Recently, President Obama again was taught this negotiation 101 lesson. Once again House Speaker John Boehner is threatening to hold the debt limit hostage in exchange for another round of one dollar of spending cuts for one dollar of debt increase. From a policy perspective I consider Boehner’s ask an idiotic demand that will do real damage to the economy, but this is the right move for Boehner as a negotiator.

Obama has repeatedly proven that he doesn’t have the resolve to stand up against this tactic. On both the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts and the first debt ceiling deal, Boehner took an unrelenting stance and Obama responded by quickly caving. Obama even publicly stated after one such showdown that he feels he must fold in the face of such hostage taking tactic.

Given that Obama has allowed this tactic to be so effective, it would be almost malpractice for Boehner not to use it more often to get what he wants. This is not the first time Boehner has take such a position, and if Obama keeps acting in the weak manner he has so far, it will not be the last time.

A lot has been made recently about how the problem with our government is that the Republican party has been taken over by extremists who refuse to compromise. While that is where much of the blame lies, if Democrats hadn’t repeatedly enabled, empowered and rewarded this approach, maybe the Republicans wouldn’t have so much incentive to adopt it. The Republicans have zero reason to actually compromise if they can get what they want without them needing to make concessions.

Here’s how the obstructionists work. To begin debate on a bill, senators must first adopt a “motion to proceed.” But debate on that motion, as on most everything else that comes before the Senate, is unlimited unless at least 60 senators vote to end it. That means a minority of as few as 41 can block any action simply by refusing to permit a vote on the motion to proceed.

Thus the filibuster does not extend debate, which is its supposed purpose. Instead, it stops debate. [...]

That’s why Common Cause is filing suit today to stop it. [Download and read our legal complaint as a PDF.]

Our lawsuit argues that the Constitution sets out super-majority requirements only in special cases, to override a presidential veto or ratify a treaty, for example. It does not permit the Senate to require more than a simple majority just to begin debate; and the Supreme Court already has said that a legislative body’s rules cannot conflict with the Constitution.

Congressional plaintiffs in our suit include Reps. John Lewis, D-GA, Michael Michaud, D-ME, Hank Johnson, D-GA, and Keith Ellison, D-MN.

I doubt this lawsuit will actually result in the Supreme Court telling the Senate they must eliminate the filibuster, but the Court has recently surprised us several times, and that may not be needed. I can easily see the simple act of bringing the lawsuit succeeding at the goal of getting the rules changed, even without winning the court case.

At the very least his move should bring even more attention to this issue of reform, which could help convince the Senate to act on its own.

I could also picture the judiciary ruling against this suit on the grounds that each chamber is allowed to make its own rules, but as part of that decision the Court reaffirms that a simple majority of senators already has the legal authority to change their rules and eliminate the filibuster at any time. Such a statement could increase popular, political and media pressure on the Senate to act.

Currently, there seems to be remarkably little media or political acknowledgement that nothing is actually stopping a majority of senators from quickly ending the filibuster right now.

If you have great robotics, very good artificial intelligence and faster than light travel, all technology present in the Star Wars Universe, a Death Star should be nearly free to construct with enough time.

To understand this we need to examine what we currently think of as wealth. With current technology such a thing would be prohibitively expensive, because it would require a lot of material, a lot of energy  and a lot of labor. All three are costly now but would be extremely cheap for his fictional advance civilization.

• Material - it costs a lot to find the right metals, pull them out of the ground and refine them on Earth. The resources are limited here on Earth. A civilization with faster than light travel, though, doesn’t have this problem. Over thousands of star systems it should be easy to find an asteroid that is the right size made of mostly pure metal.
• Energy – Energy costs a lot based on our limited technology, but space is full of easy to get unlimited energy. Simply place some solar panels or solar sails near a star and you have a huge amount of energy to work it.
• Labor – With good intelligent robots the whole thing could basically be constructed without any person needing to work on building it. If need be you can even start with just a few robots and have them build more robots until the labor force is an optimum. This is basically what the mathematician John von Neumann suggested.

The basic Death Star construction plan is simple. Find the large space rock, drop off some robots with the plans and a power source, and come back later when it is finished. It is more like you grow it from seed than actually construct it. Total cost is almost nothing.

I’m writing this not only because it is fun to be incredibly nerdy, but I think it highlights the important point that ideas of wealth and value will be impacted by future technological development. Only 150 years ago aluminum was much more valuable than gold. In 1850 a single aluminum chair would cost the equivalent of half a million dollars, but I can buy one for $50. Similarly a few generations ago fresh imported fruit was an unimaginable luxury, but now I can buy Mangos for $3.99 a pound.

Technological change can make what was once extremely costly nearly free. It can make the once incredibly rare a common place luxury or even a necessity. Technology’s ability to radically change things shouldn’t be forgotten. It will likely make any very long term budget projections based on currently spending patterns completely worthless.

The Economist Keynes once said, “in the long run, we are all dead.” I would like to add that in the long run, technology will radically change our society, our industries and costs in ways that are today unimaginable.

