Cenk Uygur delivers his opinion on what he thinks the top priority should be for Washington in the coming year. Will President Obama choose to focus more on job creation or deficit cutting to better serve the American public?

With the obstruction of a very united minority, there has been a great deal of debate about the filibuster and the reform of Senate Rule 22. In a New York Times op-ed, Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, recalls how in 1975 when he was a Senator, the Senate voted to reduce the number of votes required to end filibuster from 67 votes, a super majority, to the current 60 votes. Clearly, he states this was not enough. Filibuster threats and cloture votes blocked legislation nearly 100 times in the 111th Congress.

Mr. Mondale argues that essentially, these rules abrogate the Constitution which only requires a 67 vote majority for the approval of treaties, “in all other instances it must be assumed that the Constitution requires only a majority vote”. In other words, many of the Senate rules are unconstitutional and could be done away with on a simple majority procedural vote under Parliamentary rules. That was the “nuclear option” that was used as a threat by the Republicans to force the Democrats to capitulate when they were n the minority.

The Constitution is clear that under Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution: “Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings.” However, it is very explicit about the few instances where a super majority vote is needed, it must be assumed that the Constitution requires only a majority vote in all other cases.

Congressional expert and Washington University in St. Louis political science professor Steven S. Smith, has testified before U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration that there is an unhealthy exploiting of the Senate rules to block important legislation and limit debate. Prof. Smith also stated that

“wishing for better behavior” on the part of senators and their leaders won’t reverse the consequences of “two decades of intensifying parliamentary warfare” that has contributed to the demise of the appropriations process, more packaging in omnibus bills, and a shift of policy decision-making from committees to party leadership offices, among other changes

He proposed that these changes be made:

   (M)ore clearly protect each senator’s opportunity to debate and offer amendments;

   (L)imit debate on motions to proceed and combine and limit debate on the three motions to go to conference;

   (L)imit debate on appropriations bills and executive calendar business; and

   (W)here debate is not otherwise limited, allow a simple majority to eventually close debate.

On of the rules being considered is forcing the filibustering Senator to actually stay on the floor speaking for the duration of the filibuster, a la, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ recent 8 and a half hour tour de force on the Senate floor. There is also a need to end the policy of “secret holds” which prevents a bill or nomination from being considered even though it has cleared committee. The Democrats need to stand firm on rules reform, otherwise, we are in for an even more obstructive Senate in the 112th Congress.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

January 2 is the second day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 363 days remaining until the end of the year (364 in leap years).

On this day in 1962, the folk group The Weavers are banned by NBC after refusing to sign a loyalty oath.

The Weavers, one of the most significant popular-music groups of the postwar era, saw their career nearly destroyed during the Red Scare of the early 1950s. Even with anti-communist fervor in decline by the early 1960s, the Weavers’ leftist politics were used against them as late as January 2, 1962, when the group’s appearance on The Jack Paar Show was cancelled over their refusal to sign an oath of political loyalty.

The importance of the Weavers to the folk revival of the late 1950s cannot be overstated. Without the group that Pete Seeger founded with Lee Hays in Greenwich Village in 1948, there would likely be no Bob Dylan, not to mention no Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul and Mary. The Weavers helped spark a tremendous resurgence in interest in American folk traditions and folk songs when they burst onto the popular scene with “Goodnight Irene,” a #1 record for 13 weeks in the summer and fall of 1950. The Weavers sold millions of copies of innocent, beautiful and utterly apolitical records like “Midnight Special” and “On Top of Old Smoky” that year.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: ABC News White House News correspondent, Jake Tapper, will be hosting This Week. He will have an exclusive interview with the president’s top economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee and actor, humanitarian, George Clooney with a message for the government of Sudan: “The world is watching.”

The Round Table guests, George Will, Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile, ABC News Political Director Amy Walter and National Journal Congressional Correspondent Major Garret discuss the incoming Republican Congress and its investigative agenda.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: This Week on Face the Nation, Representatives Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), and Rep.-elect Mike Kelly (R-Penn.) discuss what’s ahead for the new Congress.

