Originally I understood that this picture was taken when Sen. Bill Frist visited a shoe store in downtown DC earlier today to tender an offer to have the establishment renamed in honor of the Frist family.
But it turned out the situation was entirely different.
Apparently, Sen. Frist today went to purchase some shoes at a downtown DC shoe shack by the name of Allen-Edmonds, where he dropped more than five hundred bucks on two pairs of shoes.
Unfortunately, upstairs from Allen-Edmonds was the Campaign for America's Future and the big anti-privatization group Americans United To Protect Social Security.
They pulled together an impromptu demonstration -- with 30 to 50 people -- against Sen. Frist's support for phasing out Social Security and replacing it with private accounts.
You can click here to see some of the fun.
--Josh Marshall
Indignity of indignities ...
The (quasi) hometown paper of the Frist Filibuster students, the Trenton Times, has a story about the students triumphal entry into Washington a couple days ago to bring their filibuster to the Capitol steps.
But down in the text we have this description of what they're trying to accomplish (emphasis added): "Opponents call the bid to end filibusters the 'nuclear option' while advocates, such as Frist, say all court nominees deserve a vote and that some have been waiting years for the Senate to act."
(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Reader EW for sending us word of this small heartbreak.)
--Josh Marshall
Krauthammer opts for the limited modified bamboozle: "Democrats have won the semantic war by getting this branded "the nuclear option," a colorful and deliberately inflammatory term (although Republican Trent Lott, ever helpful, appears to have originated the term)."
Still wildly misleading to readers, of course. But in this case any small motions toward candor, etc.
Meanwhile, The Note retreats to the pre-testicular "filibuster reform."
(ed.note: Props to TPM Reader DW and JD.)
--Josh Marshall
Chip Reid 'nuclear option' bamboozlement relapse on tonight's NBC Nightly News reported by TPM Reader JLK!
We're hearing slightly divergent reports about the precise wording of Reid's renewed bamboozlement. And we'll bring you a verified report when it becomes available.
But you'll remember Reid had his first reported case of nuclear bamboozlement -- even going so far as to confuse the response to the nuclear option with the nuclear option itself -- on the morning of April 25th on Imus.
Later that evening he attempted a debamboozle on the Nightly News.
Conceivably he may now seek to debamboozle on tomorrow's Imus.
--Josh Marshall
MediaMatters gets the Medved tape.
No response yet from the Count.
Late Update: We are in touch with MediaMatters personnel to ascertain who will be awarded the shirt.
--Josh Marshall
The Times' Neil Lewis, <$NoAd$>caught between the bam and the boozle in this just-released piece ...
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Republican chairman of the committee, who has tried to embarrass both sides into forging a compromise, blamed both Democrats and his Republican colleagues for the situation."If the Democrats voted their conscience and the Republicans weren't bound by the party line straitjacket," he said, there would be no need to change the rules and precipitate the impending crisis.
He said that the "nuclear-constitutional option" was "the talk of the Senate floor" and that "people are talking about it with an intensity."
His "nuclear-constitutional" label for the rules change was a combination of both sides' terms. Democrats have called the rules change the "nuclear" option, emphasizing its destructive potential. Republicans have taken to calling it the "constitutional" option, stressing their assertion that it is in accord with the Constitution, which does not explicitly provide for the filibuster.
Calling this the "nuclear-constitutional option" would seem to raise certain nettlesome originalism issues unless the Founders were even more farsighted than some of us have been willing to imagine. And it's possible that Specter was trying for a subtle homage to Tim Russert's famous "private personal accounts" walkaround. But on the face of it I can't tell who's more tied up in knots, Specter or Lewis.
--Josh Marshall
Feel the buzz in your pocket the moment Bill Frist goes nuclear!
And, no, it's not as weird as it sounds!
People for the American Way is setting up a "Nuclear Option" Mass Immediate Response which may even prove more effective than those drills we had in grade school where you kneel under the desk. (Actually, come to think of it, those memories I have from Southern California in the 1970s must have been earthquake drills. But, hey, with age the memory fades.)
You can sign up here and you'll get the word by text message the moment that Sen. Bill "That Building Has My Name on It" Frist pulls the nuclear trigger and info on who you can call to make your opposition heard.
--Josh Marshall
Medved-Chocola Smackdown Update!
We're trying to keep close tabs on the emerging war of bamboozlement between talk radio host Michael Medved and Congressman Chris Chocola (R) of Indiana, aka 'The Count'.
Actually, I don't want to prejudice the question, since, as you know, yesterday on Medved's show, Medved claimed Chocola was not in fact a real member of Congress. That was after guest Hans Riemer quoted the Count's famous call for 100% 'privatization' of Social Security.
