All Life Is Problem Solving

When the Democrats, at the start of the present session, organized the Senate without changing the procedural rule allowing for the filibuster, and requiring a cloture vote of 60 members to end one, they took on responsibility for giving Republicans and blue dogs inordinate influence over the legislative process. The filibuster is a long-standing tradition […]

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The President has been hiding behind bipartisanship, Max Baucus, Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel, and various MSM types, whose framing of the health insurance reform issues has constantly emphasized all of the obstacles making it unlikely that a robust public option would ever make it through the Congress. During the campaign the President told us all […]

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Two nights ago (September 14), Rachel Maddow, on MSNBC, during coverage of the DC tea baggers demonstration against health insurance reform, played a satirical clip called “Billionaires for Wealthcare,” in an attempt to give the alternative point of view to the demonstration. Just after the clip she made the point that Billionaires for Wealthcare had […]

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Today, in an editorial, WaPo continued its campaign against the public option, asserting that it must, as a practical matter, be abandoned. Here’s the heart of its argument: ”This is not a matter of ideology but of political nose-counting. The kind of comprehensive health reform that the president rightly wants — changes that would extend […]

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Yesterday afternoon, my wife and I kept an appointment we’d made through Organizing for America to see an aide to Jim Moran’s (D-VA) in order to discuss health care reform. When we walked into the Congressman’s office, one of his aides, a gentlemen by the name of Andy, was talking with another constituent, who, as […]

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Chris Matthews asks: “What happened to the Obama message machine.” And Dee Dee Myers and Tony Blankley dutiful provide various off the mark answers about fear and insecurity. But, also, it’s clear to all three that Obama’s message on health care doesn’t have the same clarity as his message during the campaign, and they attribute […]

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Well, maybe not “over” as in “there will be no legislation passed in this session that contains the phrase “public option.” Perhaps there will still be legislation that has a provision with that label. But it will bear no resemblance to Jacob Hacker’s original design for a public option plan, and it won’t provide a […]

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Again, it’s funny how US Administrations can’t simply admit error and then act accordingly. No, they have to try to persuade us that their error wasn’t really an error because of x, y, or z. President Obama has now tried to ”correct” Joe Biden’s statement about “misreading” the economy by saying that there was no […]

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It’s funny how US Administrations can’t simply admit error and then act accordingly. No they have to try to persuade us that that everyone else committed the error in question too. Remember, the Bush Administration’s insistence that no one could have anticipated an attack on high value US targets using hijacked airliners? The Bush Administration […]

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In an article by Ceci Connolly appearing in WaPo yesterday, President Obama, in a “pre-holiday call” with a small group of six high-level Democrats from both Houses of Congress expressed concern over efforts by progressive advocacy groups in online campaigns and advertisements to target “moderate” Democrats whose positions on health-care reform have expressed opposition or […]

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