John Dingell. An old soul with fire in his belly. (VIDEO)

Via Talking Points Memo, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) reading off a list of the various comments he's heard in the last two years:

If only. The Police had stopped Loughner the day of the assassination...

First caught by Karen Tumulty via Twitter.  The Police stopped Loughner the day of the assassination attempt.

Police stopped Jared L. Loughner for running a red light several hours before authorities say he opened fire outside a Tucson supermarket Saturday, but the state wildlife officer who made the traffic stop noticed nothing unusual about Mr. Loughner and had no probable cause to search the vehicle, Arizona authorities said Wednesday.

On Saturday at about 7:30 a.m. — some two-and-a-half hours prior to the shooting that left six dead and wounded 14, — the officer pulled over Mr. Loughner, 22, as he drove down an access road several miles from the supermarket. A check of his license and registration turned up no warrants and he was allowed to leave with a warning, officials said.

“The contact was very cordial,” said Jim Paxon, a spokesman for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. “Mr. Loughner was very forthcoming with his license and registration and insurance. The officer did a visual examination of the vehicle. He had no probable cause to search the vehicle or detain the subject.”

This is not something we should crack on the Arizona Cops for. That last part was right. They had no probable cause to search his vehicle. This, I'm afraid, falls into the category of...if only...

Charlie Rose's Interview with Jon Meacham and Ezra Klein...

...only a link, I'm afraid, as Charlie and PBS still haven't figured out the whole "embed" thing.

Still, never thought I'd see the day when I'm siding with Jon Meacham against Ezra Klein on any matter, yet..

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Mark Potok's had himself a busy day (AUDIO and VIDEO)

First, Mark's Interview with Randi Rhodes:




And his second interview with Keith:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

You do know that the Federal Reserve has turned 80.9 Billion dollar profit, right?

First caught by Ezra.

By the way, in case you couldn't tell by now, I'm not much of a Ron Paul supporter.  I don't like the guy.  I don't trust the guy.  I think he's a racist.  I don't buy his bull@#$% about the Gold Standard.  I generally understand what the role of the Federal Reserve is, but don't ask me to write a paper on it.  I've heard of the Panic of 1907 (a.k.a., the Financial Crisis everyone in America would still be talking about if it wasn't for that Great Depression thing).

So when I saw this story in the Financial Times (not exactly a stronghold of Liberal thought), I was...you know...pleased!

US Federal Reserve turns $80.9bn profit

By Robin Harding in Washington
Published: January 10 2011 18:04 | Last updated: January 10 2011 18:04

The US Federal Reserve made a record profit of $80.9bn in 2010 and sent $78.4bn to the US Treasury as income poured in from its programme of quantitative easing.

The figures show how the financial crisis has turned the Fed into the most profitable bank in history, earning income of $88.1bn in 2010 but paying only $2.7bn in interest and $4.3bn in operating expenses.

CNN: Anderson Cooper interviews Bill Maher on the Giffords Assassination Attempt and the Right's use of rhetoric

Great catch from Under the Mountain Bunker & Coffee Shop:



I'm always a little nervous about posting third party video of Television, as big companies (like the one I work for) tend to assert their Copyright claims and delete said video. Enjoy it while it lasts!

That being said, Maher pushed a lot of interesting buttons, especially in regards to the media. Wonder if Anderson was listening.

UPDATE: 1:05pm Pacific: In the interests of mitigating a sudden departure of the video above, I've decided to put the CNN Video on this blog as well. Though, it only covers the first 8 minutes or so of the interview:

Reading extreme right wing ideas did not make Loughner crazy, and it was crazy that made him a killer...

One of the first things that happened after the Loughner Assassination-attempt was how quickly folks in the media tried to distance Loughner from the American Right. I even had two of my stalwarts doing it as well:

First, it was Ezra Klein:

From what we know, or think we know, Jared Loughner, the suspected shooter, was mentally ill. This was not an organized act of political violence, or even a rational one. Loughner's statements were clearly insane, and though his ravings contained some political content, it is not political content that either side of the spectrum would easily recognize as their own. "I'm able to control every belief and religion by being the mind-controller" does not appear in the platforms of either party, for instance.