“If there were ever a time when Tom Udall and Jeff Merkley were prophetic, it’s tonight,” Reid said on the floor. “These two young, fine senators said it was time to change the rules of the Senate, and we didn’t. They were right. The rest of us were wrong — or most of us, anyway. What a shame.”

Reid added: “If there were anything that ever needed changing in this body, it’s the filibuster rules, because it’s been abused, abused, abused.”

I believe we are fast approaching the point where it is not a question of if the Senate rules regarding the filibuster are going to be reformed but simply a matter of when and how.

It is important to remember that the founders clearly intended the Senate to be a majority chamber and didn’t plan for there to be a filibuster. It only emerged later accidentally as a result of sloppy rule writing.

The shameful concept of the filibuster only survived for so long because it was reserved almost exclusively for suppressing African Americans. During a much more racist time the Senate thought it was good to have a special rule that basically only applied to preventing civil rights legislation.

It is only in the past year few years it has turned into a de facto 60 vote threshold for anything. Combine that with the fact that our political parties are becoming more ideologically unified, and it has made our Senate truly unworkable. The pure nonsensical stupidity of how the chamber is now run is a national shame.

This was obvious for a long time to any rational observer, but most Senators trying to jealously guard their power under the guise of defending “tradition” were slow to acknowledge reality.  Now that even the leader of the Senate is forced to acknowledge what a joke the rules have turned the chamber into, reform is probably not far off.

Currently two-thirds of the country opposes the war in Afghanistan, with 40 percent now saying they “strongly oppose” the war. This is the first time that there are significantly more Americans who are “strongly opposed” to the war than strongly and somewhat favor it.  Opposition to the war has grown both in size and intensity.

Given that it is an incredibly costly war that now lacks any clear mission, purpose, or end game, I suspect opposition will only continue to grow.

This election is likely to focus a fair amount on the issue of the federal deficit, so one would think the fact  we are wasting billions in a foreign war the American people don’t support or need would be an actual scandal. In a functioning democracy such a deeply unpopular war should be a huge campaign issue. Sadly, I don’t have high hopes, given the presumptive Republican and Democratic nominees and our current system.

It is time to get out of Afghanistan now.

HHS can use its bully pulpit to publicly shame insurers whose rates don’t pass its sniff test – and HHS has done just that, holding four media calls since November to scold insurers each time it’s made a new “unreasonable” determination.

Faced with the choice of dealing with some negative press on the national stage or upending their business plan, the four insurers that have been dinged by HHS have all chosen to stick with the business plan.

Even though a provision with zero enforcement obviously has almost no value, this hasn’t stopped Democrats from claiming the rating review process is amazing and should be super effective. The White House’s official overview of the law still falsely implies the law has regulatory teeth:

Stopping Unreasonable Rate Increases: In every State and for the first time ever, insurance companies are required to publicly justify their actions if they want to raise rates by 10 percent or more.

The reality is that the law now merely lets us officially know that HHS thinks the rates are “unreasonable,” but it does nothing to actually stop them.

During the drafting of the ACA, efforts were made to include a provision that would give HHS the power to stop unreasonable rate increases, but the provision didn’t make it into the final law. Instead the Obama administration seems to be just pretending it did.

With so much over promising and under delivering around the health care law, it is no wonder it is still unpopular.

A number of gay and progressive donors, unsolicited, have indicated to us that they aren’t considering requests to donate to the Obama SuperPac because of the president’s refusal to the sign the order. And those are high-dollar asks, some in the seven digits. We have heard from at least half a dozen major gay and progressive donors that they stand united with us. There is still time for the President to do the right thing and sign this executive order, our great hope is that he does so immediately.

Unless I miss my guess, “we have heard from at least half a dozen major gay and progressive donors” is code for what used to be known in donor circles as “the Cabinet” or “the Gay 8.”  The group has grown over the years,  and it includes many of the biggest Democratic Party donors of the past decade.   In addition to Jonathan Lewis, it now includes David Bohnett (Geo-Cities), Jon Stryker (Stryker Corp), Tim Gill (Oracle),  James Hormel (Hormel), Henry van Amerigen (International Flavors & Fragrances), Linda Ketner (Food Lion), Weston Milliken (Milliken & Co.), Esmond Harmsworth (Daily Mail) and Laura Ricketts (Chicago Cubs).

While most in the group have already maxed out to Obama campaign and the DNC, that’s small potatoes.  The Obama campaign has recently been tapping members for multi-million dollar donations to the 527s  – but according to Open Secrets,  all conspicuously missing from the top 2012 election cycle donors.

The White House is pushing back on the Sargent article and telling journalists that there really are no problems.  But if that’s the case, where are the traditional LGBT 527 donors?  They should name the ones that already have, or plan to donate.

The decision of LGBT donors to shut off campaign donations over Obama’s refusal to sign an executive order on ENDA has tremendous downstream implications.  It could have serious consequences for members of congress who rely not only on LGBT donors themselves, but who will need well-funded GOTV support for 2012 as well.

LGBT donors can check to see whether the names of their representatives appear on the naughty or nice lists when it comes to signing the letter to President Obama, asking him to issue an Executive Order on ENDA.

If you haven’t already, click here to call and urge your member of Congress to sign the letter urging President Obama to issue an executive order protecting LGBT employees of federal contractors from discrimination.