But now, we need to appeal to you, the TPM masses, to help fully report the story. In an exclusive interview this afternoon, conducted via the latest in IM technology, Riemer told TPM: "When I quoted Chocola to him he was like, Choco-who? What? Who is that? I've never heard of him. Where is he from? What? Indiana? C'mon. I've never heard of him and frankly I doubt that he's a real Congresman."
When he contacted the Medved show today trying to get a copy of the segment in question, though, the diligent Riemer was told that they would send him a copy on a CD which wouldn't arrive for a week.
Now, we don't know whether that means the Medved show still uses one of those old-fashioned steam-powered CD forges or whether they're sending it via the pony express. But one way or another we'd really rather not make you wait a week without getting to the bottom of the Medved-Count feud.
So, if someone out there has a recording -- perhaps a producer from a local station or someone else who just happens to have a copy -- please let us know.
A TPM Privatize This! T-Shirt for whoever can get us a tape or a transcript first.
Late Update: Riemer adds to the bounty! Riemer has now announced that the person who produces the aforesaid record of attempted bamboozlement will receive not only the T-Shirt but two free tickets (count 'em, not one but two!) to the Rock The Vote Awards Dinner after party in DC on June 8th.
--Josh Marshall
Bush puts Yalta on par with Nazi-Soviet pact to partition Poland. Buchanan calls war against Hitler "not worth it." Next up, Santorum to decry rough shake Francisco Franco has gotten at the hands of Juan Carlos.
--Josh Marshall
As of 11:54 AM, the FristFilibuster students are on the front page of NYTimes.com.
--Josh Marshall
Who will back down first in the Mike Medved - Rep. Chris Chocola (R) grudge match?
As we noted yesterday, Rock the Vote's Hans Riemer went on Medved's show yesterday. And Medved not only denied that any Republican was for 'privatization' but once Hans confronted Medved with the Count's October 2000 quote (one of perhaps a million examples) endorsing total privatization of Social Security, Medved denied that Chocola was even a real congressman.
Now, admittedly, this places us in a somewhat compromised position, because we've never thought of the Count as a real congressman either. Still, you wouldn't think this is a charge the Count himself would sit still for.
Please let us know if Medved cuts the Count any slack on his show today or whether he keeps up his anti-Count crusade.
Late Update: Hans himself has an update. Check it out.
--Josh Marshall
A criminal investigation into why those three non-Bush-loyalists were booted from the Bamboozlepalooza event in Denver back in March?
A local TV station reports that the lawyer for the three says his clients were questioned yesterday as "part of an investigation into whether a man dressed in a dark suit and wearing an earpiece criminally impersonated a Secret Service agent when he escorted the three Denver residents out of the March 21 event."
The local office of the Secret Service confirmed that they are conducting a continuing investigation but declined to comment on the specifics.
--Josh Marshall
They've even made it into the Washington Times: "Yesterday, for example, [RNC Chair Ken] Mehlman hosted a conference call with College Republicans to rally support for the Bush nominees. But today, two Democratic senators -- Jon Corzine of New Jersey and Charles E. Schumer of New York -- will join Princeton University students in a mock filibuster in front of the Capitol Building."
--Josh Marshall
Privatization Bamboozle Michael Medved Meltdown.
And the reality is even weirder than that convoluted phrase. See this post for the details.
The Count even gets dragged into the action.
(ed.note: Believe me, you won't want to miss this one.)
--Josh Marshall
Corzine and Schumer to join student filibuster!
No word yet on Frist family offer to rename Capitol building 'Frist Center for Government'. Developing ...
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-BackScratch?): one of his constituents does some sleuthing through the DeLay money files.
--Josh Marshall
Commonweal on the dismissal of the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, SJ, as editor of the Jesuit magazine America.
--Josh Marshall
Wisconsin Republicans steering clear of President Bush's plans to phase out Social Security.
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader FL adds to RM's comments: "RM's argument on the need for stable Social Security benefits is reenforced by an argument by Zvi Bodie (a BU finance professor) made on NPR last night. PBGC (for whom Bodie consults) is supposed to be self-financing. Inheriting the UAL pension system will require that PBGC raise insurance rates on remaining defined benefit plans. Higher insurance rates will accelerate employer moves out of defined benefit plans and over to 401K's."
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader RM chimes in: "The decision yesterday by the bankruptcy court permitting United Airlines to walk away from some $10 billion in unfunded pension liabilities -- sticking a substantial portion of the tab on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Association and causing employees to lose as much as 50% of their expected retirement benefits -- ought to exemplify why it is necessary to retain at least one leg of the retirement "three-legged stool" that is not subject to the risk(s) of market forces and/or corporate uncertainty. Social Security needs to stay as social insurance. The Dems ought to be all over this argument."
--Josh Marshall
Jill! Jill! Jill!
I thought we had at least put the 'nuclear option' word game mumbojumbo to rest. Even most Republicans are embarrassed to call it the 'constitutional option' now.
