Daily Kos

The White House has indicated that it will use the bully pulpit to garner public support for allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire on people earning more than $250,000 a year, but the meat of the negotiating won't be done in public, says Roll Call, and leadership staff. It will be down to President Obama, House Speaker Boehner, and with any luck, Senate Majority Leader Reid.

Boehner and Democratic leaders know they have to get their respective rank-and-file members in line so they can find room to negotiate. So this week they will take the temperatures of their respective caucuses on taxes and entitlements, putting hard negotiations on hold until Friday, when they’re scheduled to meet at the White House. [...]

Still, differences between even the leaders and White House will be hard to bridge. Republican aides say the White House needs to come through with serious entitlement reforms as well as work within Boehner’s bottom line of letting the top tax rate rise beyond the Bush-era rate of 35 percent. “The more real you can make it, that you are making real and lasting reforms to entitlements, the easier it should be to sell,” the GOP aide said of Boehner’s conference.

Republicans are waiting to see whether rank-and-file Democrats might be willing to swallow items like an increasing the Medicare retirement age to 67—something that was on the table during debt limit talks a year ago—or slowing cost-of-living adjustments under Social Security, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has opposed.

Meanwhile, Democrats question whether Boehner can find the votes for any package before hitting the cliff Jan. 1, when pressure will ramp up on Congress as citizens’ taxes go up.

Plenty of Democrats, tending to be more reality based, recognize that this is less of a cliff than a slope and that the world isn't going to come crashing down on Jan. 1 if an agreement isn't made by then. A willingness to just let it all expire takes a hostage away from Republicans, and takes away the manufactured crisis grand bargainers are trying to exploit to make deeper spending cuts. Senate Democrats are in the position to force that, and to resist the Medicare and Social Security cuts the White House had been willing to make in the last negotiating effort.

It makes sense for Senate Democrats to continue to resist any bad deal until next year, when Reid will have a stronger caucus and can fight Republican obstruction better with filibuster reform.

Bobby Jindal knows the GOP has a problem:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Monday called on Republicans to “stop being the stupid party” and make a concerted effort to reach a broader swath of voters with an inclusive economic message that pre-empts efforts to caricature the GOP as the party of the rich.

By "the stupid party," Jindal was apparently referring to comments like those by Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock about rape and comments by Mitt Romney about immigration. And on the economic side:

“We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,” Jindal told POLITICO in a 45-minute telephone interview. “We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.”

So Jindal seems to understand that Republicans have a serious problem with women, Latinos, and the broad perception that Republicans are the party for the rich. And what does he plan to do about it? According to Jonathan Martin's reporting, not much—with the possible exception of banking, where Jindal expressed openness to something like the Volker rule.

But when it comes to an issue like abortion, Jindal doesn't think the GOP should change its policies—just that the Mourdocks and Akins of the world need to do a better job of defending them.

In order to appeal to Latinos, Jindal says Republicans must reject "identity politics" and instead support policies that treat people as "individuals." But unless you're willing to help lead a comprehensive immigration reform plan that allows undocumented Americans to come out of the shadows, talking about treating people as individuals is nothing but hot air—which is exactly why Republicans already have a problem.

On education policy, Jindal said Republicans should support allowing families to take money away from public schools and put it in private and parochial schools. In other words, Republicans should stay the course.

On energy policy, Jindal said he didn't like the "drill, baby, drill" slogan, but his idea of comprehensive energy policy means including natural gas and oil—not a serious push for green energy. Sure, he pays green energy lip service, but don't forget, it was the Bush administration that originally supported federal aid for Solyndra.

Bottom line: Jindal understands Republicans have a problem, but if he knows what the problem is, he is demonstrating no interest in solving it. Yes, he thinks Republicans shouldn't be quite as boneheaded as they were this election, but the GOP's real problem isn't with tone, it's with substance.

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson On Tuesday, 66 percent of Albuquerque voters voted to raise the city's minimum wage to $8.50 and tie it to inflation, with tipped workers also getting an increase to 60 percent of the regular minimum. By Saturday, there was talk of the city council overturning the will of the voters:

According to city legal staff, repealing or amending the new minimum wage hike could be done with a simple majority of city councilors and the mayor's approval. Effectively, six people could undo the pay raise.

