TWO YEARS OF PROGRESS
Watch the video! (And it doesn’t even mention the food safety bill! Or the 9/11 first responders bill! Or our regained status among the community of nations! Or the new line of embryonic stem cells that might one day save your child’s life!)
CLICKABLE PROGRESS
This site provides numbers – nationally, by state, or for your specific Congressional district.
MORE PROGRESS
It now seems as though we may grab the opportunity January 5 that comes around just one day every two years to change the rules of the Senate. It needs to be done thoughtfully – but can anyone think the Senate is not broken? When a single Senator can thwart the combined will of the President, the House of Representatives, a super-majority of his fellow Senators and of the American people? Or when a filibuster no longer requires, at the very least . . . filibustering?
MY MOMENT WITH HARRY REID
Which leads me back to an item I posted this past February, about the question to then Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid in 2005, with President Bush poised to begin his second term. Could Senator Reid not force President Bush to compromise more by threatening to shut things down if he didn’t?
The short form of that story: Senate Reid rejected the idea. It would have been an unprecedented, irresponsible abuse of the Senate rules. Yet that’s exactly what the Republicans wound up doing.
Now, just days from now, there’s a chance to rein in some of the worst abuses, which Harry Reid resisted but Mitch McConnell seemed to relish. If we do, it will be one more step on the long road back to better times.
Now, go watch the video.
