Can We Haz QE III Now, Pleeze? - Grasping Reality with Both Hands

The civilian adult employment-to-population ratio remains at 58.4%: we have no labor-market recovery.


It has reached the point where I have to say the the Republican Party is in denial.  In Maine Republicans hold the Governor's office and both houses.  They just voted down a 50 cent (over two years) raise in the minimum wage of $7.50/hour and voted for an increase in the deductible for the estate tax from $1 million to $5 million.  (Trickle-down theory says the rich will invest here if they can leave their money to their kids.)   To me it is an  allergy to raising revenue, and  to putting money in workers' hands - so they can buy more things.  
On today's bad news - from economist Brad DeLonge:
Can We Haz QE III Now, Pleeze? - Grasping Reality with Both Hands: "Greg Robb:


May jobs growth slows to 54,000, a nine-month low: In disappointing news for the White House, Wall Street and Main Street, U.S. job gains slowed to a crawl in May and the unemployment rate moved higher, the Labor Department estimated Friday. Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 54,000 in May. This is the smallest gain since September and a fraction of the 125,000 jobs expected by economists polled by MarketWatch...The civilian adult employment-to-population ratio remains at 58.4%: we have no labor-market recovery."

Richard Lugar: Charting His Own Course Against Prevailing Winds - NYTimes.com

 I do not use the word  Republican as a derogatory adjective. First because  Abraham Lincoln deserves that respect.  So does  the great judge of the civil rights movement John Minor Wisdom who was known as "Mr. Republican" in Louisiana.  A third reason  is Sen. Richard Lugar (R - Indiana).

I am a social democrat but I believe that my ideas are part of the yin-yang of life. The Chinese concept recognizes that there are existential contradictions. Light is meaningless and useless without dark. Without dark light would blind you. You need edges to see. It is the same with politics: someone has to emphasize the collective and someone else the indvidual. Which does not mean the answer is in the middle. But it does mean that the essentiality of both sides to existence must be recognized.  Richard Lugar represents the individual side of the debate.

His bucking the trend against the Tea Party impulse is discussed informatively in this piece from today's NY Times.

Judicial nominations stalled: Obama demands end to Republican obstructionism

President Obama has written a letter to the Senate leadership demanding action on his pending nominees to the federal courts.  Less than half of President Obama's judicial nominees have been confirmed, compared to 61% of George Bush's nominees at a comparable stage.  Not only is the federal judiciary shorthanded, it is deprived of a highly qualified and generally centrist group of nominees as Alliance for Justice documents.

The dangers of getting to 60

Images: Senators Edward Brook (R-MA), Charles Percy (R-IL), Jacob Javits (R-NY), Charles Mathias (R-MD)


Not age.  60 votes in the Senate.


On November 8, 2008! I posted this message on Talking Points Memo under the headline The Filibuster-proof Senate Trap

60 democratic votes in the Senate is a potential trap when we have a Democratic majority in both houses.

What we want to do is move the center left.

We have just succeeded that way.

We need to rehabilitate the Republican center, thereby isolating the right.

We need to focus on bringing Republicans with us.

The super majority required to close debate in the Senate is thus a valuable tool because it requires that we work to broaden areas of agreement and of respectful disagreement.

In other words we want to work with the party of Lincoln against the party of DeLay.

Two days before that, under the headline cock-eyed optimist, I posted this:

“I think this is going to be very liberating for Republicans in Congress.”

With Democrats firmly in control of both chambers of CongressRepublicans have a chance “to get back on offense.”

- Sen. John Thune, a South Dakotan who is eyeing a leadership role in the new Congress and is seen by some in the party as presidential timber.  

Now we haven't done too well in separating the Republican center (such as it is) from the right.  Of course all that remains that could be called centrist Republican is Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Joseph Lieberman. And a gaggle of "centrist" democrats like Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu.

But, as Justice William Brennan said, the most important ability of a Supreme Court judge is the ability to count to five.  And as Louise Halper used to say the head of the Junta is the last guy to sign on with the coup planners.  All of which is to say that the deciding vote always has the most leverage.

Barack Obama hoped to restore an era which he personally never saw: a day when Charles Percy, Edward Brooke, Charles Matthias, and Jacob Javits were Republican senators for whom a Democrat could vote without pinching the nostrils. What is missing this time is the key to success in negotiations:  the desire to reach an agreement.

Unfortunately Republicans found John Bethune and the tea-baggers to be liberators, and lost any desire to agree.