate we should be supporting: a courageous progressive in a state that isn’t hospitable, running against a true and credible threat to everything we believe in. He’s put a good team in place to run an aggressive campaign against DeMint, and needs help now.

You can learn more about Judge Rawl’s campaign at VicRawl.com.