The gist here is that actual inflation is very near to slightly below zero. Using inflation fears as a reason to avoid further stimulus is simply unfounded. Deflation is a much more pressing concern.

A more important question is what can they do, given that interest rates are near an effective rate of zero at the Federal Reserve? Business are unwilling to spend more on hiring or make capital investment because of weak demand and existing inventories that are moving slowly. It was a very bad time for the Senate to take a summer break without extending unemployment benefits.

The underlying assumption seems to be that the long term unemployed would get a real job if we just stopped benefits. That’s despite the fact that there are still 5 people looking for work for every job opening. Furthermore, unemployment benefits and food stamps that put money right into the pockets of those most in need and are the most effective means of stimulating the economy. Those dollars get spent right away, with little delay and lower administrative costs than alternatives like tax cuts or infrastructure projects.

Just goes to show, once again, what’s political palatable is often economically stoopid.

Obama Plays Hardball | Mother Jones.

This is pretty fascinating. Years ago, after Republicans filibustered a Carter nominee to the NLRB, the two parties made a deal: the board would have three appointees from the president’s party and two from the other party. So after he took office Obama nominated two Democrats and one Republican to fill the NLRB’s three vacant seats and got support from a couple of Republicans on the HELP committee for the entire slate. But when it got to the Senate floor John McCain put a hold on Becker, and his nomination — along with the others — died.

Fast forward to today and Obama finally decides to fill the board using recess appointments. But what does he do? He only appoints the two Democrats. This is not what you do if you’re trying to make nice. It’s what you do if you’re playing hardball and you want to send a pointed message to the GOP caucus. You won’t act on my nominees? Fine. I’ll appoint my guys and then leave it up to you to round up 50 votes in the Senate for yours. Have fun.

Does this mean the postpartisan Obama is finally dying away, overtaken by a newly muscular president willing to duke it out with a Republican Party that he finally realizes has been utterly consumed by its hardcore obstructionist wing? Maybe! Stay tuned.

Sen. Tom Coburn R-OK promised that he’d be the next Sen. Jim Bunning R-KY if he had to be. And last night, he made good on his threat.

Coburn is blocking unanimous consent on extension of unemployment benefits, just as Bunning did a few weeks ago. Only this time, Coburn’s not alone — the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other members of the Republican caucus have joined with Coburn, promising to block billions in unemployment benefits just as the Senate is set to leave on a two-week recess.

Due to the timing of the blockade, benefits could expire on April 5, a situation that would not be remedied for a week while the Senate is out of town. Senators will return from their Easter break on April 12.

via Coburn Pulls The Trigger: Jobless Benefits Extension Blocked By GOP | TPMDC.

Read it yourself, Reid puts the GOP on notice that they will in fact use reconciliation to complete health care reform. Let the screaming from the right begin, now!

I suppose this means that Harry Reid does in fact have balls.

most strident partisans must learn to occasionally sacrifice short-term tactical political advantage for the sake of the nation. Otherwise, Congress will remain stuck in an endless cycle of recrimination and revenge. The minority seeks to frustrate the majority, and when the majority is displaced it returns the favor. Power is constantly sought through the use of means which render its effective use, once acquired, impossible.

via Op-Ed Contributor – Why I’m Leaving the Senate – NYTimes.com.

Democrats will finish their health reform efforts within the next two months by using a majority-vote maneuver in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.

Reid said that congressional Democrats would likely opt for a procedural tactic in the Senate allowing the upper chamber to make final changes to its healthcare bill with only a simple majority of senators, instead of the 60 it takes to normally end a filibuster.

via Reid: Dems will use 50-vote tactic to finish healthcare in 60 days – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

I just hope it’s not yet another Charlie Brown getting the football yanked away type moment. The would benefit electorally from actually getting something substantive done.

There’s been a profound sense of disappointment in the Obama Administration’s inability to do what they promised. The effort has lacked leadership from the White House. This needs to change. He needs to get in there and twist arms and apply leverage to his own caucus to get them lined up behind the legislative agenda.