But now we find <$NoAd$> this from Jill Zuckman in the Trib ...
Fearful of the political fallout from such a confrontation, some Democratic and Republican senators were attempting to craft a compromise.But there was little indication they had made much progress or attracted the support necessary to avoid the so-called nuclear option. That is the term Democrats have given to the possible end to the filibuster, which requires 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to cut off debate, and instead allow up-or-down votes in which only 51 votes would be needed for confirmation.
(Your heart just sinks, doesn't it?)
Tell Jill Zuckman, no more nuclear-backsliding!
(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Reader GC for keeping Zuckman under surveillance.)
Late Update: Here's the correction the Tribune had to run about the 'nuclear option' the last time they goofed on this point.
--Josh Marshall
Trent Lott to go where only SpongeBob has gone before?
As James Dobson prepares the auto de fe, he tells the American Family Association's Don Wildmon: "I don't remember being so disgusted and alarmed by what I just had confirmed in the Senate as I am now. Senator Trent Lott is about to sabotage Majority Leader Frist and cut a separate deal with the Democrats to preserve the filibuster of judges."
(ed.note: A note of thanks to TPM Reader VS for pre-screening this claptrap so we had to read no more than was absolutely necessary for comedic purposes.)
--Josh Marshall
Wah. Wah. And did I mention, Wah.
Now the story is that privatization is going down the tubes because of liberal media bias.
So says Herman Cain in The National Review.
The excuse that's always ready at hand.
--Josh Marshall
Speaking of Bankruptcy ...
From the AP: "A federal bankruptcy judge approved United Airlines’ plan to terminate its employees’ pension plans on Tuesday, clearing the way for the largest corporate-pension default in American history. The ruling, which carries broad implications for U.S. airlines and their workers, shifts responsibility for United’s four defined-benefit plans to the government’s pension agency."
--Josh Marshall
I hope to address this in greater detail in a subsequent post. And I'm glad to see it is already garnering a slowly-rising chorus of criticism. But let me just start with a brief comment on President Bush's historically ignorant and morally hideous claim that "the agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact."
To compare the results of the Yalta Conference to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the key element of which was a secret agreement by which the 20th century's two great dictators agreed to carve up the defenseless neighbour between them, is truly unconscionable. And to compare it to Munich is little less so.
In making this argument the president joins a rich tradition of maniacs who believe that at the end of World War II we should have joined with the defeated remainder of the German army and fought our way through Eastern Europe to the border of Russia and, in all likelihood, on to Moscow to overthrow the Soviet Union itself -- certainly not a difficult proposition considering what an insubstantial land Army the Soviet Union had at the time.
If that seems like an over-dramatic alternative scenario, then you just aren't familiar with the history of the period.
Roosevelt didn't hand the Baltics, Poland and the rest of what became the Warsaw Pact countries over to Soviet rule. The Red Army was there in force already. The question was whether we were able and willing to remove them by force.
The president also makes common cause, though whether he's familiar with the history he's wading into I don't know, with those who argued before the war and after that the US and the UK made their fundamental error in the war itself, by allying with the Soviets against Nazism rather than with Nazism against the Soviets.
Now, no one can expect that Latvians or Poles are going to have warm or cordial feelings about the Great Power agreements at the end of the war. The plain fact is that the outcome of the war led to the imposition of Communist dictatorships across Eastern Europe that lasted for more than forty years. But one cannot assess the morality or political insight of American and British decision-making in the late stages of the war without standing them up against the real alternatives they faced. Anything else is just cheap posturing or folly. In the president's case, perhaps both.
--Josh Marshall
Rolling Stones announce new world tour. Yes, some things are bigger than politics.
--Josh Marshall
Bless their progressive little hearts!
The Princeton students filibustering Frist take their filibuster to the nation's capital!
Sen. Frist (R) may be able to cut a check to his alma mater to get them to name a building after him. But does he have the requisite equipment to get all nuclear on these young partisans of checks and balances?
We shall see ...
--Josh Marshall
White House word game bamboozlers go back to the drawing board and TPM Readers T&K brings us the news.
Privatization 4.0 from Dick Cheney yesterday in Denver: "Personal property accounts."
Late Update: Secret White House memo reveals new privatization bamboozle words currently under consideration! Leading contenders include "21st Century Homestead Accounts", "'I Have a Dream' Accounts". "Laissez-Faire Economics Life Raft Accounts" proposed by Dem mole at CEA but later rejected.
Even Later Update: Yes, the last update was parody. But 'tis getting harder and harder to distinguish.
--Josh Marshall
Alas, the real details come out about president's new benefit cut and phase-out plan. Jason Furman has more.
--Josh Marshall
Charlie Cook on the Bug Man in Winter (thematically if not seasonally) ...
