Senate can’t pass any legislation the House doesn’t also agree to, so filibuster reform is only good for judicial confirmations and treaty ratifications, at least until 2015.

But since Republicans got utterly stomped in their Senate bids this time around, Dems should just get rid of the filibuster’s power to stop them from doing their job.

Constitutionally, it’s “advice and consent”, and 51 votes is good enough for that.

Dems blocked so very few of Republican picks in my lifetime, when in the majority even, and they constitutionally could have (and should have!).

They did filibuster some of Bush’s worst appeals court picks, but the “Gang of 14” compromise let some of these picks onto the bench while preserving the filibuster (which was then for the Dems, since this was before they retook the Senate in 2006).

But McConnell fucked things up for himself and his party, I think, in failing to achieve his “primary goal” from back in 2009.

So at least 日本に戻らなくてもいいかも！I really need ObamaCare if I’m going to stay here.

I think I would be much happier staying in the US and not going back to Japan. ObamaCare is safe I think, though who knows what the Republicans are going to try to pull in the House.

We’re still looking at the fiscal cutbacks. If there’s nasty gridlock, we could get hit with Clinton tax rates, FICA tax going back up 2%, the AMT hitting middle-class earners hard, government-wide cutbacks in spending. This is all pretty deflationary.

But the Republican party got something of a boot to the head tonight. Not much movement in the House, alas, but they certainly didn’t strengthen their position there at all.

Thank God, indeed.

I hope, if there is heavy layers of obstructionism, that the Dems will use that against the Republcans to replace some more of their seats in 2014.

ah, correction to the above, with filibuster reform the Senate could at least send bills to the House for Boehner to mokusatsu, which would be something for Democrats to run against on in 2014.

“It would have been bad.”

One curious thing is how Romney winning would have affected Japan and Japanese-Americans like Luis.

Japan is still a major beneficiary of the strong dollar —

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/top/dst/current/deficit.html

shows they’re #2 behind China, and some share of the China trade is controlled by Japanese firms too I think.

Japan is running a net deficit with the whole world now:

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-10-21/japan-sees-trade-deficit-in-sept-on-lower-exports

so this is an example of the Triffin Dilemma:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma

since for Japan to pay for its oil it needs to run a trade surplus somewhere.

But I guess this is just too complicated to really argue intelligently.

Same thing with geopolitical things — the Japan – China – N Korea – S Korea – Taiwan interrelationship is complicated and what happens with that, and how Romney would differ from Obama — who knows.

We’re not out of the woods yet — Republicans still hold the House. So paraphrasing Churchill, this is not the end, nor the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning, maybe, of the left’s resurgence from 2006-2008-2010.

I opened

http://blogd.com/wp/index.php/archives/6729

in a new tab and when I got to it I thought I had come across a new post already!

Search for “it wasn’t Obama who threw Israel under the bus” haaretz

for a pretty good article going over what has been going on here.

electoral-vote had a good point today:

“The five-seat majority gives majority leader Harry Reid some flexibility. Republicans are likely to try to force votes just for the purpose of making Democrats get on record supporting things unpopular in red states. With votes to spare, Reid could allow up to five vulnerable Democrats vote against the party line, thus sparing them attack ads in 2 years.”

This is how it’s done in Chicago, LOL

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/09/petraeus-resigns-as-cia-director/

As I mentioned here recently, I thought he would be a formidable (R) candidate for 2016 and wondered WTH Obama was doing appointing him to CIA.

If the admin knew about the affair then that civil appointment was absolutely stellar quasi-dirty bank-shot politics.

Petraeus would be relatively safe inside the Army, but going civil he’s more exposed to FBI background checks.

And D/CIA was an ‘offer he couldn’t refuse’ LOL.

“To build Orca, the Romney campaign turned to Microsoft . . .”

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/inside-team-romneys-whale-of-an-it-meltdown/

hey, I have an idea, I get my own blog!