In 2010, I (and others) criticized the Democratic leadership (including then Majority Leader Harry Reid and many of the continuing Democratic senators) for their use of the “nuclear option” in curtailing the power of the filibuster. I was equally critical of Republican leaders who previously suggested such a course of action. It was remarkably short-sighted and, like so many moves during this period, impulsive. The Democrats acted with little concern that they might ever be in the minority and need this critical power. They muscled through the Affordable Care Act on a marginal vote that cost various members their seats and passed a highly flawed bill that was plagued by problems of bad drafting and poor planning. Moreover, they secured relatively few confirmations to federal office. Now, however, the bill will come due for the Democrats as they long for the minority rights that they so blithely threw away. The first such cost will likely occur in the waiver that will be given to Gen. James N. Mattis who has not satisfied the requisite seven years to pass since retirement in order to become Secretary of Defense.
In 2010, Reid and his colleagues were warned by many of us that the decision would quickly haunt their party if polls continued to slide toward the next election. Perhaps the most poignant warning came from Republican Alabama Senator Richard Shelby “Democrats won’t be in power in perpetuity. This is a mistake — a big one for the long run. Maybe not for the short run. Short-term gains, but I think it changes the Senate tremendously in a bad way.”
Well, that time is now here. Retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis is expected to be nominated but federal law requires a seven year period after retirement to assume his position. He retired only in 2013. It would fall to Congress to grant an exception — something that under the old rule the Democrats could block.
None of this is to take away from Mattis who is widely respected. However, the law is more than some passing gesture. It protects our tradition of civilian control over the military. It has only been waived once — for the iconic figure of Gen. George C. Marshall in 1950. Ironically, the rule was lessened eight years ago but also reaffirmed as a bedrock principle. Federal law once required ten years to expire. It now requires seven years after serving on active duty before someone can assume the office of secretary of defense or other senior civilian defense positions. The time limit reduced in 2008 — the only reduction of the original criteria from the 1947 national security act.
Whatever the merits or the outcome of this vote, Democratic senators served their constituents poorly in casually discarding this long-standing protection of minority rights.
Indeed the Demos have paid dearly for this action. But did they learn? i would argue not, at least at the leadership level. Who did they elect as their leaders as minority House and Senate Reps? The same old guard that cost them dearly when they thought they would rule the world in 2008 when Obama was elected.
Those poor poor Democrats, 9 out of 10 anyway, are crying all the way to the bank. They are just as invested in the MIC and all the attending private enterprise as their honored colleagues from across the isle. My oh my, empire building will just crush the poor little dears (indeed, I hear raucous laughter). The hand in every pot has gone so far beyond the pathetically wistful and clueless notion of party or ideology as to be ludicrous.
The filibuster is an inane institution that should disappear. Obliterate it with conventional forces.
Going back to the intent of the thread now it’s started up again The Democrats are learning a hard lesson as their numbers in office were slashed from the lowest precincts to the top of the political chain. They will of course try to reform in the same secular progressice left wing fascist mode.
The answer their is to keep cutting them off at the ankles and knees during the annual elections locally, the next major set of campaigns in 2018 and by using recall and/or initiative. That’s where the representative democracy is purely ‘democratic’ meaning direct popular vote.and where it holds great power at the second or transistion level ‘representtive’
Now for the Republicans. “They are in power because of a tremendous backlash against the anti Constitutional forces of the fascist left and because of a political fluke. I was amazed at the disparate number of groups that banded together in an Anti Clinton and more importantly an anti socialism effort raising the numbers of their vote while the opposition numbers lowered. Blacks, Latinos, Women, joined the anti socialists who realzed the Democrats were no longer the party of democratic principles, no longer interested in using those principles to form a solid foundation for a a representative Republic.
Of imiportance to me persnally our effort in the ranks of the military garnered 2/3rds of the combat arms voting against Hillary as Commander-In-Chief.
But the Republicans lost huge numbers during the campaign as many bolted the part and most of those became pro-Trump. and it was the Trump campaign that saved the party plus the intercession down ballot of many others such as the Koch Brothers.
Republicans didn’t win Democrats lost as people voted against their being in bed in a quasi single party system of government acting as the right wing of the left. McConnell and Rand should take note of that. They didn’t win Reid and Pelosi lost
The ‘establishment’ neo feudalistic/aristocracy received a mighty slap in the face and kick in the pants as people started learning, re-learning and applying the ultimate source of power in the country, Self Governing responsibile citizenship.
