Singing A New Tune

Arlen Specter is starting to sound like more of a Democrat than half of the Democrats in the Senate. Hell I am not exactly sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, honestly.

A "Real" Democrat?

I am loathe to give Arlen Specter any compliments because I know a lot of people on the left only see him as a shiftless coward who won't be a reliable vote. I will say that I am sympathetic to that feeling, but so far the guy has been towing the company line. He is a helluva lot more reliable than guys like Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman, that's for sure. And this rant of his about Joe Wilson deserves to be highlighted.

"He apologized immediately afterward but I don't think that's adequate... If an apology is the consequence of an outburst I think we can expect more -- that's not a sufficient penalty that's not a sufficient price to pay... I'm not saying the guy should be kicked out of the House... But there ought to be some rebuke, reprimand, censure -- something that will discourage that kind of conduct in the future. If you do that to the President, it's open season."

Again I am not promoting the guy but he said what every single Democrat should be saying today about Joe Wilson.

Arlen Specter: DFH

Who would have imagine a few months ago that Senator Arlen Specter would be on a Sunday show, selling the public option and debunking health care myths coming off like a Dirty Fuckin Hippie?




Although I have my problems with Jake Tapper, he did a pretty good job of pushing back on Orrin Hatches' bull this morning.

Coming Around

I am definitely not saying that this makes everything right and that now liberals and progressives should line up behind him, but this is encouraging news.

Speaking moments ago to a large and animated crowd of union organizers and health reform advocates in a brewing house just North of the Capitol, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) said he supports a public insurance option.

"Schumer has it right about having a public component," Specter said.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has taken a lead role on negotiations over the public option in the Senate Finance Committee, and earlier this year proposed a compromise: the committee's health care bill should include a public plan, he said, but one that competes on a level playing field with other insurers. Such an entity wouldn't be able to use its sheer size to set prices the way Medicare does--but it could nonetheless incur savings in a host of other ways, and in so doing drive down the cost of health insurance in the private market.

Perhaps more importantly, though, the Schumer proposal is in line with the principles of the major reform campaign Health Care for America Now--and, as such, just about every major health care and labor organization in the country.

I don't know if this is in response to Congressman Joe Sestak's rumblings about challenging him in the primaries but its good to see Specter tacking to the left no matter what the reason.

Now if we could just put some heat on Landrieu, Conrad, and Nelson!

Arlen Better Get His Weight Up

Looks like Joe Sestak is coming for the crown.



And uhmm CNN next time give TPM the respect they are due, assholes.

I Guess He Is Coming Around

Nancy Pelosi got some support today from an unlikely source, Arlen Specter.

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) took the opportunity Wednesday to defend House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has come under fire in recent weeks over a controversy surrounding when she was told of the use of enhanced interrogation techniques being used by the CIA.

"The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to — I was about to say 'candid'; that's too mild — to honesty," Specter, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a lunch address to the American Law Institute. He cited misleading information about the agency's involvement in mining harbors in Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra affair.

"Director [Leon] Panetta says the agency does not make it a habit to misinform Congress. I believe that is true. It is not the policy of the Central Intelligence Agency to misinform Congress," Specter said. "But that doesn't mean that they're all giving out the information."

Because of leaks that have come from Congress, Specter said, he understands the agency's hesitancy to disclose all its information.

"The current controversy involving Speaker Pelosi and the CIA is very unfortunate, in my opinion, because it politicizes the issue and it takes away attention from ... how does the Congress get accurate information from the CIA?" Specter said. "For political gain, people are making headlines."

(h/t TPM)

Ridge Is Out

Looks like its going to be Pat Toomey as the Republican nominee in the general election in Pennsylvania.

Cloture

Every since Arlen Specter crossed the aisle last week I have been trying to point out the advantages of the move for Democrats. The biggest plus as I saw it was that Specter would become a reliable vote to invoke cloture and overcome filibuster attempts by the GOP. I know that a lot of people on the left are pissed off by the things he have said since then but I steadily maintain that if Specter votes for cloture on big issues then him switching sides will be well worth it. Now I have also pointed out that Democrats in the Senate really didn't give up anything to have Specter cross the aisle and that if he doesn't get with the program he will probably get the brakes beat off him in a Democratic primary. But I digress.

