FRIDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Dubai World, a government investment company, seems to be out of money. Global markets did not respond well to the news.

* More on the Iran news tomorrow: "The United Nations nuclear watchdog's governing board voted overwhelmingly Friday to censure Iran for its defiant nuclear policies, and demanded an immediate halt to work on an uranium-enrichment plant built in secret in mountain tunnels south of the Iranian capital."

* Some political progress in Baghdad: "Iraqi politicians pushed ahead Friday with a compromise over a contested election law, awaiting approval from Kurdish officials on a deal that would increase the number of seats in parliament as a way to mute criticism and allow a vote crucial to U.S. plans in the country to go forward."

* In Afghanistan, much of the Taliban's control rests in the southern part of the country. More recently, however, it's power is growing in the north, threatening, among other things, a NATO supply line.

* Need a refresher on what the controversy surrounding the PMA Group is all about? Here's a good primer.

* Helpful report from Robert Schlesinger on "The Staggering Rise of the Filibuster."

* I realize the Tea Party crowd is pretty extreme, but what kind of people publicly heckle a grieving family?

* Mike Wooten speaks, and he's calling Sarah Palin's book "a pack of lies." It's not an uncommon assessment.

* Since when does student-loan debt interfere with becoming an attorney?

* So, how did Tareq and Michaele Salahi get into the White House's state dinner this week? And will they face charges as a result?

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

ROVE'S INTEREST IN AN 'HONEST APPRAISAL'.... When Karl Rove helped run the White House, he accepted certain beliefs as truths. He believed, for example, turning massive surpluses into massive deficits was entirely reasonable. He believed reckless tax cuts for the already rich were an example of responsible governing. He believed expanding the size of government, adding to entitlements, increasing the federal role in education, and putting it all on future generations' tab, was perfectly sensible. He believed fiscal responsibility was a punch-line.

And now that Karl Rove is outside the White House, he believes he's entitled to complain about deficits from his perch in the media establishment.

What seems to concern the president is not the problem runaway spending poses for taxpayers and the economy. Rather, what bothers him is the political problem it poses for Democrats.

Last year, Mr. Obama made fiscal restraint a constant theme of his presidential campaign. "Washington will have to tighten its belt and put off spending," he said back then, while pledging to "go through the federal budget, line by line, ending programs that we don't need." Voters found this fiscal conservatism reassuring.

However, since taking office Mr. Obama pushed through a $787 billion stimulus, a $33 billion expansion of the child health program known as S-chip, a $410 billion omnibus appropriations spending bill, and an $80 billion car company bailout. He also pushed a $821 billion cap-and-trade bill through the House and is now urging Congress to pass a nearly $1 trillion health-care bill.

Rove wants to see an "honest appraisal" of where we are. Good idea. The stimulus was necessary because Rove's old boss left the president an economy on the verge of wholesale collapse. S-CHIP expansion was necessary because Rove's old boss rejected a bipartisan measure to help low-income children go to the doctor. Rescuing the auto industry was necessary because it was a continuation of Rove's old boss' policy and the nation couldn't afford to cut off American manufacturing at the knees at the height of the recession. Cap and trade, Rove neglected to mention, wouldn't add to the deficit, and is necessary because Rove's old boss ignored the climate crisis for eight years. The health care reform bill would cut the deficit significantly, and is necessary because Rove's old boss fiddled while the dysfunctional health care system got worse.

That's an "honest appraisal."

Rove added, "When Mr. Obama was sworn into office the federal deficit for this year stood at $422 billion. At the end of October, it stood at $1.42 trillion."

Rove may not be smart enough to understand this, so I'll try to make the explanation simple for him.

—Steve Benen 4:15 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (18)

EVOLVING PUBLIC OPTION CHOICES.... If the policy choices boil down to a public option in the health care reform bill or a "triggered" public option, I think the choice is pretty obvious. As we've talked about before, the underlying assumption behind the trigger is that public option would help lower costs, expand access, and use competition to improve efficiency. But these improvements should be put off, the argument goes, as we wait to see if maybe private insurers can achieve these goals on their own.

Of course, as is often the case when debating health care, the details matter. It's not just the public option vs. the trigger -- we're looking at a landscape in which watered-down versions of a public option are being considered alongside competing kinds of triggers.

On the spectrum of choices, I still think triggers are towards the "useless" end of the scale. That said, I can imagine a carefully-structured trigger that could work fairly well. Nearly all of the trigger ideas that have been floated thus far aren't close, but that's not to say it's impossible.