This fantasy that there are Republican votes for a more moderate bill really needs to end. There are no Republican votes for healthcare reform, no matter how moderate or conservative it is. They’re opposed to healthcare reform. They’ve always been opposed to healthcare reform. They’e Republicans! There’s nothing wrong with them being opposed to healthcare reform. And they are. Full stop.

Going down this path would be dangerously delusional. It would waste time, piss off voters even more, and accomplish nothing. It's time for House liberals, labor unions, lefty activists, Blue Dogs, Democratic pro-lifers, and fence-sitting centrists to all face reality: the only way to pass healthcare reform of any kind is for the House to pass the Senate bill as is and then work to improve it later during the budget reconciliation process. It's not perfect, but it will work. Nothing else will.

via Facing Reality | Mother Jones.

I think he’s dead on, pass the Senate version of HRC and fix what you can in reconciliation and with future legislation. There’s really no point or percentage in it for Democrats to abandon the entire project when the goal line is literally in sight. They’ll lose a considerable amount of support from progressives and the Democrats can’t win based on the president’s ever waning popularity or his leadership.

Obama has not led on any of this. He’s been the careful centrist he always was.  Let’s not get all wobbly over the loss of one seat in the Senate, that’s 1% of 1/2 the legislative branch, which is 1/3 of the 3 branches of government (to paraphrase last night’s Daily Show).

As for the intra-party food fight over who’s to blame for Coakley’s loss of what should have been an easy win, there’s plenty to go around. She was an awful candidate, but no worse than many an empty suit currently existing in Congress (editors note, I considered “working” instead of “existing”, but that seemed to bit of a stretch). The national part didn’t seem to pay any attention to the special election in Mass. until the final week and that was just too little and waaay too late. The president didn’t do much until the last minute either. Plus, there was absolutely no message prepared in case of a lose, just a lot of surprised people winging it. They’ve yet to recover balance.

In honor of “never say quit” Coleman:

Opposing funding the troops is only bad if your enemies do it, otherwise it’s a bold expression of patriotism!

Love the Frank Luntz quote here:

With Specter’s defection, it’s all but lost the ability to filibuster legislation in the Senate — it will lose it if Democrat Al Franken is seated from Minnesota, as expected — and with it the power to command attention or influence the national agenda.

It is, for the moment at least, what former Georgia Gov. and Sen. Zell Miller said so derisively of his fellow Democrats just a few years back: a national party no more.

“Anyone who tells you the Republican Party is on its way back is smoking grass,” said GOP strategist Frank Luntz. “For the party to win, it has to have a broad base. They’ve lost the broad base.”

Republicans are losing ground in a fast-changing America where women, minorities and the young make up bigger and bigger slices of the electorate, and they all tend to vote Democratic.

The GOP engine has thrown a rod, the oil is spreading up the windshield and the rest of the GOP just wants to floor it by targeting moderates during primaries and moving further to right. Go team!

For those who don’t know, here’s what budget reconciliation is: basically, you can’t filibuster bills in the Senate related to the budget. So if you decide that a piece of legislation is relevant to the budget, it only needs 50 votes to pass. Republicans used this technique several times when they were last in control of the Senate, so as you can imagine, that Democrats are now planning on using means they of course think it’s an affront to democracy. Because you fucking elect children to run the country.

In even shorter terms, here’s what’s happening in Congress now: Republicans are refusing to work with Democrats to do anything. Democrats have a method to do things without needing Republicans to work with them on it. Republicans are now mad that Democrats aren’t working with them after they refused to work with them. Because, as I believe I just noted, you fucking elect children to run the country.

Franken Looks Like a Winner, but Not Quite a Senator – washingtonpost.com.

He’s good enough, he’s smart enough, and, gosh darn it, he’s a U.S. senator?

Not yet, but recent developments in the unending recount in Minnesota’s Senate race have given entertainer Al Franken (D) a burst of momentum over Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and left national Democrats increasingly confident that the Gopher State will fall into their column sooner rather than later.

I didn’t think that Fraken would be able to do it, but it looks like he might pull out a win in Minnesota.