...and quickly, Greg Sargent followed suit:

It's crass and counterproductive to start asking whether any political parties or ideologies are to blame for the tragic and horrific shooting of Dem Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others at an event with constituents yesterday. That's especially true given that the shooter is looking more and more like a deranged loner and early chatter that he might have had an accomplice is turning out to be false.

Greg's still at it, as of this morning.

Mind you, these are the two Liberals on the Post's staff. I shudder to think what was being said on less reputable Newsorgs (I'm talking about you, Wall Street Journal). Even Andrew Sullivan, fair-minded, but Conservative, seemed to be jumping on the Media's "He's of no Party or Ideology" bandwagon, at least for a time. These seemed to echo a meme from a lot of Reporters on Twitter (Jake Tapper and Rachel Maddow to name two) begging the rest of us to calm down and wait for the evidence.

There's something to that. We in the Liberal/Progressive community are supposed to be a lot more "Fact-based" than at least the rabid right, so we should take this advice to heart.

At the same time, we're kind of like Cops (or at least my worst stereotypes of them), in that, even when we know we know who did it, we're going to go about the task of gathering all the evidence anyway.

Well, it looks like at least some of that job has been done. We have a clearer picture of the shooter than we did the night before, and it's pretty much what we expected.

The first thing I saw was a couple of quotes Andrew pulled from Mr. Loughner's YouTube Channel:

The majority of the citizens of the United States of America have never read the United States of America's Constitution. You don't have to accept the federalist laws. Nonetheless, read the United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws. .... In conclusion, reading the second United States Constitution, I can't trust the current goverment because of the ratifications: The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.

No! I won't play debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver! No! I won't trust in God

And...

Every US Government Official Agency is illegally accepting payment not in Gold or Silver.

Wow. This sounds familiar. Where have I heard this crap before?

The language of currency points to a Libertarian/Ron Paul type (a movement that tends to blend ideologies from odd ends of the spectrum -- Free Market Anti-Federal Reserve types and Stoner end-Marijuana laws hippies). But the stuff about Mind Control and "controlling grammar"? That had another, but still wholly extreme Right-wing source:

Jared Lee Loughner’s rants about grammar and mind control track closely to the writings of a conspiracy theorist who believes that is how the government controls the populace, one leading group says – and the man tells POLITICO he agrees with some of Loughner’s statements.

The far-right activist, David Wynn Miller, said in a telephone interview that he didn’t know Loughner, but agreed with his statement in a YouTube video that “the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, first mentioned Miller during an appearance Saturday on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.”

“The idea weirdly enough of controlling grammar, of somehow the government using grammar to control the people is an idea that exists on the radical right. There’s a particular person, a man named David Wynn Miller who has plugged this idea for years,” Potok said.

Miller “claims to have invented truth language,” Potok said in an interview with POLITICO. “His idea is that if you only use the correct grammar and punctuation, you can throw off the shackles of the tyrannical government.”

Potok said Loughner appeared “practically illiterate and quite mentally ill,” but his statements and the books he has cited suggest a “pretty strong anti-government, conspiracy-oriented threat.”

“It seems he is getting some of his key ideas from David Wynn Miller,” he said.

You might want to take a look at what the Southern Poverty Law Center has to say about Miller.

Another thing that has come up in trying to play down any connection to the Tea Party is Mr. Loughner's selection of reading material. Basically, the line of thought goes, since he liked the Communist Maniefesto, he must have been from left.

Uhhh, is there a web-app that allows me to make a game show buzzer--nope?

Okay. Read on. (This was first caught by Andrew Sullivan, who slowly changed his mind about the "No Ideology" thing throughout the day):

His favorite book list is actually rather good, I must say, featuring Orwell’s Animal Farm, Huxley’sBrave New World, Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Hesse’s Siddharta (as well as Marx’ The Communist Manifesto and Hitler’s Mein Kampf). While these are all masterpieces, they have in common that they deal with the topic of reality perception being controlled by higher powers, as well as the possibility of alternate realities. Loughner in his YouTube videos writes about ‘conscience dreams’, and his MySpaceis called ‘fallen asleep’. His talk of grammar being controlled by the government calls to mind Foucault.