With that in mind, the Urban Institute has a constructive idea to offer.

Democrats searching for a compromise on health care reform may find a little Thanksgiving light in a new policy paper out Wednesday: Skip a "weak" public option now in favor of a much stronger one that would kick in automatically if the health industry doesn't meet its promises to slow the growth in medical costs.

The paper, from the Washington-based Urban Institute, offers a fresh look at the whole public option debate, casting the issue as "one of fiscal conservatism" -- more about containing health costs than extending benefits to the uninsured.

Its authors accept the likelihood of a trigger as proposed by Republican moderates but suggest it be tied to proven government data on national health expenditures rather than some new index to measure the affordability of coverage. And, in effect, the health industry would be given a three- to four-year test period to show its ability to slow the growth in costs.

Failure would trigger a more powerful public insurance competitor than either the House or the Senate has yet embraced -- one that challenges not just the market power of insurers but also providers, especially hospitals.

"A strong version is necessary because there is little else in health reform that can be counted on to contribute significantly to cost containment in the short term," the authors write. A trigger means delay, but "even the threat of such a plan being triggered offers the potential to affect market dynamics between insurers and providers."

By comparison, if only a watered-down public option survives and costs continue to rise unchecked, both insurers and providers face the prospect of even greater government regulation of private-sector prices, the authors warn. "Indeed, a strong public option competing on a level playing field with private plans paradoxically might be the best 'last chance' for competition to work."

I maintain that Harry Reid deserves a lot of credit for sticking with the public option, and including it in the Senate bill that's headed to the floor. But the remaining public option is not well positioned to deliver on the underlying promise of the idea. As Tim F. put it, "I hope that the rest of the health care bill is freaking awesome. I really do. Because without some major changes the public option is going to suck. What will stop insurers from dumping expensive undesirables into a public ghetto? A guilty conscience?"

Igor Volsky fleshed this out in additional detail, pointing to some of the shortcomings that have become more apparent as the public option has been watered down.

What's more, Josh Marshall wrote earlier this week that what's left of the public option is "measly," and not worth delaying the larger reform effort over, because of very limited eligibility, and the likelihood that it would become "a dumping ground for what health care policy types call 'creaming' -- health insurers wanting to maintain pools of the young and the healthy and dump responsibility for the aged and chronically ill on to public programs or on to nothing at all."

Which brings us back to the question of what kind of trigger we're talking about here. If Snowe and Nelson are thinking about triggering in state-based co-ops in 2018, then this is a rather pointless endeavor. But if there's a possibility that trigger advocates are serious about crafting a meaningful policy -- by no means a given -- there's an avenue that reform advocates might find appealing.

FRIDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* James Bopp Jr. is defending his "purity test" for Republican candidates seeking RNC support in the 2010 elections. He called it an "effective way to regain trust with conservative voters that has been undermined" by G.O.P. financial support for "liberal Republican ticket-switchers."

* Now that Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman appears to be done conceding and unconceding, he's made it clear that he will seek a re-match in New York's 23rd next year.

* Another poll shows Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard (D) looking very strong against incumbent Gov. Jan Brewer (R) in a hypothetical match-up, 47% to 28%.

* After his surprisingly strong showing in the city's recent mayoral race, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. (D) is weighing a variety of possible races next year, including a possible primary campaign against appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

* Nevada's gubernatorial race remains rather unpredictable at this point. If Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman runs as an independent, a Nevada News Bureau poll shows Bush-appointed federal judge Brian Sandoval (R) leading a three-way contest.

* "Draft Dick Cheney 2012" got to work today. Good luck with that.

* A right-wing group called Tea Party Nation will host the "First National Tea Party Convention" in Nashville in early February. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) will be a featured speaker, and Sarah Palin will serve as keynote speaker.

* Palin has raised the notion of running on a national ticket with Glenn Beck. The Fox News personality suggested he wouldn't be interested, because the half-term governor would always be "yapping" from "the kitchen."

A DIFFERENT KIND OF WAR-TIME SACRIFICE.... Lincoln raised taxes to pay for the Civil War. McKinley raised taxes to finance the Spanish-American War. Wilson raised the top income tax rate to 77% to afford WWI. Taxes were raised, multiple times, to help the nation pay for WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Even the first President Bush raised taxes after the first war with Iraq to keep the deficit from spiraling out of control. It was simply understood -- responsible leaders from both parties realized that wars were expensive, and had to be paid for.

