From the very outset of the health reform legislation debate, I had this premonition that when the House and Senate bills reached the conference committee for reconciliation, President Barack Obama would come charging to the rescue like the hero wearing the white hat in those old western movies. He still may do that if the Senate manages to actually pass a bill but he is quickly running out of ammunition. He...

I recently wrote about how Goldman Sachs said they are doing “God’s Work” to which Yves Smith replies: Great! Then they should be willing to do it for free. I don’t recall the Bible discussing Jesus getting eight or nine figure compensation (or what passed for it back then), and the Gautama Buddha, born a prince, gave up all the trappings of wealth. Touché.

Matthew Yglesias wrote this a few days ago, but I didn’t blog about it then, and right now at the present moment there are a bunch of people who need to be told this. Not that it will make any difference of course, but here it is anyway.

The original 1787 National Convention assembled 55 delegates in Philadelphia. Over a period of four months this small group drafted the U.S. Constitution that was formally adopted by a supermajority of existing States and became effective in 1789. For most of its 220 years, it has provided the national governmental structure to create one of the most important, democratic, economically wealthy, influential,...

UPDATED: House Democrats are laying down the gauntlet on abortion rights (emphasis in original):

There is an article in The Times that truly must be read and put in a time capsule so future generations will be able to get a glimpse of our current society. Focusing on interviews with several top Goldman execs, it is part self justification, part mock hagiography and part, “Let them eat cake.” And that’s not even including the threats! The “God’s Work” line is in reference...

Paresh Nath, The Khaleej Times, UAE This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

WASHINGTON — Here’s a story you may have missed because it flies in the face of the dreary conventional wisdom: When advocates of public programs take on the right-wing anti-government crowd directly, the government-haters lose. This is what happened in two statewide referendums last week that got buried under all of the attention paid to the governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey....

Formerly Democratic, now Independent, Sen. Joseph Lieberman formally and officially confirmed to Chris Wallace this morning that his conscience requires him to vote no on health care reform when a bill reaches the Senate floor kill health care reform by joining a Republican filibuster to prevent the Senate’s health care reform bill from ever getting to the floor for a vote:

Yes, it’s an historic achievement:

Watch the debate in the House and the vote live below: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

President Barack Obama met with House Democrats to make a final appeal today — a day when the epic health care reform battle is expected to come to a House vote. It’s a vote that promises to be historic in terms of social programs — and how it defines both parties. One one side, the Democrats, whose votes could determine how members do when they’re up for re-election in 2010. On the...

In 1960, President Eisenhower warned us of the growing influence and power of the Military Industrial Complex. He was right and we ignored him. Today our country has the world’s largest total annual Military Budget of over $650 billion, additional defense-related spending of over $350 billion, more than 1.5 million people serving in its Armed Forces in over 100 countries around the globe, and is currently...

This says it all, doesn’t it?

Pakistan, rightly or wrongly, is generally described as an “exporter” of terrorism. Now it is trying to export something different – its famous Murree beer produced at the nearly 150-year-old Murree brewery, Pakistan’s sole producer of beer. “Understandably, making beer and whiskey in a Muslim country, where 97 per cent of the population is officially banned from enjoying your...

I didn’t vote on Tuesday in Phoenix, Arizona, my residence for almost the past 4 years though I voted in the National Elections last year. I was pleased to see that the local school funding and bond issues all passed with comfortable margins across the metro area. Had I voted, my other choice would have been for a city council position wherein I did not know either candidate. ARIZONA Heavily Democratic...

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Tuesday’s elections were a rebuke to the right wing and a warning to Democrats. They were also a timely reminder that President Obama needs to tune up his celebrated political organization and find a way to make Americans feel hopeful again. The night’s biggest loser was the national conservative political machine — the wealthy tax-cutters at the Club...

You may have seen the viral video of the worst parking job ever. 1,684,803 views since the Thursday Oct. 22 incident. While we gawk and guffaw, the owner of the crushed 2004 Hyundai Elantra (the one in the foreground) had just finished paying off his car loan! The 62 year-old woman driving the BMW was arrested for leaving the scene. The crushed Hyundai owner was left looking to replace his car. So what did...

I’m not an aggressive consumer of financial journalism, so it has to be something of a coincidence that I’ve come across three separate items that chronicle the dark predictions of three separate men who warned of an impending financial crisis. The first two are discussed below. The third is Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. The Black Swan...

In the mid-1990’s, Yale economist Robert Shiller predicted the dot-com bubble would burst. In 2005, Shiller predicted the housing bubble would burst. Why? In the wake of the dot-com crash, which helped make Shiller a public figure, Americans turned their financial attention from stocks to real estate. House prices were rising rapidly, and people had begun to see real estate as a can’t-miss investment....

The weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal profiled John Paulson, whose firm made $15 billion by systematically betting against the value of American homes. Paulson himself took home $4 billion. How’d he do it? Research. Grasping for new ideas, [Paulson researcher Paolo] Pellegrini added a “trend line” that clearly illustrated how much prices had surged lately. He then performed a “regression...

Back in March, Declan McCullagh reported that the Obama Administration cloaked its draft section of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) under “national security” wrappers — for the general public. At the same time, the document had supposedly already made the rounds of “corporate lobbyists in Europe, Japan, and the U.S.” Today, someone has leaked information about the...

Tell your friends you read it here first. Don’t bother watching the wall-to-wall cable television coverage of today’s handful of odd-year elections. Robert McDonnell, the Republican candidate, will be elected governor of Virginia. Barring a minor miracle, incumbent New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine will lose to Republican Chris Christie. Douglas Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate, will trounce Democrat...

This point has been made before, but not usually as bluntly as here (emphasis in original):

What Physicians Know by Joel S. Hirschhorn I had a long conversation with my favorite physician, who has operated on me twice successfully. He is an incredibly kind person without an ounce of greed or pretense. Like other physicians I have spoken to, he spoke eloquently about the terrible times he consistently has with private health insurance companies. While he praises Medicare for its simplicity and certainty,...