The inclusion of The Communist Manifesto on this list has been cited by some as proof that Loughner could not be a Tea Party activist, but since the Manifesto deals with the topic of organized revolution more than it does with imposing a state-controlled economy, I find its appearance on the list not so strange. It also seems that Loughner had came in contact with (campus) police a couple of times, so a picture more or less emerges of a troubled adolescent, who reads stuff that’s maybe a few levels too complex for him. But these are exactly the people that you shouldn’t expose to the sort of militant, violent political rhetoric that since Obama’s presidency has been employed by the Tea Party and the Republican right.

What I've presented to you here just a few pieces. This is not a complete picture. We're day two into this investigation, and I'm sure there's still an avalanche of crap yet to hit us. Still, I'm pretty much willing to say at this point his ideas came from the Right Wing camp. Though it's entirely possible that I'll have to repudiate this whole article at some point in the future...I'm betting I won't have to.

Of course the very idea that Loughner was from the right has sent the right into a frenzy. Never mind that the overwhelming negative tone of American politics primarily comes from them, never mind virtually all of the political violence that has occurred in the country over the last two years, has come from the extreme wing of their ideology.

Nope. Never mind all that...and don't you dare talk about it, either.

From Steve Benen:

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) was asked this morning by CNN's Candy Crowley about Sarah Palin's notorious "crosshairs" graphic, and he seemed rather annoyed about the question. Alexander concluded, "I think the way to get away from it is for you not to be talking about it."

Well, tough crap, Senator. We're talking about it.

Then, Rand Paul struck:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said on Fox News Sunday today that the mass shootings in Arizona yesterday are "unrelated" to Arizona's gun laws: "The weapons don't kill people, it's the individual that kills people."

And how could I make a list of tone deaf, dishonest Right-wing rhetoric without listing Justin Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, sent out an Email with this little ditty:

In a moment, a leftist lunatic destroyed a half a dozen lives.

Right. He blamed us.

Project much there, Justin?

If there is one bit of sunshine to come out of this mess (and it is just a bit, given how much we have all lost and how much others have suffered), it is that people are noticing. They've had enough of the rhetoric and want it to stop...now:

“There is a need for some reflection here - what is too far now?” said the senator. “What was too far when Oklahoma City happened is accepted now. There’s been a desensitizing. These town halls and cable TV and talk radio, everybody’s trying to outdo each other.”

The Senator who said that was a Republican. The problem is that he or she refused to identify themselves on the record "in order to freely discuss the tragedy", which is horrifying in itself.

Even the Tea Party showed that it hadn't completely lost their minds. Allison Miller of the Pima County Tea Party Patriots (where the shooting occured) said:

"There are people in society that are just going to do these things, unfortunately. And then, what happens is, you know, in this case, people trying to use it to create further divisions between the right and the left. I think it's irresponsible, in my opinion...what it does is polarize people even further."

At the same time, she was still defensive :

"I did feel, you know, very like 'why are they jumping to this conclusion before they even knew the person's name?' They're jumping to this conclusion that it has to do with the hotly contested Congressional race," she said. "Well, apparently, from what I've seen so far...it's looking like that's not the case."

I guess it's too much to ask for Allison to read any part of this blog, right?

George Packer (the Liberal who blew his call on the Iraq War) was in a far more reflective mood:

For the past two years, many conservative leaders, activists, and media figures have made a habit of trying to delegitimize their political opponents. Not just arguing against their opponents, but doing everything possible to turn them into enemies of the country and cast them out beyond the pale. Instead of “soft on defense,” one routinely hears the words “treason” and “traitor.” The President isn't a big-government liberal—he's a socialist who wants to impose tyranny. He's also, according to a minority of Republicans, including elected officials, an impostor. Even the reading of the Constitution on the first day of the 112th Congress was conceived as an assault on the legitimacy of the Democratic Administration and Congress.

This relentlessly hostile rhetoric has become standard issue on the right. (On the left it appears in anonymous comment threads, not congressional speeches and national T.V. programs.)

Andrew Sullivan (on same posting, in response):

The level of animus toward the new president and anyone supporting him reached preposterous proportions at the beginning of this presidency; the gracelessness from the Congressional leadership on down, from "You lie!" to "death panels" and "palling around with terrorists" ... this is a real problem in a country with its fair share of disturbed individuals and much more than its fair share of guns.

The Palin forces, who have fomented this dynamic more viciously and recklessly than any other group, are reacting today with incandescent rage that they could even be mentioned in the same breath as this act of political terrorism. That's called denial. When you put a politician in literal cross-hairs, when you call her a target, when you celebrate how many targets you have hit, when you go on national television and shoot guns, when you use the language of "lock and load" to describe disagreements over healthcare provision ... you are part of the problem.