What we saw from George W. Bush and Republican lawmakers during his two terms was without precedent in American history -- policymakers cut taxes during a war, ran huge deficits, and effectively asked future generations to pay for our current national security agenda. The two ongoing conflicts have cost, by some estimates, $1 trillion and counting.

Attention now turns to how President Obama will respond to the same dilemma. If the administration sends an additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, it would cost about $30 billion per year over existing spending on the war. Some savings are gained as we withdraw from Iraq, but the costs are quickly absorbed by the war in Afghanistan.

Bruce Bartlett reflects today on the growing interest in returning to the historical norm.

The White House has given no indication of how it plans to pay for expanding the war in Afghanistan. More than likely, it will follow the Bush precedent and just put it all on the national credit card. But at least some members of Congress believe that the time has come to start paying for war. On Nov. 19, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., introduced H.R. 4130, the "Share the Sacrifice Act of 2010." It would establish a 1% surtax on everyone's federal income tax liability plus an additional percentage on those with a liability over $22,600 (for couples filing jointly), such that revenue from the surtax would pay for the additional cost of fighting the war in Afghanistan.

It's doubtful that this legislation will be enacted. But that's not Obey's purpose. He will probably offer it as an amendment at some point just to have a vote. Republicans in particular will be forced to choose between continuing to fight a war that they started and still strongly support, or raising taxes, which every Republican in Congress would rather drink arsenic than do. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see those who rant daily about Obama's deficits explain why they oppose fiscal responsibility when it comes to supporting our troops.

Obey makes no secret of his motives. He knows that deficits need to be reduced at some point and this will put pressure on spending programs he supports. "If we don't address the cost of this war, we will continue shoving billions of dollars in taxes off on future generations and will devour money that could be used to rebuild our economy," Obey explained in a press statement.

It's also a test for the public. Support for escalation in Afghanistan appears, by some measures, to be growing. The question then becomes fairly straightforward -- do Americans expect future generations to pick up the tab, or do they support higher taxes now to pay for the conflict?

THE EFFICACY OF GUN DATA.... We've learned in recent weeks that Nidal Hasan's communications with a radical cleric had come to the attention of the FBI, which had begun investigating the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood massacre. Federal officials did not, however, know about Hasan's purchase of a handgun -- a move that would likely have brought greater scrutiny before the shootings.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) and former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean (R) write this morning that the FBI couldn't have known about Hasan's firearms purchase because of a shift in the law, approved several years ago. The curb on gun data, they argue, can and should be fixed.

During the Clinton administration, the FBI had access to records of gun background checks for up to 180 days. But in 2003, Congress began requiring that the records be destroyed within 24 hours. This requirement, one of the many restrictions on gun data sponsored by Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), meant that Hasan's investigators were blocked from searching records to determine whether he or other terrorist suspects had purchased guns. When Hasan walked out of Guns Galore in Killeen, Tex., the FBI had only 24 hours to recognize and flag the record -- and then it was gone, forever.

As former FBI agent Brad Garrett has said, "The piece of information about the gun could have been critical. One of the problems is that the law sometimes restricts you in what you can do."

The Tiahrt amendments passed by Congress interfere with preserving, sharing and investigating data on gun purchases by terrorist suspects. If that weren't bad enough, Congress has also failed to close a gap in federal law that prevents the FBI from blocking a sale to an individual under investigation for terrorist activity.

To put this in a slightly larger perspective, if the FBI is investigating someone who may have terrorist ties, that person will be put on a no-fly list. That same person, however, is free to purchase firearms, and the FBI will likely not know. In other words, those suspected of terrorist activity can't buy a plane ticket, but they can buy a semi-automatic.

The fatal lesson we learned on Sept. 11 was that, if we are going to protect innocent Americans from terrorists, we must break down the walls standing between federal agencies and effective investigative practices. The attack at Fort Hood was a tragic reminder that such walls still exist. Until Congress shows the political courage to tear them down, there will be more catastrophic breaches of national security and more tragic loss of life.

The Bush administration sought a change in the law, but Congress, listening to the gun lobby, ignored the request. The Obama administration wants the same change -- Attorney General Eric Holder reminded lawmakers about this last week -- though there's a limited political appetite for closing the existing gun-data gap.

Here's hoping the Fort Hood tragedy changes the equation.