Now it remains to Mr. Trump and while I don’t like some of his cabinet secretary choices I’m not going to get ‘my perfect cabinet.’ I will say his campaign was more than open to suggestions and many of us filled in and forwarded the surveys each week including the comments suggestions. In that way they made the direct vote and direct support count while the Democrats turned all snooty.
My six word formula popped up in a few places sometimes verbatim sometimes with a change of words
Stop Enabling
Take Power
Make Change
As did our group effort in the ranks of the active and former military.
Would you take a bullet for Hillary?
Have you read and though about your oath of office lately
The most effective weapons uses ballots not bullets – a two vowel difference.
The third was
It’s not between Trump and Hillary i’ts betwen a Constitutional Republic and a Sociaist Autocracy.
Then I saw the same thing that obviously came from other initial start points.
But it isn’t over. slightly under half the nation voted for that second choice. 48.2 last figures I looked at. Trump did come in second in plurality vote but Hillary came in second where it counted both for electoral votes and popular vote and did NOT get a majority.
Her cake walk dreams are gone and the left wing fascist movement will not make the same mistake again.
So it’s up to Mr. Trump to capitalize on the successes and it’s up the we citizens to keep pounding all of them one important lesson. It isn’t business as usual anymore. It is ridding ourselves of the progressive revolution and it IS a counter revolution.
If this makes not sense try re-reading the Constitution AND the Declaration. The two go together. One a soaring example of the art of rhetoric is both the mission statement and the list of wrongs to be righted. The other, a result of a social contract that required full approval to become law.
And it does allow for change. Sorry Wilson and FDR and LBJ and Obama it always was a living Constitution. But it did not allow death by ‘ignorance or being ignored.’
Fourty Five Days!!!
Keep the pressure up at the local level. Recalls and Initiatives even if their real purpose is to drain the coffers of other belief systems is a potent weapon.
Republicans in their new form shoudl consider beoming the Constitutional Republic Party. They need reminders they are not the lapdogs of the left.
Ordinary Democrats have indeed been very foolish. Their party leaders are a different story.
The oligarchy is amassing power into executive hands. Other than a few squabbles around the edges, it doesn’t matter to them which party holds power over the American people. The oligarchy will be will served with continuing wars, mass surveillance and wealth transfer.
To show what i mean I will refer to just two of the abuses of rights which this Congress and the lame duck, Obama, have rammed through since the election: 1. JSOC has powers to assassinate anyone, anywhere on this planet on their own authority (This was the “gift” of Obama to the MIC.) 2. The FBI may now freely enter into the computer/electronic device of their choosing of anyone in the world (A gift of this Congress to the very corrupt, FBI.) There are many more should you care to look into it.
We hear little of these insanities in the “real” news. We hear almost nothing about it from the ordinary members of the Democratic party, just as we heard nothing from them as their “leadership” went about destroying our rights, one by one. Even now, ordinary Democrats say they trust Obama with his murder by drone program, a power which does not belong to him and should not belong to any person from any party. Glenn Greenwald has a tweet from a Democrat who feels we should allow Obama to stay on and be a “good dictator”.
This servile, stupid and careless gift of complete worship and acquiescence to wrongdoing by one’s own party “leadership” has been essential in destroying the rule of law. It took many people to look the other way as crimes were/are being committed against our people, the world’s people and the rule of law. For the love of everything that is good, courageous and just in this world, every citizen, no matter what their party, needs to stop this short sided, servile cruelty, removing acquiescence from our hearts and minds. We must stand up for justice. Until that happens the US will remain a police state and their will be wars, starvation and the destruction of this planet.
I’m still musing that Russia alone gets the job of reporting the truth via their propaganda hacks.
I am surprised I am the first to mention that the law is probably unconstitutional since the legislative branch is trying to restrict the executive branch.
If that’s the case the entire body of civil service law and military personnel system is unconstitutional. I think you may want to reconsider. Never go the full Wm. Voegli.
JT – “They muscled through the Affordable Care Act on a marginal vote that cost various members their seats and passed a highly flawed bill that was plagued by problems of bad drafting and poor planning. Moreover, they secured relatively few confirmations to federal office.”
