It's about Cheneying time. Give em' hell Harry!

when you've got one party whose guiding philosophy is "government is the problem," it's really no surprise that they're not interested in governing (or letting anyone else govern).
if government is indeed the problem, why the hell don't they get out of it!

The more the Senate Majority Leader registers his outrage, the better.

The more he does something about it the better. Republicans can be pretty good about ignoring outrage, and if we have to wait for Reid to get outraged at every outrage, the Repubs have achieved their goal

I don't think Mr. Reid quite gets it, even yet. He has to mount the Democratic train, push the throttle full forward, and run down the track full speed.

If Mr. Reid doesn't know how to do that -- and he hasn't shown any ability at all, ever -- then perhaps a suggested replacement train engineer might be in order.

Reid's bark is a whine... Hell, Reid's bite is a whine.

Reid should take a lesson from Florida Rep. Alan Grayson. The corporate-controlled media routinely ignores anything that's said by an unapologetic progressive, no matter how accurate it is. Grayson was able to break through the MSM filter by saying something outrageous.

So forget comity. Give 'em hell, Harry.

Maybe it's time to start threatening the "nuclear option". Dems should get on every TV show possible shouting "Up 'r Down vote" and showing clips of the republican hissy fits from when they were in power. Maybe then Joe Lieberman would form the "gang of 12" to keep the Senate in business....Oh wait.

Can we give the "60 vote majority" bit a rest? Joe Lieberman is not a Democrat, he is a shit-smear on the heel of American democracy. Granted, the Democrats should strip him of all privileges and make him sit in the corner...

Pick a label (any label) and use it over and over when referencing the opposition party (Party of NO, Gridlock & Obstructionist Party, whatever) until it becomes part of the public discourse. I sensed the GOP 'leadership' was a bid concerned when Party of NO was just becoming popular. Return to it in spades.

Chris Hayes this week described these tactics as "a cancer growing inside the world's greatest deliberative body...

See, that's a large part of our problem. Americans are always claiming that anything American is "the world's greatest."

By what measures?

The fact that the Senate is so vulnerable to obstructionism suggests that it's actually not such a great deliberative body. They don't really do much deliberating.

No so long ago, in relative terms, our leaders and teachers would refer to our nation as a great expirement, allowing for the possibility that some things may need to be tweaked to improve the quality of the nation.

Now everyone goes around declaring that we have the greatest this or that in the world. Anything that is the "greatest" must be preserved/conserved. This is the foundation of conservative thought.

The country was already the proclaimed to be the "greatest in the world" when it sanctioned slavery, Jim Crow, and the oppression of women. Conservatives murdered, mutilated, and maimed to conserve it's greatness.

Fast forward to 2008, when to suggest that the country is in need of humilty and change is to be a liberal/apologist/socialist/surrender monkey.

Until this nation stops resting on its laurels and strives to provide liberty and justice for all, not just christian white men
(the traits that define the republican senate caucus), it will never be as great as it can be.

There is a huge difference between the threat of a fillibuster and the actual thing. Harry should make them do it - every time - make them sleep in the chamber, read the phone book, read the healthcare bill, whatever. Faux news can ignore it and Rachel Maddow can become a superstar, explaining everyday why NOTHING is getting done. Republicans introduce no bills, hold up everything, and now they are reading the phonebook instead of solving the nations problems.

Good theater.

I don't think Mr. Reid quite gets it, even yet. He has to mount the Democratic train, push the throttle full forward, and run down the track full speed.

Damn fine words. I just don't know how Reid is supposed to get 'r done with a handful of blue dogs and Joe Lieberman in the caucus. Reid doesn't have the votes railroad much of anything through the Senate.

What sort of a stick does Reid have to with which to beat recalcitrant members of the caucus when he needs every single vote to break a fillibuster? Without a few Republicans willing to break ranks, Reid is pretty well effed.

It should be no surprise that conservative states elect conservative Democrats. The problem is no liberal or even moderate Republicans with which to work.

If Harry Reid is so dismayed by Republican obstructionism, then I suggest he make them actually filibuster: the whole Jimmy Stewart.

Frankly, there never seems to be much difficulty in getting defense appropriations or farm subsidies through.