The reason why I bring this up yet again is because of something Harry Reid said today on MSNBC. Check out the video.



Did you catch it? If not go back to about the 1:20 mark.

When speaking on Arlen Specter, Harry Reid made this statement.

“On procedural votes he will be with us all the time”

Do you know what "procedural vote" means? Cloture, thats what. Now considering the amount of weaksauce Harry Reid exhibits on a regular basis you of course have to take this with a grain of salt. Still Reid made the statement with a confidence that seems to belie a deal having been made. Arlen Specter is no doubt a weasel and he has taken saying one thing and doing another to an artform. Still I don't care if he votes against certain measures as long as he votes for cloture and then as long as they get passed with a simple majority. This shouldn't make people jump up and shout but it should temper at least some of the dissappointment expressed thus far by the lefty blogosphere.

What Do You Know About Jeff Sessions?

The GOP has predictibly chosen Senator Jeff Sessions to take over as ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, taking over for the now defected Arlen Specter.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) will take over the ranking member position on the Senate Judiciary Committee after striking a deal with his more senior colleagues over the weekend, sources confirm to The Hill.

Sessions and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) reached the deal that will allow the Alabama Republican to take over for Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), whose departure from the GOP last week left the committee without a ranking member.

Under terms of the deal, Sessions will serve as ranking member until the 112th Congress, when he will take over the ranking member post on the Senate Budget Committee. Current Budget Committee ranking member Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) is retiring at the end of the 111th Congress.

Now with a battle brewing over President Obama's nomination to replace retiring Supreme Court justice David Souter I think we would do well to aquaint ourselves with Jeff Sessions and learn what kind of a guy he is. I found this post from digby to be particularly enlightening.

Sessions was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. The year before his nomination to federal court, he had unsuccessfully prosecuted three civil rights workers--including Albert Turner, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr.--on a tenuous case of voter fraud. The three had been working in the "Black Belt" counties of Alabama, which, after years of voting white, had begun to swing toward black candidates as voter registration drives brought in more black voters. Sessions's focus on these counties to the exclusion of others caused an uproar among civil rights leaders, especially after hours of interrogating black absentee voters produced only 14 allegedly tampered ballots out of more than 1.7 million cast in the state in the 1984 election. The activists, known as the Marion Three, were acquitted in four hours and became a cause célèbre. Civil rights groups charged that Sessions had been looking for voter fraud in the black community and overlooking the same violations among whites, at least partly to help reelect his friend Senator Denton.

On its own, the case might not have been enough to stain Sessions with the taint of racism, but there was more. Senate Democrats tracked down a career Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, who testified, albeit reluctantly, that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU ) "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." Hebert said Sessions had claimed these groups "forced civil rights down the throats of people." In his confirmation hearings, Sessions sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as "un-American" when "they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions" in foreign policy. Hebert testified that the young lawyer tended to "pop off" on such topics regularly, noting that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a "disgrace to his race" for litigating voting rights cases. Sessions acknowledged making many of the statements attributed to him but claimed that most of the time he had been joking, saying he was sometimes "loose with [his] tongue." He further admitted to calling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a "piece of intrusive legislation," a phrase he stood behind even in his confirmation hearings

All of that's a GOP qualification for elected office in Alabama, so being rejected on that basis naturally vaulted him into the Senate. Making him the ranking member today means the Republicans will put their ugliest face forward during judicial confirmation hearings. But hey, it's their long, ongoing funeral.

Now in light of the fact that is very likely that President Obama will choose a minority and perhaps a woman to fill this post it will behoove us to make sure that this information on Sessions is out there so people can judge whatever his motivations might be should he choose to try to block this nomination. I won't even go into what it says about Alabama that they elected a guy like Sessions, but I will say that we can't allow someone whose mindset is still stuck in the pre Civil Rights era to hinder progress in this country. So get ready for the fight and arm yourself with information. I have a feeling we are going to need it.

GOPosaurs

How long before they go the way of the dinosaurs?

Deep Thought

If Bill Kristol REALLY thinks its "good news for Republicans" that with Arlen Specter's defection the Democrats now potentially have 60 Senate seats, will he call for Norm Coleman to drop his appeal and allow Al Franken to be seated?

