> > But of course she isn't, as you well know. The insurance
> > companies are. Olympia is the fig leaf.
>
> Well, you may be right. But how do you know this?
I don't know it, of course, in any sense that would satisfy a philosopher. I infer it. But I figured you might have made the same inference and might share my confidence that it is correct.
As I understand it, the Dems don't actually need a filibuster-proof majority at all -- there's an arcane maneuver called, I believe, "reconciliation", which the Republicans repeatedly used during their majorities.
Obie has never given me any reason to believe he was really committed to anything beyond marginal tinkering with the existing system. If he did have any such commitment he's had plenty of opportunities to act on it, and he hasn't.
The notion that he's constrained by some idealistic commitment to bipartisanship seems laughable to me. If anybody here believes that, I have a handsome suspension bridge for sale, with two splendid neo-Gothic masonry towers.
As a general rule, I don't think people really are very interested in process. They're interested in outcomes. Appeals to process are almost invariably -- I think -- oblique and rather dishonest ways of ensuring some desired outcome.
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Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com