Your liberal media:
Legislation to extend unemployment subsidies for hundreds of thousands of Americans who have exhausted their jobless benefits teetered on the edge of collapse on Thursday, as Senate Democrats and Republicans traded bitter accusations about who was to blame for an eight-week impasse.
Senate Republicans and a lone Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, joined forces to filibuster the bill in a procedural vote on Thursday. Visibly frustrated, the majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said he would move on to other business next week because he saw little chance of winning over any Republican votes.
The vote was 57 to 41, with the Democrats falling three short of the 60 votes needed to advance the measure.
Yes. They are busy trading accusations. Who are we to judge or state why the bill failed!
Way to go, New York Times.
Little Boots
good god, will you stop, and will you answer me.
Little Boots
wherever you are, I shall follow.
Little Boots
john, i am curious on a very personal level, what turned you off about the right? When did it happen? Do you ever regret it?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Little Boots:
Hey Cole. looks like you got a new blog stalker. Better you than me. mine mostly come out at night, mostly.
Little Boots
I know this goes well beyond the point of this post, but I suspect I’m not the only one. What happened, and why?
Little Boots
It is not about stalking, any answer will be interesting. I am honestly curious.
Cassidy
Umm…search the archives. It’s in there.
Mike Kay
Oh c’mon john, you know there’s no difference btwn Bush and Gore.
Violet
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Yeah, no kidding. Blog stalker indeed.
John Cole
I’ve answered it a hundred times.
Besides- look at what the Republican party is currently offering. The better question is why anyone supports them at all.
And take a breath. Step back from the keyboard.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Little Boots: At his 3000th Dead Concert, he had himself a vision. The acid was good, but not that good.
Little Boots
how far back, cassidy, and are they still there?
Violet
@Little Boots:
Check the archives.
Little Boots
John, I am not trying to dispute your choice. I am honestly curious.
russell
It was the horse’s head in the bed when he woke up.
beltane
The NYT plays the dumb blonde role better than Goldie Hawn did back in the day. Unfortunately, I think it comes naturally to them.
Little Boots
Okay, obviously there are many issues surrounding this question. Never mind.
So, did Al Gore get a hand job or what?
Mike Kay
Last friday, six days ago, there were a couple people posting rants on this blog SCREAAMING at Obama because the Stim from Feb 2009 wasn’t big enough. They indirectly absolved the republicans, repeatly contenting that if Obama had only asked for more Congress would have given him more.
Of course these rants weren’t isolated. It’s a charge that has been made constantly for a year and half.
Are they willing to come forward now and explain today’s filibuster? Surly there’s some way they can point the finger at the evil Obama.
beltane
@Little Boots: You have the same nickname as Caligula. Why did you chose this name? I am genuinely curious.
Little Boots
It goes back years, to a weird thread that had to do with Roman history, the habit of some people to choose Roman nyms, and the Bush Cheney administration. It seemed to fit at the time. Now I kinda like it.
Mike Kay
@beltane: That’s some liburel media. Always beat’n on the po’ repubicans.
Of course we know what the real deal is: if they embarrass the gop, they won’t get invited to they next Wolfgang Puck extravaganza.
The corporate media can’t die fast enough.
Little Boots
And I did not mean to attack John Cole, though I think people might think that now. I went through the same thing he did. I really was curious what changed him. Just saying.
Hunter Gathers
30 billion in deficit spending to help the unemployed – bad.
A trillion in deficit spending to kill dirty Muslims – good.
beltane
@Mike Kay: Why do people pay for this stupid analysis when stupid analysis can be had for free just about anywhere you go?
Mike Kay
@beltane: on the bright side, fewer and fewer are paying.
Mike Kay
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: better stock up on garlic. the sun is setting on the west coast, which means they’ll be emerging from their sarcophaguses.
El Cid
Perhaps this was caused by the BP shakedown.
amorphous
@Little Boots: Slow down there, Champ.
El Cid
@Hunter Gathers: Now you know how Ronald Reagan saved America while creating the Grand Canyon with His tears at how beautiful the America was that he created.
Tecumseh
@Mike Kay: I’ve already read some of the complaints out there as there’s the usual cries of why didn’t Obama fight more for it or be LBJ about it or even why haven’t they said anything at all about it. And you know, as an O-Bot, I kinda have to wonder about that on this one. The Republicans keep on pulling stuff like this and Obama (and the DNC) don’t really say anything about it or give speeches or run ads in support of the jobs plan and attack Republicans for fighting those bills. Maybe do some of the stuff Greenwald and all attack Obama for, like going into Maine and completely embarrass those principled moderates Snowe & Collins or give a keep speeches shaming the Republicans. Or at least go out there and tell people these bills will create jobs and help ease people’s suffering. It’s not just the right thing to do but it’s great politics.
