Slow learners

... but at least they're learning. The Republicans will not negotiate in good faith if they won't even debate in good faith.

Something troubles me about the Times story, though: Not one Congressional Democrat has enough spine to be quoted. That makes the story look like a threat, rather than a real determination to ram through a good bill without all the dreck foisted on us by Republicans and Blue Dogs.

Update (8/19): CNN follows the Times.

Veto this!

The Supreme Court's ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear made the law an ass. Hide your violations for 6 months, and you're scot-free to continue them indefinitely.

“Never mind that Ms. Ledbetter didn’t know about the discrimination when it first began,” [Sen. Ted] Kennedy said. “Never mind that she had no means to learn of the discrimination because Goodyear kept salary information confidential. Never mind that Goodyear’s discrimination against Ms. Ledbetter continued each and every time it gave her a smaller paycheck than it gave her male colleagues.”

The Bushists, of course, raise the bogeyman of lawsuits, aaaah, the sky is falling! They couldn't care less whether justice is done so long as a corporation doesn't have to defend its discriminatory practices.

The real necessity is to get the Federalist Society SOBs off the federal bench.

Skipping the advice part

Theocons and Bushists alike got what they wanted on the Supreme Court because of the Gang of 14, not despite it. It was a faux compromise in which the Democrats got taken for everything and the Republicans gave up nothing at all. Roberts and Alito are both on the Court, aren't they?

Yet that wasn't enough for the right-wing radicals. They wanted the nuclear option. They wanted to go to war against Democrats and the traditional, rule-based collegial way the Senate has deliberated about judicial appointments for decades.

The oddest thing is that the deal cut by Democrats will severely hinder the next Democratic President's appointment of more liberal judges. Witness what happened to Bill Clinton while the Republicans held the Senate. He got Steven Breyer and Ruth Ginsburg. Breyer especially is very centrist.

The avidly hypocritical Republicans will filibuster any Democrat's nominees without compunction. They will call moderates extreme, where for their part the Democrats have called Republican-appointed extremists moderate. Four of them sit on the Supreme Court.

It really doesn't make sense that James Dobson, Orrin Hatch, and Richard Land dislike McCain for the outcome of the Gang of 14 negotiation. They must dislike him for the disloyalty they perceive in it.

As ever, they simply want silent obedient consent.

True Republican colors

How is it that the Republicans can oppose a responsible, revenue-neutral fix for AMT and expect the voters not to punish them for it? It's been working for years.

When push comes to not even shove but excuse-me, the GOP puts the richest of the rich - a few hedge fund managers and their even better-heeled clients - ahead of millions of middle class wage earners, not to mention fiscal sanity. They know the press won't call them on it.

Really, is there anything that comes out of Mitch McConnell's mouth that's not flavored with bullshit? When he says "a lot of other Americans", he means a very small number of overpaid financial manipulators - many of the same people who gave us the credit crisis.

The Democrats, if they had a lick of sense, would make the Republicans filibuster this openly and visibly and for a long time. Have the Democratic Senators who are running for President come back to D.C. every few days for another cloture vote and issue a zillion press releases about what's at stake.

Update: Of course, the Democrats have already caved again (and the Times has changed the story under my original link).