The Durango’s Back in Your Court, Mr. President

JNS do you have a link to the vote? I am curious about who didn’t vote and where a guy like Lieberman came down.

Vote Results. So, did Reid vote Nay for some procedural reason, I guess?

Jay,
You’ve done a good job blogging about this dreadful episode, but I wish you would have been more informative about the lame duck Republican’s role in scuttling this.

Here’s the vote: The Associated Press: Senate roll vote on $14B auto bailout

Lieberman voted yes.

coffee’s quicker on the draw than I am, I see.

coffee, thanks for the cloture vote tally. So, as I count it, 8 dems voted against or didn’t vote. If they voted for it that would have been 60. So explain to me how this is not a bipartisan decision.
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And explain to me why I don’t see Corker on CSPAN right now reading the phone book.

wish you would have been more informative about the lame duck Republican’s role in scuttling this

I don’t know how she could have been clearer.
Again JNS, thanks for your work.

I’m furious about this. At the same time, it’s really sad these companies couldn’t hold on for 3 weeks until the new congress sits.

@wvng – I think the fairest accounting is that only Tester and Baucus jumped ship.

Um, why did Harry Reid vote against this? That’s helpful.

I think Reid votes NO so he can reintroduce the bill.
Procedural.

PNNTO:
Correct.

paul-paul Thanks.
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I wonder if the Republicans realize that a good many of the 42% of the electorate who doesn’t want to bail out Detroit think that it’s really only Detroit and maybe a few of their local car dealers that are going to be affected.

Dirks,
I would have preferred LAME DUCK SOUTHERN REPUBLICANS CONSPIRE TO DESTROY THE AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY. Something like that.
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ouch. grammar apology

JamesLA. agreed. My local teevee station said this morning the bill failed because the workers wouldn’t agree to wage cuts.

Mike Vaccaro talking about “bail-out fatigue.” Christ on a stick. I’ll show you fatigue.
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O’Donnell says Bush willing to look at TARP money. I wonder how many foreign leaders are burning up the wires telling the President to effing take care of this.

the workers wouldn’t agree to wage cuts.
It’s amazing how the need to gloss over details in order to bring news quickly results in outright lies.
Do we think there’s a difference between taking a wage cut with the new contract and scuttling the existing contract? Do we think that the Rank and File still retaining a vote on their own livelihood no longer matters?

I’m no fan of Unions but I have significantly less patience with professional liars.

kathy,
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no one is noting that the movers behind this are southern republicans with non-unionized foreign auto plants in their states. What they are really after is to bust the UAW.
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You would think that journos, who are suffering their own industry shakeout, would be a little more attuned to the effort of the GOP to destroy unions. The end goal is to have free reign for cheap labor without benefits. That’s what they are trying to do.

When will people learn that republicans are not your friends if you are not wealthy? When are they going to learn that republicans hate the middle class and working people.
And these southern senators want to kill the American auto industry and throw 3 million out of work to help out their foreign auto manufacturers.
I can see wanting to help your own state but, should the good of America come before that. The good of the people??
I just hope that people remember the cold hearted way republicans view the American worker when elections roll around.

Then again, maybe journos WANT lower wages and fewer benefits. They usually write up the anti-union stuff the GOP gives them without a thought.

I just saw the vote. I know my senator, Dick Durbin, would have voted for it. We have plants here and Durbin cares about the middle class. No way he would not vote for it.
He’s been an excellent senator for the people here.
I am guessing he was not in Washington. Probably dealing the problems in Springfield.

James wrote:
Then again, maybe journos WANT lower wages and fewer benefits. They usually write up the anti-union stuff the GOP gives them without a thought.

You got that right. They have done nothing to disabuse the lie that UAW workers make $75.00 an hour. They actually make about $27.00 (and those at Toyota make $30.00) but, who are they to give us correct facts when it comes to the republicans. They always repeat the republican lies and talking points like they are written in stone.

James LA – actually, I saw that laid out very well last night. On Maddow, I think. Where the plants are in which states. Morning Joe mentioned it too. So it’s out there, it’s just not the principle narrative, which it needs to be.

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Yep. MADDOW did a great job on that last night.
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JNS — If you were a columnist and could offer your opinion, how would you characterize the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate?

I’m sick of playing the “How much wealth did Republicans destroy today?” game. Oh, and if getting the TARP funds doesn’t work out, is the exchange stabilization fund being used for anything right now? There’s about $50 billion there, right?

Just heard the BBC World Service point out that the bailout failed because the union wouldn’t agree to the terms.
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They are now noting that the Japanese auto plants in the US use the same parts suppliers so they will also be in trouble if things go badly. Also mentioning that some states offer special tax breaks to Japanese companies and if the states reconsider that, they will be in trouble. The one who gave this information and quite a bit more was reporting from Tokyo. Wish we could hear such info here.