I don’t know, I keep on reading about all this stuff about unemployment votes and job bills and maybe it’s because I don’t watch cable news, I don’t get a sense that these votes get a lot of play. Are Democrats so afraid of being seen as big spenders these days they won’t even fight too for a job bill or does Obama have too many things on his plate or is the Village too stuck in their comfortable Georgetown mansions to really care about any of this?
Little Boots
The important thing is that we stop the leaks. All leaks. Everywhere. That’s the important thing.
Violet
@Little Boots:
@Little Boots:
Ya think? Also, people might think you’re demanding and acting like a stalker.
Little Boots
please don’t yell at me, amorphous. I’m delicate.
Hunter Gathers
@El Cid: Perhaps if Reid had put in a tax break for those who wear bad wigs Ben Nelson would have voted for cloture.
PeakVT
Who are we to judge or state why the bill failed!
If only we could get Senators to go on record as supporting it or opposing it somehow. That would clear everything up.
Hunter Gathers
@Tecumseh:
This. Maybe the unemployed should take the advice of Rand Paul and stop bitching and get a job already.
Violet
@Little Boots:
Who’s leaking? Do you need Depends?
Little Boots
I need a lot of things, Violet, but I was actually thinking of the Gulf of Mexico.
El Cid
@Hunter Gathers: What are you talking about? Ben Nelson loved that hairpiece company so much, he would have bought the company, but since they offered him a generous campaign donation and secret offer of a future position on the board of directors, he’s working with Republicans to give them a special sweeeeeeet tax break and huge government subsidy.
Violet
@Little Boots:
Probably would help to be specific, then. Lots of things leak.
Little Boots
I shall try to be more specific in future. And less specific, at least about changes of ideology.
jl
The article looks like a typed up version of the reporter’s notes. Even as a tic toc political story on how and why the bill failed, the story is not very informative.
Some explanation in terms of how two key Senators think of the economics is found in the following paragraph:
“Even some Democrats have expressed deep reservations about adding to the nation’s fast-growing deficit. Mr. Nelson and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, who caucuses with the Democrats, have joined with Republicans in opposing the bill.”
In fairness to the Times, there is a link to a debate among economists on the right hand sidebar, at least when I looked at the story.
Can Obama Create More Jobs
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/can-obama-create-more-jobs-soon/?ref=politics
The panel is pretty disappointing. Mark Thoma and Galbraith turn in OK recommendations. Boushey does a good job of explaining how the current measured excess capacity expresses itself in the distressing unemployment statistics.
The conservative economists turn in a very disappointing performance. Cowen spins a new theory (that I had not heard of before) that the economy (only looked like?) it prospered in good times because companies tolerated a lot of unproductive deadwood employees, who have now been laid off, and are not being rehired because, under his brand new ad hoc theory to explain things, they are not worth much. So the current unemployed do not deserve to be hired at their previous wage, I presume. Cowan seems to want lower wages since he wants policies that avoid general deflation, but wants to reduce the minimum wage.
Jeffrey Miron accuses Obama’s economic proposals of promoting crony capitalism, which discourages investment. Miron also recommends lower real wages to reduce unemployment.
Probably most reliable place to find good economic analysis in the NY Times is Krugman’s blog.
I read someplace that the combined fiscal policy of local state and federal government is now contractionary. Cuts in local and state spending recently became larger than increases in federal spending. I will look for a link.
So complaints that excessive government spending, or increases in government spending are undermining confidence in markets seems totally false on two counts.
One, there is no evidence of this in the financial markets, and Matt Yglesias today has very good posts showing this lack of evidence.
Two, total government spending may be decreasing right now.
beltane
@Hunter Gathers: That toupee tax is an outrage. It is a communistic threat to the free market that is worse than Hitler.
Vince CA
Asshat rethugs are to blame, duh, as well as Nelson, who should oppose the filibuster for no other reason except that two major asshats like it: Lieberman and McCain. Being a member of the asshat party isn’t on my list of things to go on my gravestone, I wonder why so many people think they’ll be remembered fondly for screwing over the unemployed (or underemployed, like me).
Mike Kay
@Tecumseh:
at what point do they get that the authoritarian wingers vote in lock step.
The funny thing is LBJ didn’t have to deal with the “two-track” filibuster, which didn’t come into existence until the early 70s.
