The New Republic

For Democrats to pass health care reform, which has already passed the House and Senate, they merely need the House to pass the Senate pass and then have both houses pass a budget reconciliation measure to iron out the outstanding disagreements. The view in official Washington, however, is that this would be Wrong. This belief comes through loud and clear in this passage in the New York Times: READ MORE >>

By sheer luck, I think I picked a fairly good time to go on vacation. Mainly what I missed is a bout of hysteria and elected Democrats coming around to the obvious. Last Wednesday, in the wake of the Coakley fiasco, I predicted that health care reform remained a better-than-even bet: READ MORE >>

Last weekend began with Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, clinging to his job primarily via implicit racial blackmail. Steele’s tenure has consisted of a string of gaffes and managerial blunders, but Republicans had concluded that his color made him un-fireable. “You’re not going to dump the first African American chairman,” an influential party strategist told Politico, “That’s the only reason.” READ MORE >>

WASHINGTON -- A politically shrewd Senate Democratic staff member chatting about the future of health care negotiations stopped in midsentence late Tuesday afternoon as news flashed across his computer screen. "My God," he said. "Byron Dorgan is retiring." READ MORE >>

Harold Pollack is a professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and Special Correspondent for The Treatment. READ MORE >>

Now that the EPA has laid the groundwork to go forward with its own set of greenhouse-gas regulations, p observers have suggested that this will put pressure on Congress to pass a climate bill next year, rather than leaving everything up to the executive branch. But is there any actual evidence of this pressure? Maybe so. Here's Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor: READ MORE >>

The most obvious tragedy of the Washington police shootings is the deaths of the four police officers. The fact that the suspected gunman is a convicted felon from Arkansas whose 95-year prison sentence was commuted by then-Governor Mike Huckabee in 2000 is a tragedy for anyone currently in prison in Arkansas who might hope to one day receive executive clemency. Just consider what happened in Massachusetts after Willie Horton. READ MORE >>

Tonight, at around 8 p.m., the Senate will vote on a "motion to proceed" with the debate over health care reform. To be clear, this isn't actually a vote on whether to pass health care reform--or even a vote on whether to hold such a vote. It's a vote on whether to begin talking about whether to have a vote on whether to pass health care reform. READ MORE >>

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The NYT has a short piece today that gives us yet another reminder of why it's so much fun to tell lawyer jokes. (Don't get me wrong: As a journalist, I appreciate this line of humor--much the way residents of Arkansas appreciate the existence of Mississippi when it comes time to whip out the jokes about poor, dumb, toothless, inbred crackers.) READ MORE >>