If some arcane Senate Rule prevents the Democrats from acting now ( even though it somehow never prevented the Republicans from acting when they were in the majority ) then that same rule should apply to the pro-Republican portions also.

AK, not only can Harry use the rules of the Senate more effectively, he can also take those god damn gutless wonders (moderate and conservative democrats) wheel and deal them into political solidarity with whatever threats and promises it takes.

What sort of a stick does Reid have to with which to beat recalcitrant members of the caucus when he needs every single vote to break a fillibuster? Without a few Republicans willing to break ranks, Reid is pretty well effed.

Very obviously the Democrats should use the same stick the Republicans used when they were in the majority.

This point is so obvious that I am left to wonder why, exactly, I or anybody else needs to raise it.

Duncan, unfortunately, the club the republicans used was (mostly) the spinelessness of the democrats, and that only works in one direction.

I wish MSM and Internet media would stop ranting about the 60 supermajority the Dems "have" in the Senate: they don't. Lieberman alone screws the math and there is, without him, no magic 60. He only gets worse, I can count in the finger of, well, one finger the time(s) he's voted of late the caucus to which he grants his whining, arrogant presence. What the Dems need is five more senators, and the guts to revoke the dangerous, undemocratic 60 cloture rule which allows an irrational, factless, resentful, lying, vicious minority to hold the government and the people hostage.

As far as I can tell American democracy is already attentuated to the point of snapping, distorted beyond any ordinary definition of 'democracy.' It's nostalgic to refer to the Senate as the world's greatest deliberative body.

Dose Meanie wepublicans won't be nice and when dey pick on us what can we do but wet dem puck on us. Ohmigod if we filibuster de planet will top spwinning.
We will wose our majority dat wets us do what we want to do.

We needs 200 notes to bweak a fulibwusta beccwas my fwends wike Howe woe won't vote wit us unless we gwivz him impotent pwosition and he my fwend so when he tell me to go fwuk
Myswelf and I gwo and fwuk myself I need two more wotes when I'm
Done. It wall adds up two two hundwed wotes.

Reid should build a tote board. A freaking big one. Number of cloture votes, number of blocked pieces of legislation and number of blocked judges, for every one of the last 15 congresses (last thirty years)

Go ahead and show how many the D's did when they were in charge with a D president and an R President. Be prepared to explain the numbers on the D side.

The numbers this year and last will be much much bigger than any previous year. Every time the R's block something, have a marching band play and ceremonially up the tote board by one.

If everyone can see it happening and see the numbers grow, they'll stop.

The problem is the Senate believes they are a dignified deliberating body. No House antics for them. Ha. Actually, compared to the British Parliament, our Congress acts like a bunch of old fogies.
Getting back to the Senate, they have managed to create an ungovernable group, much as California has created an ungovernable state. Not only are the rules arcane and labyrinthine, the minority can hold the majority hostage.
No wonder no one follows politics closely. It's nuts.

I don't know the procedure to follow, but they need to change the cloture rule so that instead of 60% of the whole Senate, 60% of those present and voting would be enough.

Thank you, Winkandanod. Beautifully said.

I was in the Navy 1991-2001 and it's often clear when something happened before you got in. We passed rules on sexual harassment well before I got in. Something else also happened. It was also clear that a tiny group of females had been taking improper advantage of those rules to demand unwarranted privileges. When I took sexual harassment training in boot camp, it was clear that the Navy had several regulations in addition to the usual ones. There were clear incentives and penalties designed to see to it that the rules were used only for preventing and/or punishing sexual harassment.
What Reid needed to do as soon a Senator Franken was sworn in, was to institute rules limiting the use of the filibuster so that would be more difficult to abuse it.

Good article, but I have one historical nit to pick. While Reid may be "the first Majority Leader in the history of the republic to also have to assemble supermajorities on every single vote of any consequence," that's only because we've only had majority leaders since the 1920s. Under President Andrew Johnson, President pro tempore Ben Wade had to assemble supermajorities for every vote, because Johnson vetoed every single bill sent to him. The failure of Reconstruction can be traced directly to this failure of our system of government, a failure that today's Republicans are attempting to emulate.

So when will Harry blow away the filibuster forever? That can be done by majority vote. Once you get past the Republican filibusters.....

Incidentally, Andrew Johnson should have been convicted.