You got that right. They have done nothing to disabuse the lie that UAW workers make $75.00 an hour. Not true. There has been plenty of responsible reporting on the true wages, here in the pages of TIME, the NYTs the other day, and elsewhere. The problem is pundits who transmit the lie, and pundits and TeeVee reporters who don’t challenge the lie when it is uttered.
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vwcat, Durbin did vote for it.

As I noted in JNS’previous thread, the ball is totally in the media’s court now. They can describe what really happened, or they can spread lies: “the bailout failed because the union wouldn’t agree to the terms.”

Speaking of media, here’s Josh: Worth noting that the geniuses at Reuters manage to explain what happened last night in the senate without mentioning that the plan failed in the face of a filibuster by senate Republicans.

I think the Republicans just wrote off the rust belt for the foreseeable future. Guess they feel they’ve got momentum for their message of economic mass destruction after winning the three special elections. I keep telling people, don’t vote for the Republicans! It only encourages them!

wvng:
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Challenging the lie would require explaining, and explaining isn’t sufficiently superficial for most media. They’d have to do some junior-high arithmetic and maybe come up with a chart. Even then somebody would have to make the effort to put motion elements, or at least cute symbols (The Monopoly guy with his pockets turned out, maybe) in the graphic.
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Video news is all about the video, not the news. It’s so much easier to run the same old b-roll of an assembly line and just repeat the false sound bite, or skip the whole thing and go to a story about pandas or car chases.

A source over at TPM says:

I don’t think it’ll be hard to explain why Senate Republicans had the final say: that’s what the Constitution and Senate rules require. How else would we have passed anything?
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I do think it’ll be hard for Senate Republicans to explain themselves.
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They were invited, repeatedly, to participate in more than a week of negotiations with a Republican White House. They declined.
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They were asked to provide an alternative bill. They refused.
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Finally, one of their members – Senator Corker of Tennessee – participated in a day-long negotiation with Senate Democrats, the UAW, and bondholders. Everyone made major concessions. Democrats gave up efficiency and emissions standards. UAW accepted major benefit cuts and agreed to reduce workers’wages. Bondholders signed off on a serious haircut. But when Senator Corker took the deal back to the Republican Conference, they argued for two hours and ultimately rejected it.
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Why? Because they wanted the federal government to forcibly reduce the wages of American workers within the next 12 months.
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Heard this morning that President Bush may still use TARP money to rescue the automakers. He reportedly doesn’t want to end up as the next Hoover.

Talking Points Memo | Breaking News and Analysis

If anyone can help me out here… is it always game over just because a filibuster-proof majority hasn’t been reached? I understand that technically they don’t have the votes to beat a filibuster back, but does voting against something in the Senate necessarily mean you have the conviction to stand up and talk indefinitely to defeat it? And doesn’t the majority ever have the conviction to just try to push through the filibuster and see what happens? It’s not a comment on the merits of the bill – it’s way over my head when there are clearly no good options – but I don’t fully understand the purpose of a theoretical legislative technique. Why not make it a reality?

It’s unclear. Did the Republicans filibuster or not? No one in DC is willing to say the f-word when talking about Republicans. But Josh noted (I think) that the Republicans filibustered.
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JNS, if you are reading, did they filibuster or not? Because in my world, 52 voted in the affirmative would pass the bill.
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James, LA, I think the vote was not on the bill itself, but to cut off debate and move to vote on the bill itself, i.e. cloture. If you look at the vote link, the bill is identified as one on the alternative minimum tax. Therefore, it was a filibuster because they would not agree to vote on the bill itself. As we keep saying, I wish Reid would force them to keep talking so the news folks couldn’t avoid the word filibuster.

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ivb.
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thanks I had not noticed. Everyone is reporting that it was the auto bailout bill. Your explanation is far more informative than any I’ve seen. JNS certainly wasn’t clear about that.
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No one is willing to say that the Republicans filibustered. It’s an outright conspiracy, I think, in DC to protect the Republican brand.
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I take that back. Politico did a good job explaining:
Cheney: It’s ‘Herbert Hoover’time – Yahoo! News
(h/t Scherer in the Kenyes post)

I keep reading that there is something close to 3 million jobs tied up in the Big 3. Lets say the worst happens and all three of them go belly up. Exactly how are the Republicans going to explain casting 3 million American jobs to the wind? 3 million good paying jobs? And now the fate of it all is in the hands of our Dear Leader. Sort of like putting it in the hands of Elmer Fudd. I’m not sure about Ford, but GM and Chrysler had better start praying for some sort of miracle.

Kentucky auto dealers are “saddened” at McConnell’s perfidy;
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Lexington News – Kentucky News | Lexington Herald-Leader
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They probably contributed big time to his Senate campaign, too, the dumbasses.