LONG OVERDUE.... In 1987, the Reagan administration and then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) imposed a travel and immigration ban more than two decades ago on those who are HIV-positive. The result has included separated families, avoided medical tests, and highly-skilled workers taking their expertise elsewhere.

About a month ago, President Obama announced that he's ending the ban, calling it a decision "rooted in fear rather than fact." This week, the L.A. Times reported on the timeline and the people who'll benefit.

A stamp in Heidemarie Kremer's passport reveals her health status as HIV-positive.

Because of the disease, Kremer -- a native of Germany -- has been barred from becoming a legal resident of the United States. She and her two children are fighting possible deportation, and their plans for the future are on hold.

But that soon may change.

This month, the federal government cleared the way for HIV-positive foreigners to visit the country and apply for green cards, lifting a bar that has been in place for more than two decades. [...]

The new rules, including the elimination of HIV testing for green-card applicants, take effect Jan. 4.

"To finally be in a position where I can tell people that they can come to the United States to visit their family or that they can get a green card and stay here with their partner is just incredible," said Victoria Neilson, legal director for Immigration Equality, a national organization that advocated for lifting the ban.

It's about time.

PALIN AND THE OTHER MEDICARE.... Former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin (R) was asked a question the other day about Canada's Medicare system. The question wasn't especially serious -- it came from a satirical television show -- but the answer was pretty interesting.

At a recent stop on her "Going Rogue" book tour, Sarah Palin told Canadian comedian Mary Walsh that Canada should get rid of its public health care system.

Walsh is the co-creator and star of This Hour Has 22 Minutes -- a nightly news parody show in the same vein as The Daily Show -- and she arrived in character, as the conservative Marg Delahunty, to the Borders where Palin (the "Alaskan Aphrodite") was signing books.

"I just wanted to ask you if you have any words of encouragement for Canadian conservatives who have worked so hard to try to diminish the kind of socialized medicine we have up there." Walsh shouted to Palin as she approached the table.

Palin's handlers tried to help her by ushering Walsh out of the Borders, but Palin could not be deterred. When Palin left the signing, Walsh caught up with her in the parking lot, where Palin suggested that Canada should get rid of its public health care system. "Keep the faith," Palin said, "because common sense conservatism can be plugged in there in Canada too. In fact, Canada needs to reform its health care system and let the private sector take over some of what the government has absorbed."

A few things to consider here. First, as Igor Volsky explained, Palin's confused about the role of the private sector in the Canadian system.

Second, Palin may be convinced that Canada "needs to reform its health care system," but Canadians strongly disagree. (Indeed, the last thing most of the industrialized world wants is a health care system more like ours.)

And third, if Palin thinks Canada's Medicare system should be at least partially privatized, does she also believe America's Medicare system, which is very similar, should also be partially privatized? Indeed, would destroying Medicare as we know it be part of what she considers "common-sense conservatism"?

SEEING THE ASIA TRIP IN A NEW LIGHT.... During and after President Obama's week-long trip to Asia, major U.S. media outlets were dismissive and derisive about the effort. Political reporters insisted the administration hadn't actually gained anything, and by coming home empty-handed, the president had wasted his time.

White House officials have been frustrated by the media's spin, insisting that the trip would pay dividends. The Atlantic's James Fallows has been a leading critic of American outlets' coverage of the diplomatic efforts.

Yesterday, Fallows followed up, noting more "evidence of failure" in the wake of the president's excursion.

Today in the NYT: "China Joins U.S. in Pledge of Hard Targets on Emissions"

Today in the Washington Post: "China's backing on Iran followed dire predictions; Before Obama's visit, NSC warned leaders of Mideast turmoil"

Today in the (state run) China Daily: "Mainland may pull some missiles.... Beijing might consider removing a portion of its missile arsenal in South China, a long-held precondition by Taiwan for peaceful cross-Straits ties, a mainland expert said Wednesday."

Today also in the China Daily: "DPRK top leader meets visiting Chinese defense minister"

Along with the failure indicated yesterday, also in the China Daily: "RMB rate fine-tuning is possible"

If we're lucky, the Obama administration will have plenty more "failures" like these in the coming years.

A NEW WAY OF DOING BUSINESS.... Nearly all of this work is done below the radar, but dozens of government agencies hear from hundreds of official advisory committees, featuring tens of thousands of unpaid members. In general, the panels are made up of people with a certain expertise in obscure areas of public policy, representing companies, trade groups, or advocacy organizations.

