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Good for Sen. Bernie Sanders for standing up for what's right if President Obama tries to offer Republicans cuts to our social safety nets as part of some "grand bargain": Bernie Sanders says give people what they want: Safe Medicare and Social Security:

Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading the charge in the Senate to block any grand bargain that would cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits, and he's got a pretty smart strategy. He explained his efforts in an interview with Greg Sargent. Getting a budget deal is not about offering up the trophy of entitlement cuts to lure in Republicans, Sanders says.

"It's a question of making Republicans an offer they can't refuse," Sanders tells me. "Their position is no more revenues. You and I know that is not the position of the American people. One in four corporations doesn't pay any taxes. What Democrats and progressives should say is, 'Sorry, we're not going to balance the budget on the backs of the vulnerable.'" Sanders described the idea of cutting education, Social Security, Medicare and veterans' benefits as an "obscenity." [...]

"The alternative is not to go into a back room and negotiate with Boehner; it's to make our case to the American people," Sanders said. "I don't believe there's a red state in America where people believe you should cut Medicare, Social Security and veterans' benefits rather than doing away with corporate tax loopholes."

Now that's a pretty smart and pragmatic reading of the American electorate as well as a smart and pragmatic strategy for getting the Republicans to relent on revenue. Wooing them sure as hell isn't going to get the job done. But standing up as Democrats, with the people, could.

And as Greg Sargent noted, he may have some help some of his fellow Democrats in the Senate:

I asked Sanders if he would filibuster any grand bargain that cuts entitlement benefits. “It’s more than just the filibuster,” he said. “That’s a one day tactic. This is about rallying the American people and winning.” He predicted liberals in the Senate (Jeff Merkley, Sherrod Brown, and Elizabeth Warren come to mind) would likely band together to adopt a range of tactics to block such a grand bargain. “Filibustering may be part of it,” he said.

It’s still unclear to me what the endgame would look like if liberals stick with such a strategy. Republicans could simply continue to support indefinite sequestration rather than agree to anything at all, let alone a deal that includes new revenues but no entitlement cuts. Or if the White House does strike a grand bargain, liberal Dems may ultimately cave and support it. Or if a deal is reached in the Senate, it could pass without liberals. However unclear the way foward remains, it’s undeniably good for progressive Senators to be out there defining the liberal position in the debate in as high-profile a way as possible.

And from the Kos diary as well: Send an email to the White House telling President Obama to immediately stop proposing any cuts to Social Security.

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The Senate is broken so badly due to GOP obstruction that, as Ezra Klein pointed out in the segment above, they're less popular than the idea of the United States becoming a communist country, so hey, why fix anything? Right? It seems Grandpa McGrumpy is getting some help from a Democrat in the Senate to undermine Jeff Merkley's attempt at filibuster reform.

Dueling Filibuster Proposals Leave Reformers Scrambling:

The two leading champions of weakening the Senate filibuster on Friday criticized a bipartisan proposal that was unveiled in the afternoon with scaled-back reforms, and they pushed for their own package to make more sweeping changes to the rules.

Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Tom Udall (D-NM) promptly said the alternate proposal put forth by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI) is too weak and does nothing to prevent senators from filibustering quietly and escaping public accountability for their obstruction — the centerpiece of the Merkley-Udall “talking filibuster” plan.

The McCain-Levin proposal, unveiled Friday after bipartisan negotiations, would make it easier for the majority leader to bypass motions to proceed and guarantee the minority two amendments on legislation regardless of relevancy, Steven S. Smith, an expert on Congress at Washington University in St. Louis, told TPM. It would also remove obstacles on motions to go to conference and approve minor presidential nominations.

Levin told reporters in the Capitol that the plan “will hopefully overcome the gridlock that has so permeated the U.S. Senate.” He added: “It is a bipartisan proposal.”

The Merkley-Udall proposal, by contrast, essentially eliminates the ability of senators to block debate on legislation and forces senators who want to prevent a vote on a bill to speak ceaselessly on the Senate floor until one side gives in. [...]

The pro-reform Fix The Senate Now Coalition also called on Reid to say “thanks, but no thanks” to the McCain-Levin plan.

“Instead of a serious reform effort, today’s offering is little more than a status quo, business as usual, recipe for continued Senate gridlock,” the organization said in a written statement. “[W]e hope the Senate Democratic caucus rejects today’s salvo outright.”

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Rachel Maddow talked to Sen. Jeff Merkley about his proposal to reform the rules of the Senate and put an end to this obstruction by Republicans by making Senators actually have to hold the floor for the duration of a filibuster. I agree. If they want to obstruct, make them break out the cots.

One Senator's modest proposal: Force Senators to actually filibuster:

Merkley is working behind the scenes to build support for a rules change that would force Senators to actually filibuster on the floor.

Merkley is distributing a memo making this case to colleages, which was sent my way, and I'm told Merkley will bring the idea up at a Senate caucus meeting today. Merkley notes that it's a myth that there's currently a way to force Senators to filibuster on the floor, and proposes:

The public believes that filibustering senators have to hold the floor. Indeed, the public perceives the filibuster as an act of principled public courage and sacrifice. Let's make it so.