Little Boots
We are ruled by corporations. Did anyone here seriously expect Obama to stop that single handedly? Are you crazy? This is a long term battle.
freelancer
@Little Boots:
Yes, I need to aquire a body of water too. I just need to. There’s no answer to why, in case you’re curious.
jl
I guess the point of my long comment was that if you want a story about the economic substance of why the Senate voted like it did, most Senators believe in conservative free market economics, and believe that increased fiscal spending in a recession will produce a larger long run federal deficit.
Since the bigshot macroeconomists themselves are divided into two camps who completely disagree, and their theories are incomprehensible to normal people, there is no way to write a newspaper story explaining what is really going on.
Only good argument that Keynesians like Krugman and Stiglitz are correct is the conservative free market equilibrium macroeconomists have made consistently and horribly bad predictions since before the housing bubble popped and the financial markets crashed, have continued to whiff on their predictions every since. Which might be good enough evidence to believe that Keynesianism is the right theory now in other fields, but not in economics or politics.
Read Krugman’s Monday NY Times column
Now and Later
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/opinion/21krugman.html?ref=paulkrugman
“Spend now, while the economy remains depressed; save later, once it has recovered. How hard is that to understand? “
arguingwithsignposts
@Little Boots:
Search the archives for “Terry Schiavo.” That was the proverbial straw upon the camel’s back. But it was building before that.
Mike Kay
@Tecumseh: you have to remember the corporate media isn’t on our side. the top of this very post mocks the fucking liberal new york times for refusing to blame the republicans for sinking the bill, even though there’s a demonstrable score.
I really don’t see how conducting 50 town hall meetings in maine will get snowe to switch. she’s entrenched. She’s in her 37th year in elected office.
arguingwithsignposts
@jl:
This is bullshit. People who make less will spend less on non-essentials (although they *might* be able to pay their mortgage and other essentials).
And where will those people be hired if nobody is buying non-essentials? The American economic success post-wwii was built on rising standards of living among the middle class. Lowering wages isn’t going to bring back a healthy economy. It’s going to take us straight from the first world to the third.
Oligarchy rules.
Oh, and first wages they should lower should be dumbfuck economists.
Hunter Gathers
@jl:
They understand that. They just don’t give a shit. If the economy has to completely collapse in order to put Republicans back in power, so be it.
The same people who screamed and shouted that Saddam had nukes are the exact same assholes who have been screaming and shouting about deficits since the day Obama was inaugurated. And since
the country at largewhite people believe whatever the right wing tells them to believe, you don’t have to get out a graphing calculator to figure out how we got to where we are right now.Hunter Gathers
@Mike Kay: Actually, she’s more worried about getting teabagged in her next primary. Same with Collins.
jl
Also, too, I think Obama should have asked for a bigger stimulus, and today’s Senate vote does not change my mind.
Suppose Obama had asked for a larger stimulus, and made a stink about the fact that the final bill was weaker than the already too weak version that he proposed. Then at least Obama would be able to say ‘I told you so’ and would be able to chalk up yet another correct prediction to counter charges that the stimulus did not work by conservative free market equilibrium macroeconomists and their followers in Congress.
If before this vote, Obama and the Democrats could have said, to the GOP and more importantly the voters, “See, we were right and they were wrong again”, it might have made some difference. Of course it might not have made any difference, but it might have.
It has been a puzzle why Obama proposed such a weak stimulus bill and made so little fuss about it further being watered down. I like to blame Summers for any bad economic proposals, but the stimulus was even weak and badly designed by Summers’ standards, at least judging from Summers’ previous work and statements up through the first few months of the administration.
Tecumseh
@Mike Kay: Agreed and there’s also the fact that if Obama did half the stuff LBJ did to get legislative action done, everybody (including Progressives) would be all over him but this case is one of those cases where I do wonder if any sort of effort could have done something (like giving a Town Hall in Maine) or at least why it’s not trumpeted through the cable news that the Republicans just shot down a jobs bill. Again. Or that they once again voted against unemployment benefits. It’s almost like everybody– and I mean everybody– has deemed trying to do something about the recession and the unemployed SO last year.
jl
For the record, I was reporting what the economists said in the NY Times debate.
I am in the Keynes camp, at least for what is the best policy in these circumstances, and do not agree that lowering real wages is a good policy.
Mike Kay
@jl:
yes, but the interm price would have been made by americans standing in soup lines. 750,000 jobs were being lost per month.
I guess obama should have done the same thing on HCR, saying no public option, no bill, and we could wait another 15 years, so dems could say, “told you so”, meanwhile a lot of lives would have lost.
Mike Kay
@Tecumseh: I forgot to mention, LBJ had 68 Dems in the senate.
Now some will say, yeah but some of those dems were really dixicrats, which is true, but at the same time those republicans didn’t goose step in a nihilist, authoritarian block and they would sell votes for pork.