It's a fairly standard practice for these advisory committees to include plenty of lobbyists. It's a practice the Obama administration is changing.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of lobbyists are likely to be ejected from federal advisory panels as part of a little-noticed initiative by the Obama administration to curb K Street's influence in Washington, according to White House officials and lobbying experts.

The new policy -- issued with little fanfare this fall by the White House ethics counsel -- may turn out to be the most far-reaching lobbying rule change so far from President Obama, who also has sought to restrict the ability of lobbyists to get jobs in his administration and to negotiate over stimulus contracts. [...]

Under the policy, which is being phased in over the coming months, none of the more than 13,000 lobbyists in Washington would be able to hold seats on the committees, which advise agencies on trade rules, troop levels, environmental regulations, consumer protections and thousands of other government policies.

Norm Eisen, the White House ethics counsel, recently explained, "Some folks have developed a comfortable Beltway perch sitting on these boards while at the same time working as lobbyists to influence the government. That is just the kind of special interest access that the president objects to."

As one might imagine, this isn't going over well on K Street, but good-government advocates seem pleased. Common Cause' Mary Boyle added, "You may lose a lot of expertise, but these people are also paid to have a point of view; they have an agenda. We support what the administration is doing to get deep-seated special interests out of the business of running our government, so this seems like a step in the right direction."

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.... Just a quick housekeeping note for readers checking in today. I'll be around, and will check in if something important comes up, but I don't expect to have much in the way of content today. I'll be back tomorrow morning.

Also, in light of the holiday, I thought I'd take a moment to share my thanks to all of you. I appreciate your interest, support, and encouragement, and wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

As for the news of the day, the White House issued President Obama's weekly address this morning, pointing to what will hopefully be a better year ahead.

WEDNESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Iraq: "At least 10 people were reported killed Wednesday in Iraq, including four who perished in twin bombings near a revered Shiite shrine in Karbala. The other six were members of a family whose home north of Baghdad was raided overnight by suspected insurgents, according to Iraqi authorities."

* Good news on the economic front: "[T]he number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell below 500,000 last week for the first time since January.... The number of people filing first-time claims for jobless aid fell by 35,000 to 466,000, the Labor Department said Wednesday. That was the fewest since September of last year. And it was far better than the 500,000 economists had expected."

* More good news on the economic front: "Consumer spending ticked upward in October, the Commerce Department estimated today, a marked reversal from the month before."

* When President Obama unveils the future of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, he'll do so in a speech at West Point.

* Soon after the president's remarks, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hear directly from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

* In a bit of a surprise, support for additional troops in Afghanistan is growing, not shrinking.

* Israeli officials today approved a 10-month settlement freeze, but the exceptions to the policy make it controversial.

* The U.S. delegation to Copenhagen next month will include Al Gore.

* More lists from the White House visitor logs.

* The media gave Sarah Palin all kinds of attention last week -- more than most Americans were interested in.

* Phillip Carter resigned this week from the Defense Department after just seven months on the job. He cited "personal reasons," which by all accounts, is the truth.

* Alex Koppelman and Mike Madden have a nice overview on why the Senate leadership aren't anxious to approve health care legislation through the reconciliation process.

* One step closer to impeachment proceedings against South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R).

* If John McCain wants to talk about "viciousness" and "personalization" in political attacks, we can oblige.

* Over time, policymakers shifted their focus away from class size in K-12. The same shift is underway in higher ed.

* Of the 10 longest pieces of congressional legislation considered over the last decade, five of the bills were written by Republicans. (If the GOP were willing to consider ending the whining about the length of the health care bill, now would be a very good time.)

* For Dana Perino, maybe Bush's first term doesn't count.

* And finally, as presidential pardons for Thanksgiving turkeys go, today's was pretty amusing.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

EMPIRICISM ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE POLITICIZED.... Back during the presidential campaign, Barack Obama offered a spirited defense of empiricism. "The thing I think people should feel confident in is that I'm going to make these judgments not based on some fierce ideological pre-disposition but based on what makes sense," the candidate said. "I'm a big believer in evidence. I'm a big believer in fact."

After years of an administration that boasted of its ability to create its "own reality," Obama's approach -- then and now -- comes as something of a relief.

It's why I was struck by this Victor Davis Hanson column for National Review, which argues that the president has gone to "war against reason." Given that reality suggests the opposite is true, this seemed like an odd argument for a conservative to make.