On the political front, DeLay's re-election situation is dicier than commonly thought.Are DeLay's ethical and legal problems much worse than they were on Election Day last November and are voters back home aware of it? Absolutely.
Is the political climate more difficult for DeLay now than back in November? Yes. From Social Security and gasoline prices to Iraq and the absence of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as a whipping boy, things aren't as good for Republicans today as they were six months ago.
Finally, does DeLay face more formidable opposition if he seeks re-election in 2006 than he did last year, when he beat neophyte Democrat Richard Morrison 55-41 percent, with a Libertarian candidate and an independent each garnering 2 percent? Yes.
Former Rep. Nick Lampson, who represented about 20 percent of this district before a DeLay-engineered redistricting, is the strong frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Lampson might face Houston City Councilman Gordon Quan in a March primary.
Given the substantially greater adversity that DeLay faces today, it might be enough to cost him 5 to 9 percentage points and the seat.
While DeLay spent more than $2.7 million to get re-elected in 2004, not counting considerable outside resources that went into the effort, this time it would likely cost upwards of $5 million.
Keep in mind, the 22nd District is not DeLay's old rock-ribbed Republican seat. DeLay was a team player in redistricting, and gave up heavily Republican areas, picking up Democratic territory, as a gesture to urge Republican members also to give up friendly territory.
In retrospect, he really could use that old turf. One Washington insider privately noted that it would be ironic if DeLay ended up being the first GOP casualty of his own redistricting plan.
Win or lose, this will be an ugly and costly re-election fight for DeLay -- if he chooses to pursue it.
If<$NoAd$>?
--Josh Marshall
Very cool. (Okay, maybe not MTV cool; but definitely TPM cool ...)
Ken Colburn's Techpolitics site has prepared a sortable web page showing Social Security recipient data by
county for the congressional districts represented by members of TPM's Conscience Caucus.
--Josh Marshall
More details about TPMCafe.com.
As I noted before I went away on vacation, TPMCafe will host a small number of individual, subject-specific blogs -- one of which will focus on foreign affairs and national security.
This will be a group blog with six contributors.
They are Daniel Benjamin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Ivo Daalder of Brookings, John Ikenberry of Princeton University, James Lindsay of the Council on Foreign Relations, George Packer of The New Yorker and Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
(What I've listed here are just brief mentions of each contributor's institutional affiliation. You can find out more about them by clicking on the individual links.)
It's an exciting group of voices, not only because of the qualities each possesses individually, but because of the eclectic mix of perspectives -- as academics, policy practitioners and journalists -- they bring to the conversation.
More to follow ...
--Josh Marshall
Duce! Duce! or Toadies on Parade!
DC conservatives hold tribute dinner to hail fearless (Majority) Leader DeLay, man of steel.
Where is the Chaplin for this dubious Duce, this tin-pot Tweed?
--Josh Marshall
Amazing. When I left a week ago, the Princeton Frist Filibuster site was still a hastily-thrown-together operation, mainly serving up a slow feed of some student filibustering Bill Frist. Now, it's a whole elaborate set-up, with a media archive, lists of upcoming speakers and events, links to filibusters at other campuses -- amazing.
They're even fundraising for something called "phase 2" of their filibuster, though I couldn't seem to figure out from the site what phase two was. Certainly, something quite worthy.
By now Professors Witten and Nappi should have their TPM T-Shirts they won for being the first two profs to get in on the action. Actually, that means that there's still a third T-Shirt waiting for whoever was the third professor to take a stand and filibuster Frist. But I'll let the organizers on the scene determine who that lucky T-Shirt recipient was.
--Josh Marshall
Let me just get started with a note of thanks to my two guest bloggers, Matt Yglesias and Kenny Baer. It was a pleasure leaving the site in both of their hands over the last week.
My wife and I just flew into New York this evening after a week's honeymoon on the Yucatan peninsula. And thanks to all of you for the kind notes, written while I was away, about that.
More soon on several subjects.
--Josh Marshall
My time at TPM is almost up. Instead of leaving with a long post cataloguing how I think the world should be, I leave this little slice of cyberspace by saying thank you: to the more than 1500 readers who responded to my query of Friday; to friends and sources on both sides of the Atlantic; to the scores of readers who e-mailed me with thoughts, corrections, and a few choice criticisms; and -- most of all -- to Josh for entrusting me with this incredible platform.
The hype about blogs is only building in intensity (Exhibit A: the front page of the business section of the New York Times today). While others -- many with big names -- will be jumping on the bandwagon, they will have a high standard to meet. Josh -- and TPM readers -- have set the bar for intelligent, reasoned, and researched discourse. It's been an honor to contribute, and I hope that whether you liked or disliked my thoughts, I provoked you enough to read my column at the New Republic Online, and from there we can continue this conversation.
Josh, over to you...
--Spencer Ackerman
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