Throughout Barack Obama’s tenure as President, Congress has been held hostage by a minority party that has used unprecedented abuse of the filibuster to turn the Senate into a mockery of itself. Americans are sick and tired of Congress’s ineptitude, and GOP’s perversion of the filibuster is more than a little responsible.

So it’s great news that Common Cause and a handful of other plaintiffs — including our own Keith Ellison — are suing the Senate, claiming that the filibuster is unconstitutional:

At the core of [Plaintiffs’ lawyer Emmet] Bondurant’s argument is a very simple claim: This isn’t what the Founders intended. The historical record is clear on that fact. The framers debated requiring a supermajority in Congress to pass anything. But they rejected that idea….

In the end, the Constitution prescribed six instances in which Congress would require more than a majority vote: impeaching the president, expelling members, overriding a presidential veto of a bill or order, ratifying treaties and amending the Constitution. And as Bondurant writes, “The Framers were aware of the established rule of construction, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, and that by adopting these six exceptions to the principle of majority rule, they were excluding other exceptions.”

That should be a particularly persuasive argument for conservative justices, who base their small-government interpretation of the Constitution on a very similar argument — the enumeration of certain government powers means that those not mentioned must be unconstitutional by default. It’s hard for me to see how they would defend a sudden flip-flop from their laser-like focus on that particular rule of construction.

The beauty of this lawsuit, though, is that in many ways it’s a win-win proposition. If the courts rule against the plaintiffs, it’s likely to be on the basis of language in the Constitution that gives both houses of Congress the power to set their own rules. In other words, even if the courts uphold that the filibuster is constitutional, they’ll also be upholding the very rule that would give the Senate the power to eliminate the filibuster.

It’s high time for the filibuster to go. Elections have consequences — we need a return to majority rule.

Republicans in the Senate yesterday filibustered a bill to keep borrowing costs down for college students. They’ll only agree to help students if they can eliminate programs that help others, so they filibustered the Democrats’ bill that would have paid for keeping student loan rates low by ending a payroll that lets the wealthy avoid paying payroll taxes. 

But this is a ridiculous debate in the first place. Have you noticed that we only have battles over paying to help the lowly 99 Percent? Republicans don’t believe we need to pay for hundreds of billions in tax breaks for the super-rich, but they insist that any help for students must be paid for by sacrifices from others who are struggling to get by.

I have a better idea — how about we stop helping those who don’t need help, and start helping those who do?

We know austerity doesn’t work. We can easily observe that fact from what’s going on around the world right now. Britain, for example, one of the greatest champions of austerity under the leadership of Prime Minister David Cameron, is now back in recession, and is actually faring worse than it did during the Great Depression. Here at home, austerity is also failing us.

The private sector in America is steadily gaining jobs. The public sector, though, has been hemorrhaging jobs. The graph below shows an index of private jobs (the blue line) and public jobs (the red line), compared to their baseline levels in February 1st, 2009, the start of Obama’s first full month in office. The private sector has gained jobs under Obama, but the public sector has lost big time.

This is what the right wants, and what they howl they’re not getting from Obama, despite his complete capitulation to their demands in actual fact. And it’s killing our economy. Not only has it cost us over 600,000 jobs directly, it’s certainly caused the loss of tens of thousands more indirectly.

Every employed worker — no matter what sector they work in — means increased consumer demand and a stronger economy. Massive government layoffs mean hundreds of thousands of workers who can no longer contribute to the economy. It’s like we’re trying to drive the economy forward with one foot on the gas and the other on the break.

Tea Party favorite Joe Walsh (R-IL) doesn’t think we should help students pay for college with low-interest student loans:

Look what this president’s doing. He was running around a month and a half ago basically saying, “free contraceptives for everybody.” Free contraceptives. [Ed.: I’ll let this absurd lie pass and not get dragged off-topic]. What’s he been doing now the past couple weeks? Basically free college education. Student debt? Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it, you’ll pick it up.

Where to start? First of all, this isn’t “basically free college education” in any way, shape, or form. In fact, college is more expensive than it has ever been. 