JT, you miss the point. All that mattered was getting the ACA passed. Once in and getting the lazy more on the dole, you will never remove it. Losing seats or elections as a consequence is far less important than removing peoples rights to discriminate or judge. Even with Trump as President, you will see he will not be able to kill the ACA. The progressive cog has ratcheted forward and it only goes in one direction. This is why we will eventually collapse.
Sorry but ACA serves the working poor. Lazy heirs have always been able to pay for health care.
Ask your elderly parents, neighbors, and friends how they like trying to figure out which Medicare supplement or advantage plan they should get. It causes them unbearable stress. Nobody knows what will go wrong and what level of insurance they might need and nobody likes paying 10 million dollar salaries to health care management MBA who have totally failed at health care management.
Single payer universal health care would increase health exponentially by relieving the stress of dealing with health insurance companies. Health care providers know this and do their best to achieve universal health care in the US as every other advanced country has done. US failure to pass universal health care is clear evidence to the rest of the world of the declining character of US politics generally
Single payer universal health care would increase health exponentially
It would do nothing of the kind. Medical care is utile for addressing discrete problems (e.g. breast cancer), but otherwise is a weak vector in influencing life expectancy. Proper nutrition, public health efforts, activity, and the avoidance of vice are what’s key.
I totally agree with you on eating right, exercising, and avoiding dangerous activities. But we aging folks also have accidents, falling and breaking hips, need knee replacements, physical therapy for joint deterioration, heart attacks and strokes. The stress of figuring out insurance is a satanic nightmare for both beneficiaries and health care providers.
Why should I have to pay for your accidents or knee replacement?
I’m happy to contribute to whatever health care you or anyone else needs.
Now you’re getting it. You are free to make that choice and I support your charitable desire to do so. It’s when you are forced to be “charitable” that it isn’t charity at all. That’s called legal plunder and it has not place in free society.
You’re not being taxed so he can pay for a new car. You’re being taxed for something which has unpredictable spikes in expenditure for which sustainable actuarial pools do not form readily absent some sort of central organization. Most people who are not cranky libertarian ideologues can intuit that the market for medical services has dysfunctions the market for rental housing or consumer goods do not have.
Excellent! Allow me to translate: “You are being taxed because a central government has the wisdom (that the owner of the taxed wealth does not) to create by force actuarial pools to mitigate the unpredictable spikes in healthcare expenditures”.
Isn’t that special? The only thing our central government can reasonably predict is the revenue necessary to fund their utilitarian schemes. What part of unalienable rights do these central planners not understand?
“You’re not being taxed so he can pay for a new car. ”
Really? Why am I being taxed to pay for a knee replacement for an overweight person? Or a snow boarder? Who gets to decide what is overweight? I should be able to choose who’s knee I want to pay for.
You are being taxed because medical expenditure is given to unpredictable spikes in the life of a given household, and because it’s the common opinion of even very affluent people that allowing people to expire from lack of care because, well, they’re just losers, is a Pottersville world they’d rather not live in. You can make some actuarial calculations (among them, that your propensity to spend on medical care will increase as you grow older and then decline some as you pass out of your early 70s). The way to address such problems is risk pooling. That’s what property-casualty insurance is for, that’s what medical insurance is for. The thing is, medical problems are things we are almost guaranteed to have at some point in our lives (while a horrid car wreck or our house burning down is not). This creates some challenges for constructing actuarial pools. They don’t form very well left to the market (they tend to exclude swaths of people) and politicians and wonks tend to collapse the distinction between risk-pooling and mandating pre-paid care (due to the insistence on first-dollar coverage). You have two choices: state organized actuarial pools (which means you get taxed) or yapping on like George Barton Cutten or Ayn Rand. I have little doubt which you’d do, which is why I sympathize with people who have to deal with you in meatworld.
Why am I being taxed to pay for a knee replacement for an overweight person?
My mother was recommended knee replacements in 1978. I think she weighed about 135#. I’d think more of your complaints if you didn’t play transparent rhetorical games.
It’s called risk pooling.
“Why am I being taxed to pay for a knee replacement for an overweight person?
My mother was recommended knee replacements in 1978. I think she weighed about 135#. I’d think more of your complaints if you didn’t play transparent rhetorical games.”
