The humble carrot via nickwheeleroz.

If Harry Reid puts Dawn Johnsen in the voting mix, it could single-handedly earn the man a carrot from me. 

Via Politico:

“It appears that we have no alternative but to have votes next Monday,” Reid said in a Senate floor speech Monday. “I’ve tried lots of different ways to get [the nominations] done, but there appears that the only thing I can do is file cloture.”

Republicans have blocked consideration of Craig Fugate, who has been tapped to head up the Federal Emergency Management Agency; David Hayes, Obama’s choice for deputy secretary of the Interior Department; and Cameron Kerry, who has been selected to serve as Commerce Department counsel.

That’s a lot of blockage from the Party of No. GOPeevish much?

Don’t expect it to get any better — they are already gearing up to fight any SCOTUS nominee, regardless of qualifications or character.

Movement conservatives are in a position to oppose the nomination of almost any nominee that the president puts forward. In conversations with TWI, activists portrayed the coming confirmation hearings as a chance to peel the bark off of the president’s bipartisan image, to unite the conservative movement, and to learn lessons for future hearings with higher stakes….Their focus was not so much on defeating this pick — an incredibly difficult task with only 40 Republican senators — but on carving out an election issue for the 2010 midterms and on building capital for a theoretical future battle to replace one of the court’s conservatives.

It is about election cycle political positioning and revving the rabid base, pure and simple. Bloodying whomever the nominee may be in an effort to weaken Obama’s public support for the midterms. 

Which is why efforts to restore the rule of law have to move forward. Now.  (more…)

Bowl of cherries? via silkegb.

Not to get all cocky or anything…because lord knows we can’t depend on the likes of Joe Lieberman (I-Party of One) or the newly minted Arlen Specter (D-Haggis).

But even with the jello-spined and treacherous among us, this recent bit of news on "the math" starts making the GOP Senate oppo on Dawn Johnsen look like kabuki dinner theater.

What’s this bit of good news on the Dawn Johnsen front, you ask? Let’s call it getting tougher to filibuster when people like Richard Lugar say things like this:

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said Tuesday he will support the nomination of an Indiana University law professor to head the Obama administration’s internal law office.

He is the first Republican to publicly declare his backing for Dawn Johnsen, whose selection to head the Office of Legal Counsel has grown into a fight about abortion rights and counterterrorism practices.

The article also mentions that Sen. Ben Nelson has said he won’t likely support Johnsen’s nomination. But I have it from a couple of well-placed sources on the Hill that Nelson intends, at least at this point, to vote FOR cloture. Which makes "the math" for GOP filibuster threats seem more tenuous, doesn’t it?

And where one GOP Senator jumps off the sinking ship, will more follow? Olympia Snowe? Judd Gregg? Susan Collins? Orrin Hatch? Who’ll be next? (more…)

Empty plate via kmevans.

The GOPeevish keep jacking up the nopes. Look what all their empty gestures are getting for the American public.

Exhibit A: That swine flu epidemic that may or may not be headed across the globe? Wondering why we don’t yet have a CDC Director? Effect? Meet cause:

CDC is an agency on organizational hold, with an Acting Director. As public health professionals they are doing a heroic job, but they depend on DHHS, of which they are a part, for building government-to-government relationships….[and] there is still no Secretary of DHHS. Obama’s nominee, the highly capable administrator Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, has had her confirmation held up by Republican ideologues playing abortion politics.

If ever there was a time when we needed strong leadership at DHHS, this is it. Playing politics has consequences.

Pandemic preparedness? Another GOP casualty. Dude, where’s my planning? 

Exhibit B: How’s that OLC vacuum working for the nation?

“George Bush used this office to provide the legal justifications for torture and illegal spying. Because of Dawn’s courageous opposition to those policies, the right wing wants to block her confirmation. But we can’t let them,” Turner says, according to a transcript of the phone call distributed by PFAW.

Social conservatives say whatever the reasons Republican senators give for opposing her nomination, Johnsen has given a boost to their troops.

“The outside groups are fired up,” said one senior Republican aide.

Exhibit C: When at first you don’t succeed? Lie, lie again:

Bond: First Carl I would say that there’s a very strong dissent from five members of your committee who said that your report was fallacious…

Levin: I’ve got to answer that one thing because I’m chairman of the committee. There was no objection to this report. Seven Republicans were there when we voted on it. Not one dissented. We had months and months of opportunity for any dissenting views. That’s the report. It’s a unanimous report of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

It’s all kabuki, all of it.  It has nothing to do with the good of the nation.  (more…)

Boy, wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall when Jane Harman runs into John Kerry after this choice bit from Jeff Stein: According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he “needed Jane” to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times. Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections.