The Upside of 59

I can now relay a conversation I had with Mama Bonk on Saturday. I can do so now without, you know...tempting fate. She asked me what I thought of the election in Massachusetts. I think we're going to lose it, I said, and I think we should. MB was a bit taken aback. Why do you hope for that? she asked. Because, I said, Democrats use that 60-vote thing like a rubber crutch. Rather than trying to legislate intelligently to pass stuff with a simple majority, they're brainwashed into believing that they have to work for 60 or they won't even try. As Thomas Hartmann has just pointed out on the radio, guess what, Dems? NOW YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO PASS SHIT WITH FIFTY-ONE VOTES. The upside of that? IT'S FIFTY-ONE VOTES. Time to put reconciliation back on the table. Time to get the cots out and make a filibuster a real good ol'-fashioned Jefferson Smith style filibuster. It's time to shut these assholes out of some meetings, time to hold some hearings, time to get some subpeonas honored, time to force a few 3 a.m. votes. They say people only use 10 percent of the brain—the fact is that our Democrats are only using perhaps four percent of their power. This latest event cuts the threshold to 51 votes, but it narrows the process. It's time for our Senate Democrats to get downright creative.