Council President Trudy Jones, Councilor Dan Lewis and Mayor Richard J. Berry were all on the record before Tuesday's vote as being opposed to a minimum-wage hike. With five city councilors considered friendly to the mayor and a sixth likely to be appointed once current councilor Debbie O'Malley moves over to her newly elected post on the Bernalillo County Commission, the votes may be there for a repeal.

In phone interviews with KRQE News 13, Jones and Lewis said they are looking at the option of repealing the new wage hike through council action but did not commit to moving ahead with that idea.

Two out of three Albuquerque voters—more than 139,000 of them—want to increase the minimum wage, giving 40,000 Albuquerque workers a raise. Six city councilors could undo it. It's mind-boggling.

To be fair, this isn't without precedent in Albuquerque. In 2005, voters narrowly rejected a minimum wage measure, and six months later, the city council, led by now-Sen. Martin Heinrich, increased the minimum wage. The initial vote, though, was held in October in a low-turnout local election, with just 60 percent as many people voting on the measure overall as voted to raise the minimum wage this year. There were fewer than one-third as many votes against the increase in 2005 than there were for it in 2012. A lot more people spoke this year, and much more strongly.

The odds of Rep. Allen West emerging victorious in his reelection bid get longer by the day. He's far enough behind in balloting to be unlikely to catch up, and so far his legal efforts have been laughable. But that doesn't mean he's not going to continue to scream "fraud" and keep fighting. His campaign is declaring that the supervisor of elections in St. Lucie County is trying to “steal the election for Patrick Murphy.”

“West for Congress will pursue every legal means necessary to ensure a fair election, not only to ensure Gertrude Walker is held accountable, but also ultimately replaced, so the citizens of St. Lucie County will be ensured fair and accurate elections,” he said in the statement.

This is stemming from the definitely unorthodox partial recount St. Lucie County elections conducted over the weekend. They determined that there were errors with their tabulating machines reading some of the memory cartridges containing ballots from early voting, but that it was limited to only the last three days of the eight-day early vote, so they limited the recount to those days. West gained votes in that recount, and not entirely unreasonably, wants the entire early vote recounted. In addition, he still has a hearing pending to have the machines and ballots for the entire vote in St. Lucie impounded. That hearing has apparently not been scheduled.

Even with the gain West made in the partial recount, though, he's still well outside of the margin of votes necessary to trigger a full recount. He's also probably outside the margin for taking the lead in a potential recount or with the handful of outstanding military and overseas ballots. He's lost. The final count that's going to be issued on Friday will prove that. He'll keep fighting, but taking it the courts will likely be a losing battle for him as well.

A losing battle, but an expensive one for Murphy, who has to keep a legal team on hand countering West's action. He's also got to get started preparing for his new official duties, and in fact is in Washington for orientation. So he's got his hands full, and doesn't need to also be worrying about where the money is going to come from to combat West's big war chest and rich backers.

Please chip in $3 to help Patrick Murphy fight this legal battle.

According to The Hill, the incoming House will have less than 218 supporters of Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge—a drop from 238 from the current House and less than a majority of the 435-member body. Although Norquist's organization claims 219 members of the incoming House have signed his pledge, The Hill reports that some of those members have renounced their support, dropping support below the 218 threshold.

On the Senate side, the numbers have dropped from 41 supporters to 39—less than the 40 needed for a filibuster. Of course, filibuster reform could make falling below that threshold less important, but it's still nice to see the numbers dropping.

It is always possible that members who renounced their support could flip-flop back in favor of it or new members could sign the pledge, but for now, Norquist can no longer claim to be the boss of either chamber.

The GOP is going to have to accept that Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will expire at the end of this year—and according to conservative pundit Byron York, they know it:

York says Republicans are "pretty nervous" about taxes because:

• Obama ran on a platform of ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy—and won.
• If we go over the "fiscal cliff" and all Bush tax cuts expire, they know that the president will propose extending tax cuts for income under $250,000—and they don't want to "find themselves in the position of defending tax cuts for the highest income brackets."
• They are pushing tax reform in the hopes of avoiding that scenario, but failing that, York said it's "unclear" whether they can stay unified in opposition to extending just tax cuts below $250,000.
• As far as tax reform goes, Republicans want something like what Mitt Romney proposed: a cap on deductions. (York didn't go into detail on whether Republicans would push for the other part of Romney's plan, which was to lower tax rates by 20 percent. Obviously, it was the rate cut that created the biggest problem with Romney's plan, not the cap on deductions. Obama has already proposed a similar, but more modest, cap and Democrats are interested in pursuing the idea now that Republicans are floating it.)