GOP’s Platform is Now to Reduce the Wages of American Workers

It appears to me that Senate Republicans are on an ideologically driven union-busting adventure here, that happens to have the prospect of increasing the market share of the foreign-owned companies who work in their states. American-owned companies and the American economy as a whole be darned — those foreign-owned companies that serve the individual states of these senators who are objecting to this bailout, they’re the ones who are getting served.

Why aren’t Democrats making them filibuster this — making them stand up and defend this, if this is really what they want the country to know they’re doing?

Just so. Sen Reid should force them to actively filibuster this. Make them stay on the floor and talk, I’m sure something incredibly stupid would be said.

In an all to common display of craven gutlessness the Senate once again rolled over and gave the White House what it wanted like a prison punk ass bitch. The only hope is that the House finds it’s balls in that other pair of pant in the laundry basket and stands up. Let’s just say I’m not very hopeful about it.

Firedoglake – Firedoglake weblog » FISA: GOP Blinks (Somewhat)…Let’s Get To Work
The go to guy on all things FISA, Glenn Greenwald isn’t a fan of it:

 The whole agreement seems designed to ensure that the GOP gets everything they want — that they are able to defeat all of the pending amendments which Dick Cheney dislikes, and to do so without having to engage in a real filibuster. In what conceivable way is this an instance of “Dems not caving” or “holding tough?” This is how CQ described the agreement:

Republicans pressed for the threshold to head off any amendments that would significantly change the bill, which was negotiated with the White House. Some amendments, though, would loosen restrictions currently in law or in the bill.

One by the vice-chairman of the Intelligence panel, Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., would change definitions in the law to allow surveillance without a warrant in cases that involve the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Its adoption would require a simple majority vote.

The amendments the GOP likes (i.e., the Bond/Rockefeller amendment to change the Intelligence bill to match Dick Cheney’s demands by increasing eavesdropping powers further still), as well as those that can’t get 50 votes, are subject to the requirement of simple majority. The ones that can get 50 votes but which the GOP dislikes must get 60 votes. If you’re Mitch McConnell, what’s not to like about any of this?

This doesn’t impress me as a principled stand on basic constitutional rights. Does anyone on the Republican party believe in the constitution anymore? Guess not…

TPMmuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Mukasey Tongue-Tied on Administration Law Breaking
MUKASEY: Torture, as you know, is now unlawful under American law. I can’t contemplate any situation in which this president would assert Article II authority to do something that the law forbids.

SPECTER: Well, he did just that in violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He did just that in disregarding the express mandate of the National Security Act to notify the Intelligence Committees. Didn’t he?

Mukasey  can’t compose a coherent response. There really isn’t one, is there?

Mukasey Demurs on Waterboarding – New York Times
“Given that waterboarding is not part of the current program and may never be added to the current program, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to pass definitive judgment on the technique’s legality,” the attorney general said, speaking in the cautious way that his Senate questioners have sometimes found evasive and infuriating.

Crooks and Liars » Jay Rockefeller on FISA: Bush is committing Political terrorism: Cloture vote fails

Short story is that the GOP fell well short of their pathological attempt to play a national security issue for political advantage. The cloture vote in the Senate failed, so they’ll actually get to discuss amendments.
I’m certain that Bush will accuse the democratic majority of stalling the “Protect America Act” that he claimed to be so important, yet was willing to let expire in a game of political chicken. I guess we’ll hear Bush whine about it during his SOTU speech tonight. Stay tuned…

Reid Issues Ultimatum: More Time Or No Wiretaps – Politics on The Huffington Post
At a State of the Union preview speech today at the National Press Club, Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a dramatic ultimatum to President Bush: either sign an extension of the Protect America Act (which sets conditions for the administration’s warrantless surveillance) or “there will be no wiretapping.”

“It’s up to the president,” Reid announced during a question and answer session. “Does he want the law? It’s up to him.” Reid said Bush needs to sign the extension to give more time for the Senate to reach a compromise on a new bill. Senate Republicans this week obstructed every effort for amendments to be made to the pending FISA legislation.

“If it fails, he can give all the speeches he wants, including the State of the Union, about how we’ve stopped things,” Reid said. “If he does that, it’s disingenuous, and it’s not true.”