The Chris Matthews Show: The Chris Matthews Show: This Week’s Guests Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent, John Heilemann, New York Magazine National Political Correspondent, Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic Senior Editor and Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst, will discuss:

What Must President Obama Do This Year to Get Competitive for 2012?

Year’s Resolutions for Palin and her GOP Rivals, for Hillary Clinton, and the Royals

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Oy. It’s all Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and how the Republicans will block everything and do nothing. I hope Obama has stopped taking this man at his word about cooperation.

At the Round Table, “Lurch” will be joined by  The New York Times’ David Brooks, The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, Yale law professor and author Stephen Carter, and BBC World News America’s Washington Correspondent Katty Kay, and Senator-elect Pat Toomey (R-PA). They will discuss the politics of the new year, the economy, our two wars, and even the politics of snow fall.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: A new year, a new Congress; we’re looking ahead to what’s in store. CNN Chief White House correspondent Ed Henry guest hosts.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine will join us exclusively to discuss President Obama’s next two years in office. Can he rise above a stronger Republican Party? Or will his spirit of compromise sink his hopes for re-election?

Then, the incoming chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, California Rep. Darrell Issa joins us. The last time a Democrat occupied the White House while a Republican chaired the committee, over 1,000 subpoenas were issued. Will Chairman Issa use his subpoena power to help enact the GOP agenda?

And finally, three distinct voices within the House Democratic caucus chart the course forward for a wounded party looking to regain some momentum in the new year. Reps. Jason Altmire, Elijah Cummings and Steve Israel will join us.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: No information for this Sunday.

Every New Year’s Day, the Vienna Philharmonic ushers in the New Year with a concert at the Musikverein in Vienna. The tradition began during the darkest days of WWII. They present the compositions by the Strauss family as well as Joseph Lanner, Joseph Hellmesberger and Franz Liszt. The concert is televised in over 70 countries. Here in the US it is shown on most PBS channels. This year is no different. The program (pdf) was on earlier this afternoon and is repeated this evening at 8 PM. It is a most enjoyable way to spend the evening with after dinner drinks, coffee and desert. Here is last year’s performance of An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314or as it is better known in English, The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II conducted by Georges Prêtre.

ek is off to a 3 dimensional life party, leaving the nightly news in my hands. Bwahahahah

Being the first holiday of the year the news is a bit sparse which makes my job easier tonight, although a bit disappointing to those who are looking for a distraction from the lack of TV fare or family affairs. Well, BBC America is running a marathon of Dr. Who.

1. Words “viral” and “epic” consigned to college trash

By Ros Krasny

BOSTON | Fri Dec 31, 2010 12:38pm EST

(Reuters) – This story might be epic, and could even go viral, but not if Lake Superior State University has anything to do with it. Just sayin.’

The small college in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, released on Friday its annual list of “banished words” — terms so overused, misused and hackneyed they deserve to be sent to a permanent linguistic trash can in the year ahead.

“Viral,” often used to describe the rapid spreading of videos or other content over the Internet, leads the list for 2011.

“This linguistic disease of a term must be quarantined,” Kuahmel Allah of Los Angeles said in making a nomination.

Runners-up included “epic” and “fail,” often twinned to describe a blunder of monumental proportions.

A total of 14 words were on the list.

Cliched terms such as “wow factor,” “a-ha moment,” “back story” and “BFF” (Best Friends Forever) rated highly. The very au courant use of “Facebook” and “Google” as verbs got a thumbs down as well.

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Gail Collins: The End-of-the-Year Quiz

Let’s see how well you followed the news in 2010. No cheating

I. Happy New Year! Besides the Times Square ball, the glorious American mosaic of things scheduled to be dropped around the nation on New Year’s Eve also included all but which one of the following:

A) The Brasstown, N.C., Possum Drop

B) Dillsburg, Pa.’s giant pickle

C) The Elmore, Ohio, Sausage Drop

D) Seaside Heights, N.J., first annual dropping of Nicole (Snooki) Polizz

Bob Herbert: For Two Sisters, the End of an Ordeal

I got a call on New Year’s Eve from Gladys Scott, which was a terrific way for 2010 to end.

As insane as it may seem, Gladys and her sister, Jamie, are each serving consecutive life sentences in a state prison in Mississippi for their alleged role in a robbery in 1993 in which no one was hurt and $11 supposedly was taken.