An Admission Of Guilt

After Arlen Specter announced that he was switching over to the Democratic Party he said part of the reason why he was doing so was because of the radicalization of the Repubican Party in his home state of Pennsylvania. Basically because so many Republicans left the party last year, what was left of the party was the fringe uber conservative, uber religious right wingnuts. In his own words Specter said he wasn't willing to have that group judge his years of service. Because the republicans in Pennsylvania are now mostly wingnuts all of the polling shows former leader of the Club For Growth, Pat Toomey leading Specter by around 20 points in a Republican primary. And he went through and talked about how the Club For Growth has ruined the Republican party by running far right candidates in primaries and beating sitting GOP members of Congress only to have their far right candidate get destroyed in general elections. He ended up by saying that the Republican party should rise up against the Club For Growth if they ever wanted to change their minority status.

Now soon after Specter's announcement several high profile Republicans came out to slam the move and dispute his characterization of the party. According to them he was just running from the fight and Toomey was a mainstream candidate who could win not only the primary but also the general election. There was all kinds of fantasy based happy talk saying that Specter leaving the party was a great development for the GOP. This was supposedly the first step in the resurgence of the party they said.

Well it seems like since those proclamations some lightbulbs have come on with other people in the Republican party and they are starting to see the truth of Specter's words.

Still stunned by Arlen Specter's party switch, Republican senators are pessimistic about the chances for conservative GOP hopeful Pat Toomey in the Pennsylvania Senate race.

"I don't think there is anybody in the world who believes he can get elected senator there," said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the vice chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Asked if the NRSC would back Toomey, Hatch said, "I don't think so" and that the party should look for "someone who can win there."

Now think about what Hatch is saying here. He is saying that a guy who is up 20 pts over Specter in a Republican primary has absolutely no chance in hell of beating Specter in a general election. That is about as close to an admission that the party is now dominated by the fringe of not only the GOP but also the fringe of Pennsylvania in general as you will probably ever see. But that is the state of the Republican party today and as Olympia Snowe pointed out in her op-ed Pennsylvania is just a microcosm of what is going on in that party nationwide. And what makes it worse is that some leaders in the Republican party seem to think this is a good thing.

This Sums It Up

Exactly

"What The Hell Does That Mean?"

Don't hold back Rick Sanchez, tell Jim DeMint how you really feel!

Arlen Specter PWNED Pat Toomey And The Club For Growth

I just want to take time out to thank Pat Toomey for doing so much to help run the Republican Party right off the rails!

Time To Watch The FoxNews Freakout

I have officially turned my Tee Vee for the rest of the day, I suggest you pop some popcorn and do the same!

Specter Switches Parties

Arlen Specter is now a Democrat. I wrote a diary on dailykos awhile back saying that Democratic leadership should have been trying to get him to cross the aisle after the stimulus vote. Per a statement read on MSNBC Senator Spector claims that he won't be an automatic 60th vote for cloture and that his vote on EFCA won't change. Well I am calling bullshit on that. He had to give up something for the Democratic leadership to allow him to cross the aisle instead of getting trounced in a Republican primary by uber wingnut Pat Toomey. We could have picked up the seat next year easily so there is no reason to allow him out of that blood bath unless some kind of compromise was made. I can tell you this much, if there ISN'T a compromise in place then Harry Reid should have his ass kicked. What's the use of allowing him to caucus with the Dems if he will still vote Republican? I will be optomistic for now, but if Specter is true to his word Harry Reid has GOT to go.

Arlen Specter Willingly Kisses The Ring

I guess Arlen Specter fears losing his seat more than anything else in the world. First he came out against voting for cloture for EFCA which he had previously supported and then just last week he voted for John McCain's "alternative budget" which would have rescinded almost all of the stimulus spending that Specter had just voted for a little over a month ago all in an effort to burnish his conservative cred. But to bend over and kiss Rush Limbaugh's fat ass just to try to win a primary is fucking disgusting. At this point I am rooting for Pat Toomey to beat the shit out of his wishy washy ass in the primary so a Democrat can take the seat hands down in the general.

Specter: Do I like Rush Limbaugh? … Yeah, I like him […]

Stern: He’s a crackpot? He’s an enemy of the country.

Specter: (laughing) Uh, no, he’s not. He’s expressing his opinion.