Require a specific number of Senators -- I suggest five for the first 24 hours, 10 for the second 24 hours, and 20 thereafter -- to be on the floor to sustain the filibuster. This would be required even during quorum calls. At any point, a member could call for a count of the senators on the floor who stand in opposition to the regular order, and if the count falls below the required level, the regular order prevails and a majority vote is held.

Under Merkley's proposed change, if a party or group of Senators oppose bringing a bill to the floor for debate -- or opposes ending debate -- they will have to sustain continued opposition on the floor of the Senate. If they don't, the filibuster collapses. The idea is to force the filibuster out into the light of day, where the public can see what's happening.

Merkley's office believes such a change to the rules could be accomplished with a simple majority vote in the Senate, and Merkley will be pushing colleagues to join his effort to make such a vote happen at the outset of the new session in January. Read his full memo here.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders said something we don't hear often enough on cable news shows while talking to Dylan Ratigan about the amendments being considered on the Senate floor today on financial reform.

Sanders: Are we a democracy or are we an oligarchy where the very powerful special interests exert enormous influence over our government.

..I think we're an oligarchy and I think it's getting worse and I think we need to rally the American people...

The middle class in this country is collapsing. Poverty is increasing and the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider. And what's happening with the banks is one of the reasons that that is occurring, so this is not esoteric. This is our standard of living. This is the survival of the middle class.

This interview was before -- no big surprise -- some of those amendments started going down in flames. Shocker right? More good news for the banks all around.

Republicans derail Merkley proposal to regulate banks:

A furious Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., accused Republicans Tuesday of blocking debate on a closely watched amendment that would insulate customers from conflicts of interest and prohibit banks from making risky but highly lucrative trades that helped trigger the recession.

Merkley's outburst came after Republicans objected to what Democrats thought was a routine request for the Senate to consider -- and later vote on -- the amendment he co-sponsored with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. That pattern had been followed for two weeks.

Continue reading »

From Sen. Al Franken:

Sen. Franken proposed an amendment to create a Credit Rating Agency Board, supervised by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which would assign credit rating agencies to provide initial ratings in order to reduce conflicts of interest. This would increase competition by enabling smaller credit rating agencies to finally have an opportunity to compete against the largest three agencies.

DDay at FDL has more -- Al Franken Takes On “Too Big To Fail” Rating Agencies:

Last week, I wondered if anyone in Congress would get their act together and try to deal with the problem of the credit rating agencies as part of the Wall Street reform bill. These raters essentially sold their power to high-rate crap securities to the highest bidder among the banks, because they are hired and paid by the companies whose securities they rate. Jeff Merkley told me that “there hasn’t been enough work done on it yet to come up with a solution.”

Sen. Al Franken has quietly done the work, and come up with an amendment that would change the way the rating agencies and their issuers do business. His amendment, co-sponsored by Bill Nelson and Chuck Schumer, would set up an office inside the SEC that would assign initial rating requests to the accredited rating agencies, rather than have the issuer hire the raters. “Our amendment brings the most fundamental change to the rating agency system,” said a staff member for Senator Franken who walked me through the amendment today.

The reform, modeled after a proposal by NYU law professors Matthew Richardson and Lawrence White, plugs a hole in the Wall Street reform bill by removing the conflict of interest among the rating agencies, according to Franken. He told ABC News yesterday that “If a failing student paid their teacher to turn their F into an A, everyone would agree that what the teacher had done was unethical … But right now, investors are being sold a phony bill of goods. We need to protect consumers from the pay-to-play system that rewards Wall Street players at the expense of Main Street.” Read on...

h/t Jeff Merkley:

Opponents of health care reform are recycling stale talking points designed to kill any plans for reform. Senator Merkley takes aim at these irresponsible tactics and makes the case for quality, affordable care for all Americans.

UPDATE: John Amato

Sen. Merkley, a Blue America candidate attacks the republican party for using Luntz' talking points to KILL the health care debate. He's not being used to come up with alternative legislation. It's all about the language of destruction. People like Luntz exist to muddy up the waters and confuse Americans with his word about the issues that are so essential to their lives.

The soulless Republicans are like leeches sucking on the blood of Luntz because he nourishes their anti-American family values. You go Sen. Merkley.

The Oregonian is now projecting Jeff Merkley will defeat Republican Gordon Smith for the U.S. Senate seat. No Oregon Senator has lost as an incumbent in 40 years.

Democrat Jeff Merkley has leapt from Oregon's statehouse to the U.S. Senate, ousting two-term Republican Gordon Smith after an expensive, high-stakes contest that will help shift the balance of power in Washington.

The Oregonian projects that Merkley will squeak by Smith by the time all votes are counted.

Merkley, a five-term state lawmaker and former Habitat for Humanity director, took advantage of a surge of Democratic support to win the bitterly fought battle with Smith, a Pendleton frozen food magnate who also rose from the Oregon Legislature.

Jeff Merkley was backed by some fine people, including his wife Mary Sorteberg and the man pictured with them below.

Major h/t also to Jeff Merkley's tireless netroots director Sarah Lane. And the folks over at Blue Oregon for their fabulous work.