The Senate has passed its landmark health care reform bill along party lines — 60 Democrats for it and 39 Republicans against it — in a historic vote that means the House and Senate will now move to the pesky, some say politically explosive, task of trying to reconcile the two bills. But the net result: a win for Democrats and President Barack Obama in terms of getting a major piece of legislation...

There are hundreds of kinds of snow… these are but a few… …walking over a bridge, over a river, maybe near Chicago’s Water Tower; snow quiet, unshoveled, but wind so sharp-cold it feels like it will crack the bones in your face… and the slush with mud puddles ankle-deep, and your boots arent sealed well at the soles… and up near timberline in the mountains, the snowpoles...

The Senate’s vote on health care reform will now be at 7:00 am tomorrow morning. (See more here.) But the conference committee process that will begin after Congress takes a winter break will be contentious. A lot of attention, as many readers of The Moderate Voice know, has focused on how women fare under the House and Senate versions.  One outgrowth of that attention is the effort Not Under The Bus: The...

I’ve had it with my liberal or progressive or whatever we call ourselves whiners who feel double-crossed that President Obama reneged on a campaign promise they insist included a public option in the health reform legislation. My recollection is exactly the same as reported in today’s “First Read” posting by reporters for MSNBC which I will reprint in total after I offer my own take. What...

Sen. Jeff Sessions is convinced they were … Savings from Medicare touted by Democrats as a means to pay for the Senate health care bill were double-counted and the legislation will increase the deficit, not decrease it, a senior Republican senator said Wednesday, citing a new letter from the Congressional Budget Office. I’m not inclined to give unwarranted credibility to FOX News or the GOP, but...

It’s the day before Christmas eve, and what am I doing? Am I hanging festive lights on flammable pieces of shrubbery? Wrapping last minute gifts? Sharing a cup of hot cocoa with visiting relatives? No, I’m not. I’m reading and re-reading and re-re-reading sections of this stupid, behemouth Senate health care bill which I’m quickly growing to hate just for its length and horribly lawyerficated...

The Republican National Committee chairman, who has been charging audiences up to $20,000 a pop for his words of wisdom, offered up a free sample, accusing Democrats of being willing to “flip the bird to the American people” in the health care debate. Michael Steele’s elegant formulation came after Tom Coburn combined his credentials as an MD and evangelist on the Senate floor Sunday by suggesting,...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com This cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Why celebrity young men such as Prince William of England, or young leading politician Rahul Gandhi of India, decide to spend a night at a place where the “poorest of the poor” in society spend their entire lives? Publicity? However, such symbolic acts do catapult homelessness, poverty, mental illness, drug and alcohol dependency, family breakdown, and other social issues into limelight in the celebrity-oriented...

I don’t know if “jaw-dropping” is strong enough for this story:

It seems obvious to me why Fox invited Jane Hamsher on to be interviewed about her opposition to the Senate health care reform bill. It’s not clear to me that she does, though — or maybe she does and isn’t bothered by it. Whichever it is, I think Steve M. gets it exactly right. He quotes from Jane’s response to the Daily Kos diarist who attacked her (in a rude and inappropriate manner,...

He said in an interview with the Washington Post that he did not campaign on the public option:

Social and legal analysts from all political and economic persuasions are at a loss for satisfying and complete explanations of America’s dropping violent crime rates. A similar phenomenon is occurring simultaneously in many other advanced western nations – even with better healthcare systems than ours. May I suggest a few obvious explanations that we all may have over-looked? The U.S. and many advanced...

Here is an interesting item from Greg Sargent:

(Republican) hope springs eternal? Or is the conventional wisdom to be quietly swept under the new and old media rug again as what new and old media pundits suggest won’t happen happens? Two new tidbits perhaps explain why President Barack Obama has decided to delay his year-end Hawaii vacation until health care reform definitively clears the Senate. 1. The Weekly Standard Editor Willliam Kristol, who...

Al Franken did a supremely right thing, and Pres. Obama signed it into law:

A new CNN poll has found that support for heath care reform and President Barack Obama have both jumped 6 percent in December. Why the increase for Obama? The poll shows that Obama is in particular winning over younger voters, although overall many voters feel he has not lived up to expectations. And for the Democrats: there are signs that the Democrats’ seemingly fracturing coalition is regrouping. Details: Support...

There have been a raft of point-counterpoint articles today flying back and forth between the Firedoglake crew and health care policy experts like Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn. Here they are, and you may want to read them in this order:

It’s a lowdown dirty allegation, but is it true? Have the large multinationals concluded that a little global warming wouldn’t be bad for their bottom lines? Furthermore, are their actions based on the belief that people in the developing world would be hurt the most? That is precisely what K. Selim of Algeria’s Le Quotidien d’Oran charges in this hard-hitting attack on Western vested...

RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.

Sometime between now and the day next year President Barack Obama signs the historic healthcare bill into law — based on the path they are now headed — I want to know how much the private insurance carriers gain in all this. We know they will pick up potentially 31 million new customers. We know some of their practices of arbitrarily denying claims and refusing to insure persons with pre-existing...

Notice I never call it health care reform? That’s because it isn’t. Very little of what is being discussed will change what happens between you and your doctor beyond how (and how much) he* gets paid. As I see it, there are 4 points of view on the bill currently being rammed through the Senate: 1. It goes too far. This point of view has a problem with anything that might be called “socialized”....

The difficulty of ending a filibuster because of the 60-vote rule, combined with the increasing abuse of the filibuster itself, has made the Senate a place where it is next to impossible to get anything done.

Jonathan Chait has written a superb piece for The New Republic on the emergence of what he calls “Republican nihilism.”

“What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can’t make the vote tonight.That’s what they ought to pray.” The person was Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, speaking on the Senate floor Sunday afternoon before this morning’s 60-40 vote cutting off a filibuster on the health reform bill. The quote, courtesy of MSNBC’s First Read, prompted Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin to...