Which brings me to my second point. In what universe would a free college education be a bad thing? Actually, I think that’s a goal we should commit ourselves to — providing a fully-paid education at top-notch public universities.

What a radical idea! We could invest in our nation’s future scientists and entrepreneurs and help them get off to a strong start. Instead, we invest in the already-rich and saddle the up-and-coming generation with enormous bills. Which sounds like a better method for building a strong economy to you?

As Obamacare inches toward full implementation in 2014, its benefits are already being felt, more and more strongly with each passing year. Yesterday, we got some news about the impacts of Obamacare’s “medical loss ratio,” which is the common-sense policy that requires insurers to pay a minimum percentage of their premiums toward actual medical care:

Today, we have a first look at how this provision has affected the industry. Health insurance companies will pay $1.3 billion in rebates for 2011, according to a new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation…. [emphasis added]

Importantly, we’re not just saving money. Insurers are also spending more money on medical care, as evidenced by the fact that the 2011 rebates are less than they would have been in 2010, had the medical loss ratio been in effect last year:

Insurers aren’t squirreling away an extra $700 million somewhere. They’re doing what the federal government wants them to do: Spending that $700 million on medical costs. Obama administration officials have repeatedly emphasized that, in an ideal world, there would be no rebates, which get messy and administrative. Instead, they want to see all of that $1.3 billion put into medical costs. And, while insurers aren’t quite there yet, they do appear to be inching in that direction.

These are two of the benefits of Obamacare that conservatives want to take away from us. In its place, they want… absolutely nothing. Costs will rise, millions will lose health care, and the Federal deficit will increase. They have no ideas — so why not stick with a program that’s already proving itself?

The Violence Against Women Act passed yesterday by a vote of 68-31. All 31 no votes were cast by Republicans.

But the GOP would like to remind you that there is no War on Women. 

John Kline says we can’t afford to help ordinary Americans. Sure, he voted for the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich; he’s absolutely fine giving billions to the 1 percent. But when it comes to students, the unemployed, or the elderly, Kline just can’t be bothered to lift a finger.

Sometimes, though, he’s left with little choice. For example, the battle over student loans is shaping up to be a major loser for the Republicans. So while Kline and his fellow Republicans don’t want to keep interest rates low for students, they’re finding it necessary to concede the issue. However, Kline will only agree to help students if he can screw some other Americans to make up for it.

Kline will only vote to keep student loan rates low if Congress votes to make cuts to Obamacare in exchange. Kline and other members of his party want to cut funding for preventative health care — the one health care reform practically everyone supports.

It really makes you wonder — how can Kline be against the 99 Percent on every single issue? What rationale could he have for wanting student loan interest rates to increase? Or for making it harder for Americans to get preventive health care? He supported a $700 billion tax cut for the rich, but he can’t spend $6 billion for student overburdened with loans?

It seems that Kline views the well-being of the 99 Percent as a zero-sum game. We’ve already given everything away to the super-rich. Now, as far as he’s concerned, the rest of us can fight over the scraps. If he’s going to vote to help one group, he’s going to make sure to cause an equivalent amount of harm to others.

It happens every year: Social Security actuaries issue a report on the health of the Social Security Trust Fund, and conservatives and the media proclaim that Armageddon is upon us and Social Security is doomed to go bankrupt. As ThinkProgress notes, though, there’s an easy way to eliminate 95 percent of Social Security’s projected shortfall for a full 75 years:.

• Step 1: Repeal the arbitrary payroll tax cap that results in lower taxes for the rich.
• That’s it.

It makes absolutely no sense to cap payroll taxes for Social Security. The cap means that the richer you are, the smaller the percentage of your income you pay into the system. The payroll tax cap is just another giveaway to the super-rich. Even worse than that, it’s an excuse to slash benefits for those who really need them.

Social Security isn’t in trouble unless we decide we want it to be. And we’ve decided that we’re willing to sacrifice Social Security for the many in favor of special privileges for the few.