But to bolster his case, Hanson notes that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has determined the unemployment rate for decades. The problem, as he sees it, is that the White House is now also releasing information on jobs "created or saved" since economic recovery efforts got underway. And that's bad, apparently, because while the job landscape has worsened as a result of the recession Obama inherited, the administration is now also reporting data on jobs that would have been cut were it not for the stimulus.

And how is this evidence of undermining empiricism? I haven't the foggiest idea. Jon Chait tries to make sense of the argument.

Ok. Hanson doesn't say that the Obama administration has suppressed or altered the BLS's calculation of unemployment. He charges it with creating another website that attempts to calculate how many jobs were saved by the stimulus -- a premise that is shared by the major macroeconomic forecasting firms. Hanson seems to further believe that this figure is intended as a substitute for the unemployment level, betraying an inability to grasp the distinction between the current unemployment rate and how many jobs were saved as a result of the stimulus.

How can anybody not understand the difference between these two things? His chain of reasoning is just so wildly illogical you can't even refute it.

If I had a nickel for every time I had that thought after reading something at National Review, I could retire.

—Steve Benen 4:35 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (22)

IT DIDN'T USED TO BE THIS WAY.... We've heard "it takes 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate" so many times over the last several years, much of the political world has more or less internalized the argument. Requiring supermajorities on everything has slowly become routine, and it rarely occurs to the establishment and those who cover it to question the dramatic shift.

"[I]f all our supporters are present and voting," Manatos noted, "we would win by a vote of 55 to 45."

Imagine that. An important piece of legislation could be approved by the Senate if "only" 55 senators out of 100 supported it. In 1965, a 55-vote majority in the Senate meant a victory. In 2009, a 56-vote majority in the Senate means a defeat. Or, more accurately, a 56-vote majority can't even get a bill brought to the floor for a vote in the first place.

Ezra added, "The filibuster of yesteryear, in other words, was not a supermajority requirement. It was closer to a tantrum. That's not to say it was never used to prevent a vote: Southerners did exactly that to block the Civil Rights Act, and Johnson was forced to find 67 votes to break their effort. But such measures were left for extraordinary moments, not built into the everyday workings of the body. The use of the filibuster has changed, and with it, so too has the Senate."

This is unsustainable. The Senate wasn't design to function this way, it didn't use to function this way, and the sooner majority-rule is brought back, the sooner the institution can help govern again.

ONE CLOTURE VOTE AFTER ANOTHER.... Reader R.H. emails this afternoon with an important procedural question. It's a subject that comes up from time to time, which leads me to think a lot of people may be interested in this. With R.H.'s permission, I'm republishing the note:

...We currently have one health care reform bill passed. That's the House's. It provides for a public option.

The strong likelihood is that the Senate bill will not provide a public option. So for argument's sake, let's say it's passed and has no public option.

These bills will have to be resolved in conference. That means it will either need to take from the House bill and provide a public option or take from the Senate bill and not provide a public option.

Again for argument's sake, let's say we take from the House bill and provide a public option in the final legislation. Ah, but this needs to pass the Senate again, right?

But I believe that the final vote on the conference bill is not subject to cloture votes, meaning that the final conference resolution only needs to pass by a simple majority. And if it were just a matter of a simple majority, the Senate bill WOULD have a public option. So... wouldn't the final conference resolution providing a public option then pass the Senate by a simple majority and proceed onto the President's desk?

I wish this were the case, but it's not. The final, post-conference bill will return to the Senate where it will face the last in a series of filibusters.

And what a series it is. It took a supermajority to bring the bill to the floor for a debate; it will take another supermajority to let the Senate vote on the bill and send it to conference; and it will take another supermajority to let the Senate vote on the final, once-and-for-all bill.

The vision presented by R.H. would certainly expedite matters. The leadership could approve a more modest bill, in line with the demands of Nelson, Landrieu, Lieberman, and Lincoln, and send it conference. The White House could send back a much stronger bill, in line with the House approach, and there'd be nothing center-right Dems could do about it.

Alas, that's not the case. In fact, after the grueling task of getting the Senate bill to a point at which it can garner 60 votes, I suspect those center-right hold-outs will make a fairly explicit threat to the president and the House negotiators: "You change one letter of this thing and we'll filibuster it when the bill gets back from conference."

So, to make a short story long, post-conference bill are filibusterable. Something to keep in mind as the process continues to unfold.