Considering the number of jobs tied up with the Big 3, I wonder how the souther Republicans seem to think that it won’t affect them in their states. Seems to me that losing hundreds of thousands of jobs on top of an already terrible recession would have a ripple out affect to most of the country. Including the south. Just wondering.

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The Republicans are out to destroy the labor unions. They are out to do this in spite of the bad economy and in spite of the hardships that will cause. They are *taking the opportunity* of the bad economy to destroy labor unions. And they are confident that the people in their state will continue to send them to Washington, despite all that. And, credit where it is due, that is probably true.

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AND, apparently the DC journos, who are doing so well in this economy, will continue to cover for them.
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This is going to be bad:
TPM: News Pages | Talking Points Memo | GM to cut 250,000 vehicles from 1Q production

James Los Angeles: I read the article you linked from the Lexingon News, including the comments section below that. You are correct. It seems that most people in KY don’t seem to really get that the Big 3 going under would have a negative impact on them.

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Kentucky has a huge Toyota plant just north of Lexington. there is like a 4 year waiting list for jobs, because they are the biggest, and the best-paying employer around. Even so, there are a lot of “Murka First!!” people there too. Their heads must be exploding.
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But then, they just reelected the perfidious McConnell, so what can ya say?

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re: #45 queencersei Says:
Friday, December 12, 2008 at 1:19 pm

I would point to the likes of Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America or, as a somewhat more cynical friend has suggested, Joe Bageant’s Deer hunting with Jesus, as an exploration of the reasons why the more conservative areas of our country routinely vote against their own economic and security interests.

James: ivb was right. the vote was on cloture which is a motion to end debate — ie if you can’t end debate it’s a filibuster. I’m kind of damned if I do damned if I don’t with my language here. Yesterday, I described cloture as ending debate and Kathy called me out for not calling it a filibuster, which, essentially, it is. But when I say filibuster, clearly others get confused. To be clear: the AMT is not a real bill — it’s a shell tax bill on which the auto bailout would piggy back in order to avoid a constitutional mandate that requires all tax bills originate in the House. The Senate keeps a bunch of these House-passed shells around for situations such as these. You’ll remember the TARP was passed in a similar fashion piggy backing on a worker’s mental health parity bill. JNS

Jay,
thanks for responding. I have to say that I am baffled at why you DC journos quit calling filibusters what they are: filibusters. I think you may be misunderstanding the objection here. the objection is that you journos never use the word filibuster in connection with what the Republicans are doing, which is filibustering. To us it appears you are covering for their obstructionism, but I’m willing to listen to an alternative explanation as to why you and other journos are reluctant to use that word.
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At the minimum I think you should be very scrupulous to speicify that the vote was for or aagainst cloture and not for or against the bill.
I recognize that you might have gone over this in another piece or post, but for us working stiffs who can’t keep up with every single post, it is confusing. So when you are reporting on the outcome of a bill, it would be helpful if you would specify that the vote was for cloture against a Republican filibuster. Does that make sense?

Thanks for some of the clarification that’s come out… it’s still a little over my head, but I understand it a bit better. I feel like I make an attempt to keep up with what’s going on in the world of politics better than most people I know, and yet things like this make me realize how little I really understand how it all works. Piggy backing onto shell bills which are kept around… clotures, filibusters, bills, motions to end debates… I guess what matters is the end result, but I agree that I’d like to see an old fashioned standing up for 24 hours talkathon… people actually going through the activity rather than behind the scenes maneuvering.

I didn’t realize how much I was missing not going through the comments thoroughly. I usually feel I barely have time to keep up with the daily posts, but when there’s something complex, the comments can be really helpful.

Here’s the best wrap-up yet of the auto-bailout fiasco by WH reporter extraordinaire Olivier Knox:
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White House mulls urgent new steps on autos – Yahoo! News
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It has some good quotes from the union side.

At what point are we going to have a post at Swampland that addresses this memo circulated by the Republican Senators BEFORE the House even voted on the auto bailout telling everyone to oppose it as a union busting measure??? I guess its just too much to ask.

Hey, JNS, we need a new thread on this addressing sgw’s point. We also need to discuss a simple fact:
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As the Republican Party consolidates in the South, the fight this week could turn out to be a preview of many battles to come over Barack Obama’s economic plans. If those plans involve the domestic auto industry, the GOP pushback will come from somewhere down I-65, the new auto corridor that runs from Kentucky south to Alabama. Expect to hear more not just from the very vocal Bob Corker, but from the rest of a core group of Southern senators whose bread is buttered by the Japanese, Germans and Koreans.
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The NASCAR crowd loves their Fords and Chevies. If this is played right, the GOP could lose the NASCAR crowd. NASCAR = the South. I think the time for the teevee ads to start is right now.