Managing Medical Care, Part I: The Dilemma
Our side needed to win last night's vote on health care financing reform to stave off short-term political disaster. But now that we're past that hurdle, we can and must start on the real task, the...
View ArticleThere won't be a government shutdown
We have had in the past week the grotty specter of Dick Morris threatening us with another government shutdown (Dick Morris - We'll win this time), "just like in 1995 and 96, only this time we'll win."...
View ArticleFilibuster Reform: the Legal Option
In the last two Congresses, Republicans have abused the filibuster to the point of creating an effective extra-Constitutional 60-vote requirement for any Senate action. Despite this, few Democrats...
View ArticleThe Power of the Purse
We have been hearing since before the last election that the new Republican House plans to assert its unilateral will to effectively repeal the ACA by denying it annual discretionary funds. They won't...
View ArticleTentherism 101: It's not about Secession Anymore
A frontpager yesterday talked about the nullification initiative in the AZ Senate.While I more than agree on the importance of the matter discussed, I think that the author takes a wrong turn in...
View ArticleKeep your Eye on the Prize
A frontpage item today, Immigration: How the GOP is killing the GOP, makes the case very strongly that the Right's current anti-immigrant stance is demographic suicide. But the CPAC panel being...
View ArticlePublic Reaction to a Shutdown
There is quite a bit of worry and concern about our side potentially being blamed for a shutdown. The polls don't show the public, at this point, clearly blaming the Republicans more than our side....
View ArticleNegotiating with Terrorists
You don’t negotiate with hostage-takers.In all the happiness of our having narrowly averted a government shutdown, with all its serious consequences, let's not forget the price we paid by violating...
View ArticleFull Faith and Credit
Now that we have let the hostage-takers gain an advantage in the budget reconciliation battle, there is the obvious threat that the other side will take hostages again over the needed raise in the debt...
View ArticleNational Bankruptcy
The conventional wisdom about the Republican threat to refuse to raise the debt ceiling is that this is just another hostage-taking scenario. They can't actually want to force the US into default,...
View ArticlePainted into a Corner
Most of us on the progressive side have relied on a strategy for dealing with this Teahadist putsch, this use of the debt ceiling as a veto point, that involves painting that as horribly irresponsible,...
View ArticleCommon Sense and the Debt Ceiling
The fight over the debt ceiling is shaping up to be the defining political struggle of our time. While it may yet end with a whimper rather than a bang, it looks increasingly like the House...
View ArticleThe Truth in Budgeting Act of 2011
There is a simple legislative fix for all of this country's fake veto point and legislative hostage taking problems. It will rescue us from what we have already lost in the recent budget ceiling...
View ArticleAlligator Wrestling the Deficit
Vintage dem has a powerful warning for us in his spotlighted (spotlit?) diary.In that same spirit, I want to carry vintage dem's work a step further, and suggest a countermeasure our side can adopt to...
View ArticleWill the Rs have a brokered convention this year?
One of the items cited in this morning's Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a piece by Dan Balz about the continuing stalemate in the Republican nomination contest. DemFromCT comments:"Republicans will...
View ArticleSuppressing the votes of the demographic tide
Voter ID laws are only the beginning. Voter ID is the least of what they have in store to suppress the vote. They only did it first to test the waters, see just how far SCOTUS will let them go in...
View ArticleClarity on the Platinum Coin
The idea of using an obscure provision of a 1996 law about platinum coinage to defang the debt ceiling was aired back in 2011 during the first ceiling crisis, but it never attracted much mainstream...
View ArticleVoter Suppression by Ad Buys on dKos
You may have noticed a series of ads by American Crossroads that often run in what I assume is the premium ad space at the top of this site, or top right sidebar. They urge you to vote against the...
View ArticleManual Recounts and Random Drift Hell
As today's Morning Election Digest on the VA-AG race points out, we may have some sort of manual recount of optically scanned ballots in that race. I'm not familiar enough with the new law to know...
View ArticleThe #1 National Health Threat
No, it's not Ebola. It's not Coronary Artery Disease. It's not even all the cancers put together.The biggest threat to public health in the US is the denial of care to everyone.
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