Whatever ultimately happens with tax reform, the key point here is that Democrats are in an excellent position to finally eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. It's not that Republicans are going to suddenly endorse the Democratic position, but they don't seem to have the heart to once again hold middle class tax cuts hostage in order to cut taxes on top earners. And the reason they don't have the heart to hold them hostage is that they realize that President Obama and Democrats are serious this time, unlike at the end of 2010.

Bottom line: the only thing that can stop the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expiring is if the White House or Democrats get cold feet. And the good news is that there's no sign of that happening.

Two interesting data points today. First is this:

Petitions for secession filed from Louisiana and Texas [on the White House petition site] have already received well over 10,000 signatures. Per the website's own rules, petitions that garner 25,000 signatures or more within 30 days require a response from the Obama administration.

The Texas petition has well exceeded 25,000 signatures, which means the White House has to respond.

Then there was this:

"In not too many years, Texas could switch from being all Republican to all Democrat,” [Texas Senator-elect Ted Cruz] said. “If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House. New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple. We won’t be talking about Ohio, we won’t be talking about Florida or Virginia, because it won’t matter. If Texas is bright blue, you can’t get to two-seventy electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist. We would become like the Whig Party. Our kids and grandkids would study how this used to be a national political party. ‘They had Conventions, they nominated Presidential candidates. They don’t exist anymore.'"

That's true. As I wrote in May:

Out of Laredo's 24,788 students, just 81 are Anglo. In Houston, just 8 percent of public schoolchildren are white, and that number is 5 percent in Dallas. In Fort Bend, 40 percent of kids were white in 2000. Today, it's 19 percent. Lubbok went from 42 percent to 28 percent.

In the entire state, 43.1 percent of public schoolchildren were Anglo in 2000, compared to just 30.5 percent. And if Republicans are hoping that those are undocumented immigrants, turns out that just 5.4 percent of Texans lack the proper paperwork. Yes, that's a serious number—1.2 million—but it won't save them in the long term.

Latinos are brown, and they're young, and if there's one thing Republicans can't deal with right now, it's young and brown. The only saving grace for Texas Anglos is that those Latinos are really young. But that won't last forever. Those kids grow up.

So Texans conservatives (you know, those "patriots") want to secede. I say, sure! Go for it! Take your Texas, and your two Republican senators, and your 24-12 House delegation (with its +12 boost for the Republican majority) and play at being an independent country for a few years. Maybe a decade.

And then you can all come back once Latinos have taken over the joint to help deliver even bigger Blue majorities.

Sound like a deal?

In the alternative, you can remain a part of America, respect this thing called "democracy," and brace yourself like you've never braced yourself. Because Texas is going to look like California some day. And that day is coming up fast.

Reposted from Comics by Tom Tomorrow

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson Papa John's CEO John Schnatter has been outspoken about how much he, as a greedy CEO, opposes Obamacare and will pass along to the customer the 10 to 14 cents it could add to the cost of each pizza. Immediately following President Barack Obama's reelection, Romney supporter Schnatter had a little more to say:

About a third of Papa John's employees are covered by the company's health insurance plan, although Schnatter said he has always wanted 100 percent of them on the plan. The rising costs of health insurance, he said, have been a deterrent.

"The good news is 100 percent of the population is going to have health insurance. We're all going to pay for it," he said, estimating the new law would cost the business $5 million to $8 million annually.

Under the Affordable Care Act, full-time employees—those working 30 hours or more per week—would have to be provided with insurance at companies with more than 50 workers. Schnatter said it was likely that some franchise owners would reduce employees' hours in order to avoid having to cover them.

You know who I don't take seriously when they say they really want everyone to have health insurance and it's a shame Obamacare isn't the right way to insure more people? People who run businesses where only a third of workers are insured. Like Darden Restaurants (the parent company of Red Lobster and Olive Garden, among others), which also said that Obamacare was what would be causing it to cut down on the 25 percent of its workers that got the 30 hours a week qualifying them for health insurance, Papa John's is one of the 50 largest low-wage employers, and it's a highly profitable one. So, no, "I'm so concerned that I might have to cut hours for some of the one in three employees I currently insure even though my 2011 revenues were $1.22 billion" is not the thing that makes me, personally, think "gosh, Obamacare really is putting intolerable burdens on businesses that want to take care of their workers but just might not be able to afford it."