Groucho48
People who are comparing Obama to Johnson should keep in mind that Johnson was working with 67 Democratic Senators in an era when the filibuster was a pretty rare beast.
Imagine how health care or the stimulus would have gone with 7 more actual Democrats? (I don’t count Lieberman as a Democrat on the important stuff.) Even if 2 or 3 were Blue Dogs, those extra Democrats would have made a huge difference.
max hats
I’d like to nominated Little Boots as the worst new commentator from 2010. I know, there are several months left. But this is going to be hard to top.
To LB: meth is a hell of a drug, but there is help.
Little Boots
Oh, max, the worst? Really. Come on. That’s so bitter.
fucen tarmal
weaken it and they will come…
why not gut everything in the legislation except the provision that there will be mandatory suspension of all senate activity 90 minutes before, and three hours post any south carolina vs kentucky revenue generating sporting contest?
but in the spirit of not being overly attendant to the concerns of senator bunning of kenyucky, the senate will also declare.
“YOU CAN’T LICK OUR COCKS”
Little Boots
I don’t know what any of that means, Fucen, but I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
ItAintEazy
@Mike Kay:
Remember a lot of those “Democratic” votes are actually Dixiecrats.
Nick
@Mike Kay: LBJ was also to get Republican votes for many things. His biggest ally in the Senate for Civil Rights was the Minority Leader himself.
handy
@max hats:
I nominate all the trolls from the Gaza blockade threads.
Nick
Ed Schultz did another one of those cable news panic attacks today pleading like a begger for the President to “help the unemployed”
“They are begging!” he said
No shit, he did everything you asked him to and still lost. What more do you want from him?
Evolved Deep Southerner
Little Boots. Michael Gass. Corner Stone. All good for entertainment. But getting transparent now.
Bring back Michael Gass. Retire the other two.
The … boots … are … not … laughing.
Little Boots
Indeed, Evolved, indeed.
(seriously, max, I’m the worst?)
fucen tarmal
@Little Boots:
bunning was a lone holdout last winter on extending unemployment. he complained about being forced to be the prick that he is, in saying that he was missing kentucky vs south carolina.
Hunter Gathers
@Nick:
He operates in a reality that suggests that the bully pulpit can force the Senate to stop acting like assholes.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
But they were made for walkin”
Glidwrith
@Mike Kay: It isn’t so much that we didn’t get more money for jobs in the stimulus bill or a better package for HCR through Congress than we did. The bitter pill is that we could have asked for the sun, moon and stars and then negotiated something a little more down to earth. Instead we started on the ground with the powerful vested interests trying to put us six feet under.
I believe Obama’s style is to offer a carrot (ie oil drilling and nuclear power plants for an energy policy) in order to get carrots in return. I can understand that in my head, but emotionally I would never make a good politician. I want to take a big stick to the bastards for what they’ve done to this country.
Little Boots
I mocked too soon, Fucen, but this is a weird ass thread. It really is. Honestly I would love to know what people are pissed at me about. It’s truly funny.
Nick
@Glidwrith: and you wouldn’t get anything done. or any praise, for doing it
TenguPhule
And so the night of the long knives begins….
Mike Kay
@fucen tarmal: I don’t understand this complaint. the orginal bill had already failed. it’s not like they pulled the plug a winning hand in favor of a losing hand. no, the orginal bill had already flatlined.
this waterd owned version was just cover. they can count votes, they knew the watered down version would also fail. They don’t hold a vote before doing an internal vote count. they offered this doomed watered down version for show, because if they didn’t, then in addition to losing the original bill, the republican-corporate media would have been screaming why didn’t the dems reach out and offer a compromise.
as it is, the liberal new york times still can’t bring themselves to call out the republicans for sinking the bill.
frankly, i couldn’t care less what the media says, but that matter aside, the original bill was already dead.
Allison W.
I am HOPING that the Dems and the WH are making a calculated move not to pummel the GOP right away everyday on this. I am HOPING they are aiming to get a financial reform bill and/or climate bill and/or the Disclose Act to brag about on their vacation. I am HOPING that the DNC and all those other initials DSCCC, DCCC (I have no idea) are waiting until September, when people are paying attention, to truly bash the GOP head in the wall every single motherf-ing day.
I HOPE that’s the plan.
I also HOPE that the Left unites in the Fall and start thinking about the American people instead of punishing the Dems and Obama. I don’t care what Lincoln said or Nelson or Rahm or Obama said that we didn’t like. This election is not about them. Look to your right – those crazy mofo’s are not joking. We need to squash the teabaggers and show the GOP that swinging so far to the right will COST them elections. We must expose the GOP for the heartless bastards that they are – the people must know.