Gladys was on the phone, excited and relieved, because Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi had agreed to suspend the prison terms.

“I’ve waited so long for this day to come,” she said.

I was happy for the Scott sisters and deeply moved as Gladys spoke of how desperately she wanted to “just hold” her two children and her mother, who live in Florida. But I couldn’t help thinking that right up until the present moment she and Jamie have been treated coldly and disrespectfully by the governor and other state officials. It’s as if the authorities have found it impossible to hide their disdain, their contempt, for the two women.

The prison terms were suspended – not commuted – on the condition that Gladys donate a kidney to Jamie, who is seriously ill with diabetes and high blood pressure and receives dialysis at least three times a week. Gladys had long expressed a desire to donate a kidney to her sister, but to make that a condition of her release was unnecessary, mean-spirited, inhumane and potentially coercive. It was a low thing to do.

Your freedom for a kidney??

There are no words to express my contempt for this racist, heartless, inhumane excuse for a human being, Haley Barbour

Bob Burnett: 2010 “Person” of the Year: The US Supreme Court

It’s difficult to look beyond the tumult of current events and ask, “what happened this year that will be remembered ten, twenty, or fifty years from now?” However, there was one 2010 event that, in terms of its long-term impact, loomed above the others, the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court Decision.

Writing in the NEW YORK REVIEW, law professor Ronald Dworkin explained Citizens United v. FEC: “In the 2008 presidential primary season a small corporation, Citizens United, financed to a minor extent by corporate contributions, tried to broadcast a derogatory movie about Hillary Clinton. The FEC declared the broadcast illegal under the BCRA [Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act]. Citizens United then asked the Supreme Court to declare it exempt from that statute on the ground, among others, that it proposed to broadcast its movie only on a pay-per-view channel.” In an extraordinary example of judicial activism, the Supreme Court conservative majority, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, declared the entire BCRA act unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court hadn’t been the story of the year since the December 12, 2000, Bush v. Gore decision. This paved the way for Bush’s installation as President and his nomination of John Roberts as Chief Justice in September of 2005. Many Supreme Court observers regard Roberts as the judicial equivalent of the “Manchurian Candidate.” NEW YORKER legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin noted Roberts dogmatic conservatism: “In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts [and his conservative allies] has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.”

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

January 1 is the first day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 364 days remaining until the end of the year (365 in leap years).

During the Middle Ages under the influence of the Christian Church, many countries moved the start of the year to one of several important Christian festivals – December 25 (the Nativity of Jesus), March 1, March 25 (the Annunciation), or even Easter. Eastern European countries (most of them with populations showing allegiance to the Orthodox Church) began their numbered year on September 1 from about 988.

In England, January 1 was celebrated as the New Year festival, but from the 12th century to 1752 the year in England began on March 25 (Lady Day). So, for example, the Parliamentary record records the execution of Charles I occurring in 1648 (as the year did not end until March 24), although modern histories adjust the start of the year to January 1 and record the execution as occurring in 1649.

Most western European countries changed the start of the year to January 1 before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. For example, Scotland changed the start of the Scottish New Year to January 1 in 1600. England, Ireland and the British colonies changed the start of the year to January 1 in 1752. Later that year in September, the Gregorian calendar was introduced throughout Britain and the British colonies. These two reforms were implemented by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.

New Year’s Day

Probably observed on March 1 in the old Roman Calendar, The World Book Encyclopedia of 1984, volume 14, page 237 states: “The Roman ruler Julius Caesar established January 1 as New Year’s Day in 46 BC. The Romans dedicated this day to Janus, the god of gates, doors, and beginnings. The month of January was named after Janus, who had two faces – one looking forward and the other looking backward.” This suggests that New Year’s celebrations are founded on pagan traditions. Some have suggested this occurred in 153 BC, when it was stipulated that the two annual consuls (after whose names the years were identified) entered into office on that day, though no consensus exists on the matter. Dates in March, coinciding with the spring equinox, or commemorating the Annunciation of Jesus, along with a variety of Christian feast dates were used throughout the Middle Ages, though calendars often continued to display the months in columns running from January to December.

