Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Bark louder, little dog.

Everybody saw this coming.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

This really is a full service blog.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

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Read a fucking book.

mistermix has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2010.

One’s On the Way

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If you’re a House junkie, which I must admit shamefully that I am, seeing your favorite drama queens on the House floor, and watching them all jockey for a few more minutes on the Tee Vee outside the chamber, is part of the fun of today’s proceedings.

Though there’s a lot of competition for this title, I’d say that the biggest prima donna in the House is Loretta Sanchez, who represents the D+4 district CA-47. Loretta was always a pretty safe “Yes” vote, but she stirred up some excitement today when it appeared for a short moment that she might hang out at a Florida fundraiser instead of coming back to DC to vote.

Of course that was bullshit. Would someone who sends out Christmas cards like these miss the most important vote she’ll ever take?

(By the way, trivia fans, Loretta’s the only House member in history to serve with her sister, the more progressive and less dramatic Linda (CA-39).)

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Whipline

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For those of you biting your nails or popping popcorn, here’s the Daily Whipline [pdf], the House Majority Whip’s report on what’s going to happen on the House Floor today. Summary:

  • House convenes at 1 PM with the usual bullshit (prayers and some spouting off.)
  • An hour of debate, and then a vote, on the rule that sets down how the House will debate the Senate amendments to the House bill, and the reconciliation motion. Louise Slaughter will manage this with her ceremonial katana sword while swigging from a bottle of T-bird.
  • Assuming the rule passes, two hours of debate and then a vote on the Senate amendments (HR 3590) and the reconciliation (HR 4872). Steny Hoyer has the honors, and I assume he’ll use his ceremonial bullwhip and distribute a tray of Jell-o shots, pursuant to the rule passed above.

It says the session will go into the “evening”, which I’m sure is an accurate prediction. I’d suggest a good drinking game where you take a shot every time a Republican is ruled out of order, but I don’t want any deaths from alcohol poisoning on my conscience.

Since this document urges all Democrats to vote yes, I assume that some teabagger will equate it to Steny Hoyer pissing on the Constitution in the well of the House, but I fearlessly link to it anyway, in the interest of transparency.

Update: Ezra says the House leadership predicts a vote at 9 PM.

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It’ll Work Itself Out Fine

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A couple of years ago, Glenn Greenwald got together with Markos Moulitsas and Jane Hamsher and discussed how we can get a more progressive Congress. That conversation is still worth reading, because it contains a lot of home truths, like this one from Kos:

So, we’re not going to go after representatives, congressmen, that are conservative just because they are quote “conservative.” We’re going to look at those districts, with representatives that elected officials that have lost touch with their constituents, and not providing their constituents service, are not voting in a way that helps the well-being and the welfare of the people who are in those districts. So, it’s not a left versus right sort of thing; it’s really more of a corporatist versus populist approach to governance. We think that elected officials should represent their constituents and not corporate interests.

Around that time, Greenwald and Hamsher announced Accountability Now, a PAC that intends to fund primary challengers for corporatist Democrats. They were recently part of a successful effort to recruit a credible primary challenger for the Senator from Wal-Mart and Tyson, Blanche Lincoln.

But that’s it — one recruit. When you look at Charlie Cook’s map of the Senate, you can see why. Of all the toss-up states, Arkansas and Pennsylvania are the only ones where the incumbent is arguably too conservative for the state, and Specter already has a declared, credible primary opponent.

There are plenty of opportunities in the other 34 races, like David Vitter in Louisiana, or the open seat in Indiana, where Democrats are going to need a good candidate. But that’s not Accountability Now’s mission — they recruit primary challengers. And no doubt we have some Stupaks that need to be primaried, but does anyone still think the main problem is in the House?

Hamsher and Greenwald picked a hard target, one that will require many cycles and a lot of dogged effort — it should have been called “Accountability at Some Future Point”. When I see long-term projects like that, I assume that the founders realize the problem they’re trying to solve isn’t going to be fixed quickly, and that they won’t freak out the first time they don’t get exactly the outcome they desire.

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Getting Ugly

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Buffalo News:

A brick was hurled through the front window of the Pine Avenue office [of] Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport.

TPM:

[I]n addition to menacing behavior toward multiple members of Congress, one protestor called Rep. Barney Frank a “faggot”, a taunt greeted by laughter from fellow protestors.

We’re now getting reports that other protestors yelled “nigger” at Rep. John Lewis (D-GA).

John Lewis is no stranger to hearing that word being yelled at him in anger, but I doubt he was expecting to hear it almost 50 years after he was beaten up in civil rights marches.

Update: Via the comments, part of a photo taken today by Flickr user cjbrenchley:

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Bad Beat

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Nate Silver makes a number of good points about progressive strategy advocating the public option, such as this one:

The progressive bloc failed not because of any reputational deficiency on the part of the progressives but because their bluff was too transparent — they claimed to be willing to wager enormous stakes (health care reform) to win a relatively small pot (the public option). That would have been beyond the capacity of any poker player — or activist — to pull off.

This seems obvious to me, but it continues to elude the firebaggers and dead-enders at FDL.

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A Real Scoop

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Debbie Schlussel’s report that Sean Hannity’s charity is a scam — it donated less than 4% of its take to the wounded vets it purports to support — is being picked up by “reasonable” conservatives.  Frum, for example, wonders if other conservatives will even mention that Sean likes to fly to those events in private jets, and charters a fleet of luxury SUVs for transporting his entourage.   Sully calls that “a poignant question”.

I’ve got a touching question, one which may be a bit unreasonable, given the ruthless self-examination on display here:

Where the fuck were these guys when a Kos diarist outed Hannity’s charity, or when the Washington Post reported that most of these charities were scams, in 2007?

Update: The head of the foundation, Ollie North, issued a press release [pdf], denying everything.  The Post story is based on a 2007 report by the American Institute for Philanthropy.  They gave Freedom Alliance, the charity Hannity was pimping, an “F”.   AIP is a membership-only organization that charges for its guide, so I can’t see what it was rated more recently.

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Loved or Feared?

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In yesterday’s open thread headlined by Pelosi’s picture, there were a few comments about her lack of popularity amongst non-political types. I’ve had the same experience as those commenters: a couple of friends who vote Democratic, but don’t care much about politics, really dislike Nancy Pelosi.

If you look at past Speakers, this isn’t really surprising. The ones who made a lot of headlines, like Tip O’Neill and Newt Gingrich, weren’t that great. Tip was in a similar position as Pelosi (Democrats controlled both Houses and the Presidency), but Democrats dropped the ball on his watch. With all the press he gets, it’s easy to forget that Newt was deposed by his own party after 4 years.

Unlike Tip and Newt, the man widely considered to be the best Speaker in history, Sam Rayburn, “preferred working quietly in the background to being in the public spotlight.” His successor, John McCormack, shepherded landmark civil rights legislation, as well as Medicare, through the House, yet LBJ gets all the credit for those accomplishments. And let’s not forget Carl Albert, because everyone else has.

Pelosi is unpopular because the talents needed to be a good speaker just don’t sell soap. She’s ferociously on-message, which makes her public statements look wooden and over-rehearsed.  The tale of her upbringing as daughter of a machine mayor is short on human interest, but long on the arm-twisting and favor-trading a good Speaker needs to master.

In short: she’s intense, focused, ruthless and competent.  Those qualities won’t get her a movie of the week or a permanent spot on Meet the Press, but they might just get the most important piece of legislation in the last 40 years through the House.

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