CONGRESS Prelude to a Shutdown The 112th Congress has not even been seated yet, but its GOP Members are already salivating over the government shutdown they plan to force next year . Make no mistake, the Republican Party's impending shutdown will have catastrophic consequences for American workers and the U.S. economy, but it is nothing more than an escalation of the GOP's most recent tactics. During the 111th Congress, Republicans lacked the majorities to force a shutdown, but the Senate's arcane rules gave them all the power they needed to hollow out the executive and judicial branches of government . Indeed, in many ways the shutdown began the moment President Obama took office, and GOP senators figured out they could keep virtually any Senate-confirmed job open as long as they saw fit. AN EMPTY BENCH: No one has felt the force of this obstructionism harder than the federal judiciary and the millions of Americans who depend upon it for fair and timely justice. It's been more than two months since the Senate has held a single judicial confirmation vote, and more than half of Obama's judicial nominees -- 44 in all -- have yet to even receive a vote in the Senate. This includes 23 nominees who have already cleared the Judiciary Committee -- 17 of them unanimously. Moreover, more than half of these vacancies have been declared "judicial emergencies" by the non-partisan agency responsible for monitoring judicial caseloads. And the GOP's efforts to keep even the most uncontroversial nominees from receiving a vote stands in stark contrast to the treatment afforded to President Bush's judges. According to data supplied by the Federal Judicial Center, Obama's 41 confirmed judges is less than half of the 99 judges confirmed at this point in Bush's presidency. Indeed, Senate Democrats confirmed 20 judges during Bush's first lame duck period alone. The GOP's unprecedented obstruction of Obama's judges has drastic consequences for Americans seeking justice. Presently, the average civil litigant must wait nearly two years for a full trial of his or her case to be resolved, and this wait will only grow as more judges retire. Just as tragically, GOP obstruction of Obama's judges preserves the far right's stranglehold over the judiciary -- ensuring more decisions halting scientific progress, more morally re pulsive rulings such as a Fifth Circuit decision requiring an alleged rape victim to cheer for her rapist , and more right-wing judges attending industry-funded junkets to learn how to rule in favor of big business. AXES TO GRIND: Threatening a government shutdown is ultimately an act of extortion. In 1995, Newt Gingrich held millions of Americans' Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits hostage, refusing to free these prisoners unless President Clinton accepted draconian cuts to Medicare and education. Fifteen years later, some Republicans are prepared to cut off all government benefits until the Affordable Care Act is repealed . But conservative senators engaged in similar hostage-taking with Obama's nominees from the moment he took office. Earlier this year, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) placed a hold on more than 70 nominees in an attempt to force the federal government to award a $35 billion defense contract to Northrop Grumman. Sens. Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) filibustered Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes because they believed the Obama Administration was not sufficiently deferential to the oil and gas industries. Even pro-corporate Democrats have gotten into this game -- Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) held Obama's budget director hostage for two crucial months during the budget drafting season in order to extract concessions for Big Oil. And these are just a handful of the exceptional nominees held up by conservatives with an ax to grind. THE WAY FORWARD: The GOP's kneejerk opposition to anything Obama supports has gotten so severe that many Republican statesmen have warned of its consequences for America's security and prosperity. Former GOP senator John Danforth warned that his party is "beyond redemption" if its primary voters seriously challenge Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) for the crime of agreeing with Democrats that nuclear weapons should be controlled . Seven Republican-appointed federal judges recently joined a letter pushing GOP senators to stop slowly shutting down the federal judiciary . Senator-elect Dan Coats (R-IN), who also served in the Senate during the 1990s, even endorsed a modest form of filibuster reform to ensure that every issue is fairly debated on the Senate floor. Yet anyone who thinks that these urgings from GOP elder statesmen will make a real difference hasn't been paying attention for the last two years. Indeed, under the Senate's arcane rules, just one single senator has the power to virtually shut down the entire legislative body. Nevertheless, while Obama lacks the power to give his judicial nominees a lifetime appointment without finding a way around Senate obstructionism, he is hardly without power in preventing the GOP from hollowing out his executive branch. Simply put, the President has all the evidence he needs to understand that the GOP will never be an honest bargaining partner, so it is Obama's own fault if conservatives continue to hollow out the executive branch because the President uses his recess power too sparingly.  Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said yesterday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should consider whether WikiLeaks can be declared a terrorist organization . "By doing that, we will be able to seize their funds and go after anyone who provides them bay help or contributions or assistance whatsoever,” he said. "To me, they are a clear and present danger to America."
The New York Times reports that the secret U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks yesterday reveal that when American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle Guantanamo detainees, "they became reluctant players in a State Department version of 'Let's Make a Deal.'" In one such move, "Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama."
Included in the thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks is evidence that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered "American embassies and missions around the world" to spy on foreign leaders, including U.N Secretary Ban Ki Moon . Clinton's directive included asking that biometric information be collected, which can include DNA and fingerprint samples.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said yesterday that the U.S. needs to start considering "regime change" in North Korea. McCain, speaking on CNN's State of the Union, did not specify how the U.S. should go about changing the government, and said he was not suggesting military action.
As the lame-duck Congress returns today, lawmakers will try to address a "daunting agenda of economic issues" that has "eluded them all year," including a fiscal 2011 budget, the Bush tax cuts, and extended unemployment benefits. While lawmakers will meet with President Obama Tuesday regarding the Bush tax cuts, they are expected to let the Nov. 30 deadline for unemployment benefits pass without extension.
A roundtable of billionaires on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour said they would like to see tax rates increased for themselves and other wealthy Americans. Warren Buffet, who is worth $47 billion, told Amanpour: "I lived in periods where capital gains taxes were 39.6 percent, when earned income taxes were 70 percent, and our economy did just fine."
Two sets of liberal advocacy groups will unveil alternative debt-reduction proposals to those of President Obama's debt commission in the next two days, highlighting "fewer reductions in domestic spending, more cuts in the military and higher taxes for the wealthy." The groups say their versions will stabilize the deficit "without demanding draconian cuts to national investments or to vital safety net programs."
Today, top scientists working with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research plan to release a paper finding that as many as a billion people could lose their homes in the next 90 years due to global warming. The report's release coincides with the start of a new round of climate negotiations in Cancún, Mexico.
And finally: Inspired by the tea parties, Latino leaders are pondering whether to create an independent political force for immigration reform. Dubbing the movement the "Tequila Party," Latino political leaders are saying that if Congress fails again to pass immigration reform, "some Hispanics will likely decide to strike out on their own."
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 "[W]e have seen the stimulus dollars that have been spent have not produced jobs."
-- Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), 7/13/10
VERSUS
"The Congressional Budget Office has weighed in on the effects of the government's stimulus spending this past summer and concludes that the Recovery Act raised the GDP, lowered unemployment, and increased the number of people with jobs."
-- ABC News, 11/24/10
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