Steve Clemons explains Prime Minister Netanyahu’s latest snub to the US and what it means for President Obama and any possibility for peace in Israel-Palestine.
Sen. Susan Collins office tells us progress is being made in negotiating her acquiescence in the repeal of DADT.
Good news if true. But Lucy could still yank away the football at the last moment …
I’ve been traveling most of the last three days. So I’ve been fairly out of the loop editorially at TPM. But on the train now back to New York I was just reading David’s post on the repeal of DADT and the apparent centrality of Sen. Susan Collins (R) of Maine. And at this point I think it is difficult not to detect a certain underlying Maine Senator ‘wanna help but’ pattern.
This reminds of the late stages of the Health Care Debate when Sen. Snowe (R) had basically run out of reasons why she was refusing to vote to break the Republican filibuster and said that even though she didn’t have a clear problem with the legislation the process had just been too quick.
I hope Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) is right that she’s negotiating in good faith. But we do have this consistent taxonomy.
1) Maine senator supports and wants to vote for Mainstream Policy X …
2) and will vote for it if Harry Reid (D-NV) can put one hand on red, one foot on blue and still be able to spin the spinner for his next turn.
or …
3) and will vote for it if Harry Reid can also convince Sens. DeMint, Coburn and Crapo.
or …
4) and will vote for it as long as the clock can be run long enough so that time will run out and there won’t be any vote at all.
It’s bad form to admit this since our job is to bring clarity but the truth is that the DADT repeal negotiations are pretty opaque — even to many staffers on the Hill. Here’s what we think we know: It appears at this point that a focus of repeal proponents is Susan Collins. She’s long been known to be a key senator in the debate, but securing her sign off on moving forward is now a critical step in avoiding a filibuster later tonight.
Beyond that what remains especially unclear is whether there are other roadblocks beyond Collins that may have to be resolved, too. It looks like a case where everyone understands DADT repeal is not going to happen without Collins — but that’s not the same as saying that it will for sure happen with her. Stay tuned.
Admittedly, it does not involve scary black people or a secret plot by Obama. But there was a former House candidate, Tan Nguyen (R), convicted in a vote suppression probe yesterday.
Republican Tom Emmer finally concedes to Democrat Mark Dayton in the Minnesota governor’s race.
Christine O’Donnell: “Tragedy comes in threes. Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards’ passing and Barack Obama’s announcement of extending the tax cuts, which is good, but also extending the unemployment benefits.”
The Senate today unanimously convicted federal district Judge Thomas Porteous of the Eastern District of Louisiana on all 4 impeachment charges against him, making Porteous just the eighth federal judge to be removed from office via the impeachment process.
NYT: No one is investigating us over Wikileaks .. that we know of.