Quote of the Day

"So what I'm saying here is that it's very disappointing, to put it as mildly as possible, that it took Baucus more than a year to formulate a plan that amounts to capitulating to every Republican demand, and then adding a heaping pile of political suicide on top of it. Thanks, Max! Great plan. Glad we waited. Now STFU." -- David Waldman on Senator Baucus newly unveiled healthcare reform plan.

Van Jones

Put me in the mad-as-hell camp over his resignation. Van Jones was no more radical than, say, Dick Cheney or John Bolton or any member of the Congressional Birther Caucus. The slime campaign and hissy fit against Jones was about getting an Obama scalp and it worked because the administration (and Democrats generally) have no spine for the fight. The double standard against Democrats is alive, well, and, more importantly, self-inflicted.

Why does everything involving a big "D" these days leave me so disheartened?

Truth in Comics

If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

Friday (Guest) Cat

Trigger details

No:

Under Ms. Snowe’s proposal, a new government corporation would offer health insurance in any states where affordable coverage was not readily and widely available from private insurers. The corporation would not be part of the Department of Health and Human Services, although federal officials would serve on its board.

The public insurance plan would be offered in any state where fewer than 95 percent of the residents had access to affordable coverage.

The point of a public option is a national pool with all the leverage that brings. State by state will not cut it. Sorry, but trigger: fail.

The public option on progressive life support

Big props to the Progressive caucus and Nancy Pelosi for standing firm on the public option. It's time for the Blue Dogs to bend. They need to get out of the way and on the right side of history. If healthcare reform fails it will be because of them (and the president). Don't let anyone tell you different.

Enzi: ‘I’m pretty sure’ that health care reform is ‘going to fail.’

I'm not a fan of lockstep marching. However, shouldn't Democrats want to rally around healthcare reform (or at least rally to prevent a filibuster) simply for the pure pleasure of proving Republicans wrong. That would satisfy me, but I'm a simple man.

Trigger

I'm all for putting a trigger into any healthcare legislation that makes its way through Congress, so long as that trigger kicks in the moment the president signs the bill. And people think I'm unreasonable.

It takes a village to cover-up crimes

If David Broder is so worried that the country would be damaged by investigating torture, where was he when the torturers were damaging the country in the first place? Oh, that's right, he was having cocktails with them. David Broder doesn't want to protect the country, he wants to protect his friends.

The death of the public option

If the public option is dead, mandates better die with it. Forcing people to buy crappy, overpriced insurance from corporations that prefer Americans die so they can profit is a deal breaker.

As for the suicidal politics of it all, the fact that Obama is willing to fight his left and not his right on this crucial issue means he's lost me. It's the 1990s all over again. If only I hadn't thrown away my Ralph Nader t-shirt.

Not all seniors have Alzheimers

Today Republicans paint themselves the champions of Medicare. Wasn't it just yesterday that they were trying to drown it in a bathtub? Do they think seniors are stupid or just forgetful?

Exactly

Andrew Sullivan gets to the torture nub:

One more point that [Richard] Cohen simply ignores. Torture is illegal. It is a war crime. You cannot get to the point of debating its pros and cons until you have changed the law, removed the US from Geneva and the UN Convention on Torture and placed the US legally on the same ground as the enemy. That's the only legal way to do it - by repealing the laws against it. But the laws were not repealed; they were secretly broken; and those who broke the law, the former president and vice-president chief among them, are above the law in Washington.

Torture is not a "policy" disagreement, it's a criminal act.