On Thursday we began launching calls into the offices of members of Congress who have not signed the letter.

Please take a moment to call and ask your member of Congress to sign the letter if they have not already.

We decided to tally the money these AWOL members have taken from LGBT interests such as the Human Rights Campaign, the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and others for their support of LGBT issues over the years.

Topping the list of non-signers is Leonard Boswell, who has hauled in $48,045.  Close on his heels is Rick Larsen with $36,550, Ed Perlmutter with $28,808, Joe Crowley with $28,325 and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz with $24,550.  In total there are 33 Democrats who have taken money for their support of LGBT issue who are no-shows on the letter.

Maplight indicates $4,723,679 in contributions from LGBT interests to Democratic and Republican members of Congress since 2000, though the numbers are no doubt much higher —  many individual contributions are not categorized with the FEC.

Many of these representatives are members of the Equality Caucus and/or co-sponsors of ENDA, and they raise considerable sums by promising support for LGBT issues.  But now that President Obama wants to take a dive on his 2008 campaign promise to support ENDA, they do not want to put pressure on him to do so and are nowhere to be found.

A 2011 report by the Center for American Progress concludes that “gay and transgender employees continue to face alarmingly high rates of discrimination in the workplace.”  There is no good reason for members of Congress who treat LGBT issues like a cash cow when it comes to election time to be AWOL when their support is needed.

Call your member of Congress and ask if they will sign the letter urging President Obama to end discrimination against LGBT employees by federal contractors with an executive order.

LGBT activists lobbying on the Hill report that the DNC is actively discouraging the letter in order to shield the President from the pressure within his own party.

Lyndon Johnson signed such an executive order in in 1965 prohibiting discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex or national origin.”

Call your member of Congress today and ask them to sign the letter to President Obama, telling him to issue an executive order to end LGBT discrimination in the federal workplace.

Several calls to long-time ENDA supporters are listed below, along with the LGBT issue-related donations each has received (per Maplight).  And Patrick C. reports that Ed Towns is “looking to get added” to the letter.

Seventy-two members have already signed the letter. Is your member of Congress listed?

The controversy over Obama’s refusal to sign an executive order on ENDA continues to brew:

• AP’s David Crary reports today that White House aides say “Barack Obama has done more for the cause of gay rights than any president before him,” and think Congress should do the heavy lifting on ENDA.  “Many gay activists don’t buy that explanation, given that the act has no chance in the current Congress” writes Crary.  “They wonder why issuing the executive order doesn’t fit with Obama’s recently adopted ‘We can’t wait’ strategy of taking actions that don’t need congressional approval.”
• Twenty-three faith groups including the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the National Council of Churches, the Union for Reform Judaism and Muslims for Progressive Values sent a letter to President Obama yesterday saying “we strongly urge you to reconsider issuing an executive order prohibiting discrimination by U.S. government contractors on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.”
• Matt Baume of LBGTQNation asks “After decades of pressure, ENDA continues to languish — What gives?
• If you haven’t seen White House spokesperson Jay Carney being grilled on ENDA Bil Browning has the video & recap at Bilerico.
• For those who think such protections already exist (they don’t), the Advocate writes about “why we still need a fully inclusive ENDA.”
• Greg Sargent reports that GetEqual will soon start staging actions against Obama For America offices throughout the country.  Managing director Heather Cronk says they will “certainly be doing potentially arrestable actions at the White House.”
• Both the New York Times and Washington Post have published editorials blasting Obama for refusing to sign the Executive Order.

I can’t think of any good reason why the following representatives are equivocating on signing on to the Pallone letter. Many thanks to all the folks who called. If you haven’t yet, click here to ask your representative to sign the letter urging President Obama to issue an executive order protecting LGBT employees of federal contractors from discrimination:

Don't Frack Up Our Water (photo: ProgressOhio/flickr)

In what is a truly pathetic and what can only be seen as a deeply corrupt move by the Obama administration, companies who engage in hydraulic fracturing will only need to disclose what chemicals they use after the well has been drilled. From the New York Times:

But in a significant concession to the oil industry, companies would have to reveal the composition of fluids only after the drilling of a well is completed, not before, a sharp change from the government’s original proposal, which would have required disclosure of the chemicals 30 days before a well could be started.

The weakening of the rule followed a series of meetings at the White House after the original regulation was proposed in February. Lobbyists representing oil industry trade associations and individual major producers like ExxonMobil, XTO Energy, Apache, Samson Resources and Anadarko Petroleum met with officials of the Office of Management and Budget, who reworked the rule to address industry concerns about overlapping state regulations and the cost of compliance.

The whole point of disclosure is to protect people from potential dangers, to stop something bad from happening before it happens. If you know what the chemicals are beforehand you can at least theoretically try to address concerns before something irreversible occurs.

If the data is only released after the well is drilled, it is too late. Any possible damage is already done. Once the chemicals have already been pumped into the ground there is no way to ever get all of them back out. At that point the die is cast.

This is disturbingly pathetic. The Obama’s administration decided to side with big oil over the American people and basic common sense. The people who made this decision should be ashamed of themselves.