With the Democrats’ Senate Majority now dramatically reduced and the seats up for grabs in 2012 looking good for the Republicans, now is a propitious time to revisit the question of reforming the filibuster since it’s much less clear whose minority oxe would be gored. In a sense perhaps it makes no sense for the Dems to entertain reform, given how the Republicans dealt with things in 2006-2010 and given the fact that it’s now much more likely for them to get gored. But for the sake of civics if nothing else, let’s entertain the question. Because I think it’s much less of an all or nothing exercise than most imagine.

Here’s the thing that people tend not to realize about the modern filibuster: it places all the onus on the majority and almost literally none on the minority, thus creating a massive incentive for endless filibusters. Let me explain.

How many Senators do you need to get on the floor to break a filibuster? 60.

How many do you need on the floor to sustain one? 1.

This is what people tend not to realize when they ask why the Majority Leader isn’t ordering them to get out the cots and make people stay up all night. It’s just too easy to sustain a filibuster for that to make any sense. Read More

Let’s say that the Wikileaks cables hadn’t been State Department cables but rather the final tracks of Lady Gaga’s next album or perhaps each episode of next season’s Mad Men? How long do you think they would have stayed online?

A thoughtful essay on Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

Tea Party Nation to send letter to Sarah Palin imploring her to run for RNC chairman.

The time has come for national media to begin asking Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) if he condones what Tom Emmer — the Republican nominee to replace Pawlenty — is doing in dragging out the election recount even though he has no chance of winning.

If Pawlenty doesn’t condone it, then what is he as the state’s top Republican doing to put an end to this ploy, the effect of which will be to keep Pawlenty in office beyond the end of his term?

Those questions virtually answer themselves. But this guy wants to be President. Let’s get him on the record.

Cut off by PayPal, Wikileaks reroutes contributions through other intermediaries.

Virginia Thomas: It was “probably a mistake” for me to call Anita Hill.

Julian Assange says he’s devised a “poison-pill” document dump of ultra-damaging material to be released in the event of his arrest or killing.

We’ve heard claims that Wikileaks has a cache of Russian government documents and also that they’ve got a big dump coming on some American bank, reportedly Bank of America. But there’s one thing that oddly hasn’t gotten that much attention, even though it’s out there in plain site. That’s the role of Bradley Manning, the Army private who is reportedly (though we have no proof of this) responsible for the Afghanistan, Iraq and State Department leaks. Manning’s role is no secret. Everyone knows about him, even though we don’t have confirmation that he’s the guy. But assuming he is the guy, his role is so central that this is really more the Bradley Manning story than the Wikileaks story. Maybe Assange will bust out next week with a huge cache of BoA files, or maybe the same for the Russian government. But at the moment at least it’s not clear that Wikileaks would have gotten anywhere at all without this one kid giving them all these documents.

Would anything ever have become of Wikileaks without Bradley Manning? And can they ever pull off something remotely like this again?

14 year old boy admits accidentally starting the massive forest fire near Haifa that became the largest forest fire in the country’s history.