Our government is turning into Der trihs v. Curtis Lemay. I need another drink.
Cage match? My money is on Der Trihs…
-XT
Turned. Around 96.
With, presumably, Obama as Der? Well, he’s clearly to the left of Otto von Bismarck.
This continues to be pretty amazing to me. When I was in law school in 2001 and 2002, I had an exceptionally intelligent and iconoclastic professor (clerked for Posner and Brennan; now with the EPA) who was pushing cap and trade as a free market approach to pollutants, and the notion was roundly attacked from the left (pollution credits! heaven forfend!) as a right-wing idea that left things too much in the hands of private enterprise and relied too heavily on industry self-policing.
The fact that cap and trade has now become some sort of liberal bugaboo is simply astonishing. The policy itself certainly hasn’t changed; it’s just gained currency among pragmatic members of both parties as a practical and effective approach to the problem. But because many Democrats are now for it, that’s enough for nominal free-marketers to be reflexively agin’ it. It’s so silly.
No, we have not seen that since LBJ.
Pretty much, I think, what it was before '06, when the Pubs controlled it.
At least we know he’s an actual progressive…
Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis is ooooooooooooour coooooooountry
At first blush seems like a joke but yeah…why not?
Can he be worse than Bayh or some Republican (as if there is much difference) in there?
One can hope that he doesn’t give a shit about the power (being a rock star why would he care?). He is wealthy enough to probably not be swayed by money such that he can’t be bought off and may actually try to do some good in the Senate which would be a novel concept these days.
“Yeah, that’s a picture of me snorting coke off a supermodels ass! Eat your heart out.”
I kinda like the idea. Would probably inspire Bayh to get back in the race.
I’m sure I missed something here. 
It’s not like we haven’t had entertainers run for, and sometimes win, high office before.
I suspect Bayh is going to become a lobbyist. His wife will put him into a health care lobbyist spot ,and he will make even more money. I see riches in his future. He was a DINO. He won’t be missed for his politics. He went against the party a lot.
According to this he voted with the Democrats over 70% of the time. What is your definition of ‘went against the party a lot’? Someone who isn’t in lockstep 100%?
-XT
70% IS the very definition of “went against the party a lot.” Not a single Democratic Senator has a lower percentage, and only 4 Republicans do. At least 3 of those Republicans are often accused of being RINOs.
Ok…conceded. Kind of tells you something about our system though, doesn’t it?
-XT
When you vote against your own party on procedural votes, that is voting against your own party. When members of your own party vote against procedural matters, it makes it very difficult to get the business of the country done. As has been pointed out, more filibusters have been imposed in this last year than in the 20 years of the 50s and 60s. If you aren’t going to help your own party to get up or down majority votes on the platform matters, even if you are going to vote substantively with the opposition on some, you have no claim to party loyalty.
Perhaps Bayh having a private seat in the caucus meetings sees that Lieberman and Nelson are going to be punished for this in committee chairs and assignments and figures to get while the getting is good: that is a high paying lobbyist job is to be got.
The Republicans would not put up with this kind of party discipline: they would run opponents in primaries against the incumbents, as with Tommey. The Democrats saw this as a grass roots effort against Lieberman, which was successful in the primary, where Tommey’s effort was not.