But I'm not the target for this kind of talk. Will Republicans mobilize in Schnatter's defense? Failed Delaware Senate candidate and non-witch Christine O'Donnell wants to bring back that Chick-fil-A magic.

People who think low-wage, no-health-care jobs are a great thing should definitely go to Papa John's on Friday to make the political point that the company would be right to cut workers' hours. What's more, everyone who heeds O'Donnell's call should be sure the workers know why they're ordering this pizza on this day. Alternatively, they could just leave a "please spit on this pizza repeatedly" note when ordering each one.

Oh, Cathy McMorris-Rogers, don't ever change.

"I don't think it's about the Republican Party needing to become more moderate; I really believe it's the Republican Party becoming more modern," she said. "And whether it's Hispanics, whether it's women, whether it's young people, the Republican Party has to make it a priority to take our values, to take our vision to every corner of this country."

"I think it's more about the messenger and who's communicating our values to every corner of this country."

Yes, stick with that, Cathy. You can totally convince Hispanics, women, and young people that the Republican Party in 1950 is the place for them to be. Just like Paul Ryan was able to do with old white people when he was so convinced that his coupons for Medicare scheme wasn't unpopular, it was just misunderstood.

See, it's all in the PR. It's not that the Republican Party is woefully out-of-touch, anachronisitic, and unpopular. They just haven't been able to convince the American people otherwise, yet.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by David Nir Leading Off:

• AR-Sen, -Gov: A long, paywalled article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette says that three Arkansas Republican congressmen and congressmen-elect have not ruled out challenges to Dem Sen. Mark Pryor, who, amazingly enough, didn't even face GOP opposition in 2008. But things have changed dramatically for Democrats in the Razorback State since then: Five of six members of Arkansas' delegation will be Republicans in the 113th Congress. Just two years ago, five of six were Democrats.

Anyhow, Reps. Tim Griffin and Steve Womack, and Rep.-elect Tom Cotton (who just won office last week) are all considering Senate runs, and perhaps gubernatorial bids as well—the D-G has actual on-the-record quotes from each. Only 1st District Rep. Rick Crawford says he has no plans to seek higher office. Griffin, says the article, is "seen by many as the most likely future Pryor opponent," though I'm not seeing any quotes from "many," whoever they may be, as to why this might be so. It may just be that Griffin, a Karl Rove acolyte at the center of the 2006-07 U.S. Attorneys scandal, is the best connected of the bunch.

(Continue reading below the fold.)

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Well, She Kinda Pissed Me Off

Her days as a sitting senator fast dwindling, Olympia Snowe (R-ME) took to the pages of Friday's Portland Press Herald and whined about the lack of get-alongness in the upper chamber:

In the 112th Congress, we're on pace to pass the fewest number of laws since 1947. … When each party's position fails, no effort is made to identify a mutually acceptable alternative. Rather, each side issues sound bites to embarrass the other party and create 30-second ads for the next election---leaving the problem unresolved. But with the rules of the United States Senate, essentially 60 votes are required to pass legislation. This means that moving past our differences and engaging in compromise is a necessity if we are to secure results.

Translation: "Meanie Republicans! Meanie Democrats! Both sides do it!"

This is, of course, bullshit, which I helpfully pointed out when I returned fire on the op-ed page the following day:

The reason those 60 votes are "essentially" required now is because, since they lost their grip on the majority, Republicans have systematically abused Senate rules to grind the chamber's business to a halt.

Sixty votes are required to overcome the threat of a filibuster and move a bill to the Senate floor. Once that threshold is passed, only 51 votes---a simple majority---are needed to actually pass the bill.

The filibuster was used an average of once a year between 1920 and 1970. During the 2009-2010 session…it was employed by Republicans more than 130 times, derailing legislation that could have created jobs and gotten our economy chugging along at a much healthier pace.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly stated that his No. 1 goal was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Instead of doing the people's business, McConnell and his Republican colleagues, including Sen. Snowe, coldly abused Senate rules to gum up the works and derail Obama's agenda.

Sen. Snowe went along with McConnell's plan and now has the gall to claim, essentially, that "both sides do it." Well, both sides don't do it. Republicans alone are responsible for the gridlock in the Senate ... end of story.

If Harry Reid stays true to his word and puts a stop to Republican filibuster abuse before the next term of the Senate begins, you'll see a lot more results and a lot more resolved problems. And Snowe will spend her retirement wiping a lot of egg off her face.

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