All you did was dodge my question. In your mother’s case she wasn’t overweight so she doesn’t fit my question, Assuming she wasn’t a runner or a snowboarder, I would have no issue getting her knee replaced. So I will ask again, why am I paying for on overweight persons knee replacement?
The problem you refuse to acknowledge is that once you let the govt. in your life by stealing my property and giving it to you, I feel I have a right to know how you live your life. Conversely, I don’t want people to have a say about me. Let me have my private insurance where I get to decide what I want covered.
You know what I am trying to get at, you just don’t want to accept it. All the ACA was about was a power grab.
Good post Jim. Toad’s “risk pooling” argument fails to account for the moral obligation one’s family has to the care of their own. Risk pool within the family. If it makes sense to keep a child on one’s health insurance until 8 years after reaching the age of consent, then it makes sense to add the elderly onto one’s plan as well. Risk pool an entire family under one plan and you’ll discover less government will be needed to “regulate” our lifestyle choices. The family will take care of much of that.
Add to that a real form of unions Employees and Citizens Associations which not only cover the local major concerns but the mom and pop shops and espresso stand operators in a local community the risk pool gets even larger.
In a typical factory town of the rust belt how many of the ‘too little to suceed or worry about ‘ people were incuded or were they left to fend for themselves?
Unions are all about greed not ony internally but with their external ‘too big to fail bail out provisions from fat cats like Benita Pelosillyni and her Socialist Triumverate system of single party fascism.
Michael Aarethun – those mom-and-pop store often belong to organizations that get them a group discount on insurance, just like if they were a bigger business with a bigger risk pool.
I wondered about that. Any idea of percentages etc.
Michael Aarethun – I have no idea about percentages. I know that some organizations offer their members a group rate. Also, some have formed their own organizations to make a pool, not unlike a blockwatch.
Hot on it!
A quick glance via Google and knowing what to ask for uncovered some common factors. Everything is hinged to the demands of ACA. Second most important consideration is the amount of medical care in the State mandated lists. Most consider small businesses as 100 or less and some go on down to two or one. The choices depand largely on the State.
One comment spotted on more than suggested site was having one or two owners and one or two employees (the same people) each with insurance from another source. Military Champus Tricare for Life for retirees was the first one mentioned. Followed by any health insurance for life paid for by the former employee as life time benefit. Why? They are not ‘problem employees’ especially in states with zero pre-existing condition exclusion.
One source mentioned an average cost per annum for a single employee was $3500. Another one or two mentioned pre ACA costs were 7.5% of employee wage and benefits package. This on top of the 7.5% employers share for social security.
The Diners Association caters to small restaurants or food service such as expresso stands. and was nation wide.
As far as ACA is concered there are many references to ‘obtaining insurance without access to ACA’ as it’s generally considered to have a. failed and b. will have to be replaced.
But as for grouping together one to ten employees in a local area in a local association nothing popped up even if connected to a quasi union type association based on the larger companies.
I’ll keep looking.
It’s not a satanic nightmare, it’s just an irritant. It’s not lowering your life expectancy to any appreciable degree.
The fact that you think single payer health care has anything to do with keeping people healthy shows your ignorance. It is all just a power grab to steal property from the working and give to the lazy. This in turn creates more bought votes of the lazy.
Ooops, I meant single payer insurance.
Yes. Private health insurance definitely steals property from the working and gives it to the lazy multi-billionaire health insurance investors, C-suite occupants, and their lazy heirs.
Do you fancy your pension fund or mutual fund refuses to invest in insurance company equities?
It is all just a power grab to steal property from the working and give to the lazy.
About 70% of the public expenditure on medical care and long term care is allocated to people who are (1) elderly or (2) have been adjudicated as disabled. Another 18% is allocated to households which have at least one full-time worker therein. That’s 12% allocated to households whose relationship to the labor market is questionable. If it’s really my object to subsidize the lazy, I’m taking an awfully circuitous route to that end. (Or are we all going to be treated to a rant from you about lazy dialysis patients?).
Solvermn, I think what I am saying is I don’t want to do things the Harry Reid way. I’m not Harry Reid and I don’t like the way he does things. I still believe in honesty and rule of law.
This is part of Douchebag Reid’s legacy, who went with short-sighted and stupid while he was Majority Leader.
James Mattis, Trump’s Secretary of War, is a War Criminal, Warmonger Imperialist
http://www.caucus99percent.com/comment/220229
Trump is a Liar, choosing Zionist Neocon Supreme War Criminals for his administration!!