Among the 7th century pagans of Flanders and the Netherlands, it was the custom to exchange gifts at the New Year. This was a pagan custom deplored by Saint Eligius (died 659 or 660), who warned the Flemings and Dutchmen, “(Do not) make vetulas, [little figures of the Old Woman], little deer or iotticos or set tables [for the house-elf, compare Puck] at night or exchange New Year gifts or supply superfluous drinks [another Yule custom].” The quote is from the vita of Eligius written by his companion, Ouen.

Most countries in Western Europe officially adopted January 1 as New Year’s Day somewhat before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. In England, the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, was the first day of the new year until the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752. The March 25 date was known as Annunciation Style; the January 1 date was known as Circumcision Style, because this was the date of the Feast of the Circumcision, being the eighth day counting from December 25 when Christ was believed to be born. This day was christened as the beginning of the New Year by Pope Gregory as he designed the Liturgical Calender.

As you can see there were a lot of events that happened on this day over the centuries. Some of them significant, even momentous, some not so much but interesting as a kind of trivia. I am not even going to attempt to edit that list today.

Thank you all so much for your work and contributions to this site. We at The Stars Hollow Gazette and Docudharma wish you and yours a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.  

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Robert Reich: New Year’s Prediction

What will happen to the US economy in 2011? If you’re referring to profits of big corporations and Wall Street, next year is likely to be a good one. But if you’re referring to average American workers, far from good.

The two American economies — the Big Money economy and the Average Working Family economy — will continue to diverge. Corporate profits will continue to rise, as will the stock market. But typical wages will go nowhere, joblessness will remain high, the ranks of the long-term unemployed will continue to rise, the housing recovery will remain stalled, and consumer confidence will sag.

The big disconnect between corporate profits and jobs is likely to continue because America’s big businesses are depending less and less on U.S. sales and U.S. workers. Their big profits are coming from two sources: (1) growing sales in China, India, and other fast-growing countries, and (2) slimmed-down US payrolls.

In a typical recovery, profits lead to more hiring. That’s because in a typical recovery, American consumers head back to the malls — and their buying justifies more hires. Not this time. All the hype about Christmas sales over the last few weeks masked the fact that American consumers demanded bargain-basement prices. And the price-cutting dramatically reduced sellers’ margins. In short, profits aren’t coming from American consumers — and profits won’t be coming from American consumers in 2011.

Most Americans don’t have the dough. They’re still deep in debt, can’t borrow against their homes, and have to start saving for retirement.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Which of These Banks Was 2010’s Most Shameless Corporate Outlaw?

Bankers. The red carpet’s still being rolled out for them in Washington, but if there’s a stain on it they’ll pout for days. Jason Linkins documents the latest set of cheap white whines from very wealthy white men. (Discrimination lawsuits are a routine part of their legal troubles, too.) This time they’re upset because nobody from the six largest banks in America was invited to the president’s CEO Roundtable.

They’re offended because they didn’t meet with the president? From the looks of things they’re lucky not to be meeting with the warden. Their collective rap sheet includes fraud, sex discrimination, collusion to bribe public officials… even laundering drug money for Mexican drug cartels. One of them is accused of ripping off some nuns! None of this criminal behavior has stopped them from sulking over a presidential slight. Let’s review the record for these corporate malefactors, and then decide:

Which of these six banks was “America’s Most Shameless Corporate Outlaw” in 2010? (I mean, really: Nuns?)

Paul Krugman: The New Voodoo

Hypocrisy never goes out of style, but, even so, 2010 was something special. For it was the year of budget doubletalk – the year of arsonists posing as firemen, of people railing against deficits while doing everything they could to make those deficits bigger.

And I don’t just mean politicians. Did you notice the U-turn many political commentators and other Serious People made when the Obama-McConnell tax-cut deal was announced? One day deficits were the great evil and we needed fiscal austerity now now now, never mind the state of the economy. The next day $800 billion in debt-financed tax cuts, with the prospect of more to come, was the greatest thing since sliced bread, a triumph of bipartisanship.

Still, it was the politicians – and, yes, that mainly meant Republicans – who took the lead on the hypocrisy front.