You just cannot make this stuff up:

Democrats should permit current healthcare reform efforts to stop completely. They can’t get anything accomplished if Senate rules require the support of 60 members who have shown no ability to agree upon much of anything except each one believes they should rule the roost. Nancy Pelosi is not above playing hard-ball and the President and Harry Reid should also go for the jugular and full-court press at...

While San Diego was Richard Nixon’s favorite city for political reasons, Copenhagen, may be Barack Obama’s worst. For it is the capital of Denmark where Obama’s last-minute pitch for Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics fell on deaf ears earlier this year. Today’s the “sky is falling” plea to 193 nations for a global climate warming pact most likely will suffer a...

There are currently over 4.5 million people on Emergency Unemployment Compensation, the program that was formed (and repeatedly extended) because of our historical downturn and joblessness. That act is set to expire on January 1, 2010. Unemployment insurance is complex at this point. The first 26 weeks goes under the traditional state unemployment, after that there are various emergency Federal programs that...

Debt Ceiling Raised as Two Spending Bills Advance by Jon Wells In one of its last acts before adjourning for a winter break, the House of Representatives passed legislation that raises the amount of debt the US government is legally allowed to owe by an amount of $290 billion to a record $12.4 trillion in allowable government debt. The 218-214 vote saw unanimous Republican opposition, though they did vote last...

Many of the commenters I admire most have been saying that the Left/Right dichotomy is inadequate to explain current dynamics and that Insider/Outsider along with Incrementalist/Radical are better descriptors. Glenn Greenwald notes this pitch perfect: One finds [corporatism] in far more than just economic policy, and it’s about more than just letting corporations do what they want. It’s about affirmatively...

That’s what healthcare reform has come down to: Every person who is not a government employee, and who is too poor or too old, would have to purchase private health insurance directly or through an employer. Those that make less than the Federal Poverty Level (about $21,200 per year for a family of 4 living in the lower 48 states) and those over 65 who have Government Insurance through Medicaid and Medicare...

We’re a month short of a year since Barack Obama took office with sky-high approval ratings and the people prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt on a range of issues from the economy, to health care reform, to the environment. I think in order to be fair, we should acknowledge that unlike George Bush, Barack Obama has tackled head on some very difficult, and divisive problems at the outset of his...

Jumping the Gun by David Goodloe The Daily Kos just can’t resist the bait. Of course, CNN helped. Apparently, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman hasn’t decided whether he will be a Democrat, a Republican or an independent when he seeks re–election in 2012. Based on Dana Bash’s report for CNN, Lieberman says it is “unlikely” that he will run as a Republican. “I like being an...

I have read Jon Walker’s answers to Nate Silver’s “20 questions for bill killers,” and I don’t find them very convincing. Many of them — like the ones about the likelihood of getting a better bill through reconciliation — are based on little more than wishful thinking.

WASHINGTON — Here’s what Democrats need to ponder: Can they prosper in the absence of George W. Bush? His presidency was a tonic for Democrats and led to a blossoming of political creativity on the center-left not seen since the 1930s. No tactic, no program, no leader ever did more to catalyze the party than the rage Bush inspired. The whole effort was summarized nicely by the party’s...

Here is what he told a dazed-sounding Neil Cavuto at Fox (emphasis in original):

As painful and depressing as it is to say so, I think Glenn is right about this:

He wants Senate Democrats to start all over, and use reconciliation to pass health care reform next year, because, he contends, without a public option or the Medicare buy-in replacement, the current bill isn’t worth passing.

Yesterday, Ezra Klein responded to Joe Lieberman’s cynical games-playing over health care reform by writing in his column that Lieberman “seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.” Here is the entire paragraph and the one above it for context:

Good-faith negotiations produce good compromises that move all signatory parties forward as a result of a new agreement. Worthwhile public and private policies, contracts, laws, decisions, and agreements require that foreseeable options, benefits, and problems are discussed openly and honestly. There must be a pervasive willingness by all participants involved to be flexible and to compromise because future...

Many people are pointing to the November retail sales report to argue that we are well on our way to recovery, even types that have previously shown a healthy dose of skepticism. However, that report did not square at all with private data or analyst summaries, so I have been very suspicious. At Barry Ritholtz’s blog they have a complete evisceration of the report and clearly show it is too early to celebrate...

Here is a step by step guide to make a guaranteed $1 billion. Actually a friend and I came up with this scheme many months ago and commented that it was too bad we didn’t have the moral depravity to undertake it.

It’s all about Joe Lieberman these days in the struggle to get health care reform passed, and that is exactly how Joe wants it. His latest play, as everyone who follows politics knows by now, was to announce that he wants the Medicare buy-in proposal out, and that he would stand with Republicans to kill the entire bill, via filibuster, if he did not get his way.

As individuals, most of us do learn from experience. As a society, we repeat the same mistakes over and over. The latest example, for Krugman, is Friday’s vote breakdown on the financial regulation bill:

Whether you’re surprised by this story or not is beside the point, which is that this kind of thing and variations on the same thing happen with shocking regularity.  From Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants: You know me as James Chartrand of Men with Pens, a regular Copyblogger contributor for just shy of two years. And yet, I’m a woman. This is not a joke or an angle or an analogy —...

One of my brothers is a regional vice president at Wells Fargo Bank in Portland, Oregon. We talked by telephone yesterday and after exchanging views on family and college football I asked him what he thought about pending new regulations on the financial institutions now being offered by President Obama and Congress. “The (proposed) consumer protection agency is a disaster waiting to happen,” he...

Monte Wolverton, Cagle Cartoons This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Call it clever timing or call it desperation. Either way, the taxpayers found an early lump of coal in their Christmas stockings this weekend. With the end of the year approaching, the Senate followed the path set by the House on Thursday and passed a massive, pork laden 1.1 $T spending bill, and now hopes to move forward on upping the federal debt limit by an additional 1.8 $T. You’d be hard pressed to...

As many of my readers know I am an attorney and given the condition of the economy a large amount of my practice is bankruptcy. While my clients come from a variety of places I have recently had a number of state of California employees come in to my office. They are coming to me because due to the furloughs imposed by the state they are looking at 15% pay cuts and as you might imagine this is difficult for...