Trump is showing his true colors.. A Zionist Criminal providing Cover-up
Solvermn, emotionally I agree with you, but it’s really not the way our government should function. I believe that we should stay within the confines of our constitution.
Hi, Bob. Regarding “packing the SCOTUS…the Constitution says nothing regarding the number of Justices.At different times, there have been different numbers of Justices. See this history: http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/courts_supreme.html Dot
independent Bob
Everything I said Was within the constitution. congress says how many SCOTUS judges there are and WHERE the lower courts operate.
What goes around, comes around.
I open the Democrats, enjoy it.
I agree with your position. Republicans should Use their new power to ” fundamentally change America “. Start by doing what Roosevelt threatened to do, pack the supreme court. Pass a bill adding 2 more judges to it then move the 9th federal appeals court from California to Montana. In the words Of Obama ” elections have consequences “.
Turley, just when you seem to garner respect, you fall flat on your biased face and give it all up.
issacbasonkavich:
How does Prof. Turley “fall flat”?
How is this column biased?
Issac, whenever you are able to get your flat, biased face up for the first time, you might learn something about garnering respect and perhaps a smidgen of humility.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. The Republicans were wrong to consider doing away with this rule, and the Democrats were crazy to get rid of it. Our government was designed to be safe, not fast.
Neither is wrong or crazy. The filibuster is a bad practice. Kill it.
If they can waive the rule for Gen. Marshall, they can waive it for “Gen. Patton” (as Trump described Mattis). He may be a mad dog, but not as mad as Gen. Curtis LeMay, lol…..I’m probably the only one who remembers him…..
Not at all. Check out “Command and Control” by Eric Schlosser, in case you haven’t already.
Tin, I remember the cigar chomping LeMay. Don’t be surprised if randyjet weighs in, he hates Lemay, which merely elevates LeMay in my book. In the great flick, Dr. Strangelove, the General Jack Ripper character played brilliantly by Sterling Hayden, was said to be a spoof on LeMay.
NickS
My father used to like Curtis LeMay, too! He said that sometimes if you killed a whole lot of people quickly, it tends to take the fight out of them. Which means that less people die in the long run. I am not sure about that, but my father was usually right about stuff.
He was in the Air Force, and I remember when I was about 8 or 9, looking through one of his books and it said, “Peace Is Our Profession!” in front of one of the bomber planes. Sooo, I asked him if Peace was his Profession, and he said “Hell no! Bombing the f*ck out of commie b*st*rds is my profession.” That is probably when I first realized not to believe everything I read.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Gen. Mattis deserves 100% respect. Nonetheless I doubt the Democrats will even be able to have enough to mount any serious opposition. And that is good! Very Good.
Yes. He told a large TV and online audience that he enjoys killing people. Respect? Well at least he admitted what everyone already knew anyway about military folks.
What he said was:
“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”He continued: “Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.”
Protip: the Media Matters blast fax is deviously edited.
And….they will continue to regret their deconstructionist treatment of the Founders. Now for the work to bring the SCOTUS back to Founders’ intent and reestablish true equal treatment for all.
The filibuster appeared quite by accident in an oversight to a rules revision in 1806. It’s not a constitutional principle. During the period running from 1920 to 1970, there was about 1 filibuster a year, because you had to stand on your feet all night if you wanted to filibuster. The ‘cadillac’ filibuster and indefinite and anonymous holds on nominees appeared during the 1970s. The hold originally appeared ca. 1955 and was meant to delay action on a nominee for a few days and done so Senators could get work done and not be tied to the chamber.
Mad dog Mattis deserves zero respect. Nonetheless I doubt the Demorats will seriously oppose his confirmation.
David, What prompted to say that? Do you know something we all don’t? Thanks. Dot
Some people who could never cut it in the military or the police loathe the military and the police.
Huh? Are you kidding? David is a Liberal Democrat and he doesn’t have to explain things! He just has to make pronouncements, and then we are just supposed to accept them, because he is a Liberal Democrat, which you know means like “totally smart” and stuff.
Plus, us Deplorables probably wouldn’t understand his reasoning, or even the words he would use, because he is a college-educated white person! And maybe we are, too —- but that doesn’t matter.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Reblogged this on pundit from another planet.