Stern: Senator, wait a second. In all seriousness. He wants the president to do poorly? Listen, I never voted for Bush, but I always wanted to see him do well. I’m an American. I want my president to be successful. Who says ‘I don’t want my president to do well?’ That’s anti-American!

Specter: Well I haven’t heard Rush Limbaugh say that. But there’s a lot of talk which is provocative.

It’s puzzling that Specter hasn’t heard about Limbaugh’s statement that he hopes Obama fails. The issue has been covered by blogs and the front pages of national newspapers for months. It even earned Limbaugh a spot on the cover of Newsweek. Or perhaps Specter is learning from the others who have criticized Boss Limbaugh and have then apologized to him.

You know the best part of this sickening episode is that it turns out that Republicans might just be fed up with Rush Limbaugh anyway. Good luck with that Senator Specter

Why Reid Should Turn Specter

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hasn't gone to Republican Senator Arlen Specter and asked him to cross the aisle and caucus with the Democrats he should have his head examined. Right now you have RNC Chairman Michael Steele threatening to back a to be named later primary challenger to Specter next year because of his vote on the stimulus bill and you have Republicans in Pennsylvania jeering him during an appearance. Now don't get me wrong, I don't believe for one second that it would be an easy sell but if we could get Specter to come over and bring the Democrats a supermajority (assuming Franken gets seated at some point) it would be well worth the effort.

Arlen Specter does not fit in with the majority of the members of his party in the Congress. He isn't real big on spouting off the false talking points of the rest of his party and generally when he opposes something its for real, principled reasons. He is pro life and he also supports civil unions which is more than you can say for some of the Democrats in the Senate right now. He also doesn't go with the flow when his conscious tells him not to. I won't resort to saying he is all mavericky and stuff but by in large Specter calls it like he sees it. This is now heresy in the Republican Party and he is being shunned by many in his own caucus because of it. The truth is if he holds true to form this will only get worse as time goes on. Now I firmly believe that Senator Spector wants at least one more term as Senator, and thats going to be a hard row to hoe if he has to defeat a strong opponent in the Republican primary. And even if he somehow survives that challenge he would still have to beat out a Democrat in a state that President Obama won by quite a good margin. So if I were Harry Reid my proposal would be two fold.

First I would promise Spector that as an incumbent Democrat he would be fully supported by the DCCC as well as the Democratic Leadership in Congress. This would help to assure him that he would have no problem in a Democratic primary. Hell if he is going to be the 60th vote for cloture for the next two years I would imagine that President Obama would even commit to campaigning for him. So with a wink and a nod Reid could effectively guarantee Spector another term in office.

The second thing I would do is promise him that he will keep his seniority and he will be in line for a plum chairmanship post during the next session of Congress if not sooner. If you can do it for Joe Lieberman surely you can do it for Spector as well.

Now honestly I don't think this would be all that controversial and the upside far out weighs any potential negatives. Before anyone says it, yes I know that Spector isn't a dyed in the wool progressive and yes I know that his voting record is a mixed bag. But I will tell you this much, if we can have that asshole Ben Nelson in the Democratic caucus I would think we could allow room for Arlen Specter. Especially if it moves progressive legislation through the Senate without getting it watered down like the stimulus bill. What does Harry Reid have to lose? If he isn't at least considering this option I think Senator Reid deserves to be fired from his post as Majority Leader.

Of course I think he should be fired regardless.

What say you?

Did You Know That The Chamber Of Commerce Endorsed The Stimulus Bill?

I just bet most of you didn't

The administration is betting on at least three Republican moderates to help see it through, and the traditionally Republican-leaning business lobby is beginning to exert itself more as well.

In announcing his support Friday night, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) pointedly read from a Chamber of Commerce endorsement. The National Association of Manufacturers has also weighed in, telling Republicans that votes on the bill “including potential procedural motions” may be considered for designation as key votes in NAM’s scoring of their legislative record.

Now the real question here is why isn't this the headline of every newspaper, the topic of every talking head show? You can bet your ass that if they Chamber of Commerce had come out AGAINST President Obama's stimulus bill that you would have to plug your ears you would be hearing about it so much. Again, when it comes to our MSM just another example of their EPIC FAIL!

(h/t DougJ)