WASHINGTON — Here is the ultimate paradox of the Great Health Care Showdown: Congress will divide along partisan lines to pass a Republican version of health care reform, and Republicans will vote against it. Yes, Democrats have rallied behind a bill that Republicans — or at least large numbers of them — should love. It is built on a series of principles that Republicans espoused for...

Did anybody notice that the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (the CARD Act) took effect last month? Passed early in the Obama presidency, it gave credit card companies nine months to “adjust” before the legislation became law. And, boy did they adjust. Earlier this year the American Institute for Economic Research reviewed Federal Reserve statistics and determined that...

From the (Albany) Times-Union:

Since the global economic crisis began to ease, the U.S. has renewed its pleas to Beijing to allow the value of its currency, the yuan or remnimbi – to float freely, i.e.: to rise, which would make U.S. exports cheaper for Chinese consumers and reduce America’s annual trade deficit with China. But Christiane von Hardenberg of the Financial Times Deutschland warns Americans to be careful what they...

Nancy Pelosi tells Bart Stupak that there will be no more deals on abortion language before the health care vote on Sunday:

This will be the most historically and monumental weekend that will answer the question of whether health care is a right or a personal responsibility since Congress passed similar safety net legislation on Social Security, Medicare, MediCaid and prescription drug subsidies for seniors. I’ll defer the prestidigitation of the politics to MSNBC.com First Read whose contributors know a helluva lot more than...

America’s attention is rivetted to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, described as the most powerful woman in American history. As the date for voting on health care reform in House of Representatives approaches fast, can Mrs Pelosi, the House speaker, hold her party together? Is she up to the job? Lexington presents in The Economist an interesting profile of Mrs Pelosi and describes the exciting few days ahead. “To...

That Bart Stupak, he’s a real respectful guy, isn’t he? Especially to those, um, female caregivers in those Catholic hospitals that he and the bishops are so concerned about (emphasis is in original):

That grinding sound you hear may be the sound of the conventional wisdom shifting: as of today, many news, broadcast and blog reports are starting to (gingerly) suggest that bet health care reform could squeek through the House. But the Senate? Reports now suggest that could still be very much up in the air there — since reports suggest the GOP is now working on ways to try and halt health care reform...

Brian Fairrington, Cagle Cartoons This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Ezra Klein assesses the meaning of what happened today:

Confessions of a banker in this scuttlebutt of the blame game for the financial meltdown. It goes like this: Banks were pressured by bank regulators to loan, loan, loan despite the credit worthiness of the borrower. After the 2008 market collapse, these same regulators employed by three governmental agencies, told banks no, no, no to even low-risk borrowers. Today a spotlight is shed on these regulators employed...

There is no principle here at all — just blind partisanship and the urge to destroy.

WASHINGTON — One of the tragedies of the viciously politicized battle over health care reform is the defection of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops from a cause they have championed for decades. Indifferent to political fashions, the bishops were the strongest voices in support of universal health coverage, a position rooted in Catholic social thought that calls for a special solicitude toward...

Fox News’ Bret Baier spent much of a rare one-on-one interview with Pres. Obama not letting him answer the questions he asked.

Earmarks — those endearing Congressional plums that brought us “The Bridge To No Where” — sort of slipped under the radar of the recent news cycles out of Washington this past week. Democratic House members have pledged to not submit earmarks for for-profit projects. Republicans have one-upped that by pledging a ban on all earmarks for a year. Earmarks are the fast track for a Congressman...

As Congress gears up for a big vote on health care reform, it’s worth considering how vagrants’ health problems could affect municipal budgets.

Republicans in Congress have just a few more days to kill health care reform, and boy are they putting that time to good use. Tea Party activists who came to D.C. on Tuesday to demonstrate at the Capitol were greeted by Rep. Steve King of Iowa, and Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas:

Andy McCarthy, who has yet to meet a torture technique he doesn’t love, has a long, long, looonnng article at NRO bemoaning the “Slaughter of the Constitution” (it’s a pun — get it?) via the constitutional travesty known as “deem and pass” (or the self-executing rule — which, come to think of it, sounds like a torture technique Andy should know about, if he doesn’t...

If you have the patience to get through the set-up, which takes up half of this extraordinarily foolish column, you will reach Brooks’ point — he is concerned that using reconciliation to pass health care reform destroys the “spirit of sympathy” and the “person-to-person relationships” that make the Senate so much more “humane” than the House:

This is slightly different from the procedure that was nixed by the Senate Parliamentarian. Like much of the Senate rule book, it’s hard to wrap your brain around because it’s just so convoluted and arcane — but as Ezra Klein explains, it’s legit:

Give Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, credit. If anyone knows where the skeletons are buried in the financial institutions, he does. Remember last year he was one of two senators and a gaggle of other VIPs who received sweetheart loans from Countrywide Financial in an obscure program that waived points, lender fees and company borrowing rules. Just last week Dodd, chairman of the Banking Committee, booted the...

The next time you hear a politician rail about Social Security and Medicare going broke, you have my permission to throw your shoe at him/her/it. Since the Reagan administration, both parties in power have robbed the entitlement program trust funds as a kid breaking his piggy bank and paying it back in worthless IOUs. Folks, that’s not much of a stretch. Here’s why. If the commissioners who run the...

Ask the Chamber of Commerce: Why Is Too Much Not Enough? by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship Living in these United States, there comes a point at which you throw your hands up in exasperation and despair and ask a fundamental question or two: how much excess profit does corporate America really need? How much bigger do executive salaries and bonuses have to be, how many houses or jets or artworks can be crammed...

Republicans have been throwing down the gauntlet to the White House and Democrats, arguing that if health care reform is passed they’ll use it against the Democrats in 2010. And now some White House officials have their response: we dare you to do just that — and welcome it: Expressing an increasing confidence that a massive health care overhaul will pass Congress — despite dire warnings from...