And we must add viewership of this GREAT video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcyxAzdMAn8
Mike Kay
@Glidwrith:
This is simply untrue. And here is the proof, hot off the presses, today’s unemployment extension bill was filibustered.
at some point, you have to realize the republicans won’t cut any deal.
can you point to a time when the republicans supported any democratic initiative.
It’s as if no one remembers the failures to achieve HCR by FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Carter, Ted Kennedy, the Clintons.
Mike Kay
@Allison W.: This!
Anne Laurie
@Allison W.: I’ve got it scheduled to post tomorrow morning, after people have had their coffee & can better appreciate it. Thank you!
RadioOne
I’m also curious as to why it took Terri Schiavo to convert John Cole to the Democratic Party. Personally, I voted for Bob Dole in 1996, and for most of the 90’s, was a Republican. I even worked for Dick Lugar’s Presidential campaign in 1996. It took the ridiculous impeachment of Bill Clinton by the GOP after his re-election, and then the outright farce of the 2000 election of George Bush, decided by the Supreme Court, to make me a partisan Democrat.
Not knocking Cole — I’ve been reading him since 2003, and I think he’s been one of the best opinion writers in the the country. But I’m curious as to why it took Terri Schiavo to convince Cole, Sullivan, etc. to leave the GOP when their shenanigans have been obvious and foolish for decades.
Anne Laurie
RadioOne: When you use a dash, please use two together with a space on either side — like I just corrected your comment to read.
If you use a single dash (hyphen) and don’t put a blank space after it & before the next word, the rest of your comment gets the strike-thru. Worse still, it “locks” the thread for anyone using Internet Explorer, so they can’t comment.
This is why there is an entry in the Balloon Juice Lexicon (link on the right-hand column, near the top) for “FYWP”.
RadioOne
@Anne Laurie:
thanks for the notice, I’m sorry for locking the thread like that for other IE users.
fucen tarmal
@Mike Kay:
i hear you, i am just sick and tired of the strategy already. i understand the show vote, but more sick of the watering down of bill after bill for votes we won’t get. if the new york times won’t call out the gop, or its members for obstructing the people’s business, and voting against individual senators interests, for the singularity of the no.
because they are taking principled stands, and we are all honorable men….
but if the nyt, hasn’t called it out by now, the show vote won’t make a difference…
funny the nyt won’t be provoked by democrats to explain the democrats rationale, but they will extend the greatest latitude possible, to the notion of every gop sen and conservative dem, for taking an individual conscience vote, and all miraculously time and again, having the same conclusion, absent party driven politics. i wasn’t cheering for team blue, just noting a general frustration.
Mike Kay
@fucen tarmal:
I think there conflation going back to the early 2009 call to fulfil the campaign promise of bipartisanship. Where a bill destined to pass was watered down to get unnecessary additional votes. The vaild argument in this scenario was fuck bipartisanship and fuck the beltway media – don’t trade away a winning bill’s benefits for extraneous votes; no body will remember or care if a bill passes by 1 vote or by unanimous vote.
But that wasn’t the case here. Today’s original bill didn’t pass. The bill wasn’t watered down to pick up meanless votes, it was watered down, ostensibly, to pick up votes.
So these are two entirely different situations. I agree with the arugments in the first scenario, but that’s not what happened today.
Of course we wouldn’t be talking about this if the senate worked on a majority vote, or if the republicans didn’t decide to be sore losers and go nuclear and filibuster every fucking vote.
D-Chance.
As an object lesson for all… a simple 3-word cliche from another board that holds the test of time, “Lurk and learn”. Never post on a message board without having spent a long period of time as nothing more than a reader, getting a feel for the posting populace and their host.
Otherwise, you get booted around by the regulars.
D-Chance.
BTW, ABC’s “The Note”…
With many Americans still struggling to recover from a severe recession, more than one million long-term unemployed are starting to lose their jobless benefits, and Medicare doctors are dealing with a 21 percent pay cut.
They can thank Congress.
Yeah, thank the Democrats who voted 58-1 for relief.
And, thank the Republicans who voted 40-0 against it.
Just throw them all under one big “Congress” tent… wow.
Great, in-depth journalism, there, ABC.
Bulworth
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100625/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_spending
This silly article on Yahoo via AP almost seems to make it seem like the bill was killed by Republicans. That’s actually debatable.
jl
@Mike Kay: Excuse me. That is not what I said. Let me clarify for you. I said that Obama should have publicly made the case that the watered down bill would be inadequate.
I did not say that he should not have signed the watered down bill last year.