John Weaver, a longtime Republican operative, agreed:

"Actions can’t be placed on anyone’s doorstep. But if Governor Palin doesn’t want to be criticized then she should continue her commentary but dial back the anger."

Amen.

One of the things I keep saying about President Obama is that he gets blamed for more stuff he actually didn’t do. It started with the Reverend Wright case, and how the eventual President was somehow blamed for statements that were made when he wasn’t there. It cast in my mind the importance of trying to nail down for anyone, what was actually done, and said.

Along those lines there is an obvious statement that needs to be said flat out for the argument to continue:

Being Right winged does not mean mentally unstable.

I know, revolutionary thought, right? But its something that we on he left have started to take for granted, albeit a lighthearted way. We say it all the time, “Oh, that person must be crazy for saying those things” or “they’re nuts” or even a simple “they’re stupid”.

All that is lighthearted banter. We can say those things a thousand times and still not mean them, because we don’t. We just disagree, and are doing so in strong terms.

All the more reason to be mindful of what actual crazy looks like, and Loughner falls into that category.

He may have gotten his ideas from the extreme right, but reading what we would call bad ideas did not make him crazy. That was something else, and that crazy made him pull the trigger.

I leave this post convinced that a majority of the political philosophy Mr. Loughner absorbed was from the extreme American right.

…but in Loughner's case, crazy takes precedence.

The Fireside Chat for January 8, 2011 (VIDEO)

This almost counts as blog business. But given the tragic events of this past weekend, I almost didn't get to it.



Remember, these videos are taped the Friday before their release on Saturday.

If anything, his real Weekly Address is below.



I'm starting to get the feeling that more is to come from the President. There's even speculation about an Oval Office Address.

Gabrielle Giffords

It has been a long, heart-breaking weekend.  I have been following the news, and I will go about the business of this blog in the near term.  I'll back-post the President's address later in the day, and try to express some thoughts on the shooting...sometime.  Right now, I'm trying to decompress from the horror of what happened.

To understand what happens if we fail to raise the Debt Ceiling requires thinking that Teabaggers aren't capable of

"Debt bad. Debt wrong. Spending bad.  Spending wrong.  Debt limit must not be raised."

Hulk SMASH!!!

This, unfortunately, is the level of intellect that's the driving the demand of many grass-roots conservatives not to raise America's Debt Ceiling.

But like many things about the Economy, dealing with the Nation's debt is counterintuitive (my personal word of the year in 2010), and things that are counterintuitive require a degree of thinking that it seems the Tea Party is just not capable of.

To Tea Partiers, not raising the Debt Ceiling is a statement of personal responsibility, it shows that America is going to "get serious" with the National Credit Card, and finally start to get it's "act together".

It also shows that the Teabaggers are completely divorced from reality, because here's what's gonna happen (take it away, Ezra Klein!):

Think back to the financial crisis. The underlying cause was that various financial entities stopped believing that their loans would be repaid, and so they stopped making loans, or began demanding such high prices for making loans that credit became unaffordable. The result was economic catastrophe.

If the federal government defaults on its debt, the same thing will happen. But in this case, it will happen to the full faith and credit of the United States, not just to Wall Street.

The basic unit of borrowing in America is the debt that the Treasury sells to finance the government. Much of the rest of the debt in the country -- even when it has no direct connection to the government -- is benchmarked against Treasurys. Treasury debt normally goes for very good prices because it's considered a virtually riskless investment: Modern America has never defaulted on its debt. If that changes, then so too will the prices the market charges to loan the government money.

What happens then? As Geithner explains, "because Treasuries represent the benchmark borrowing rate for all other sectors, default would raise all borrowing costs. Interest rates for state and local government, corporate and consumer borrowing, including home mortgage interest, would all rise sharply. Equity prices and home values would decline, reducing retirement savings and hurting the economic security of all Americans, leading to reductions in spending and investment, which would cause job losses and business failures on a significant scale."

And the damage done by a debt default won't be temporary. Instead, it will permanently introduce a new variable into the market's calculation of America's risk: Right now, the market doesn't believe that our political system would ever allow a debt default. The morning after a default happens, the market will have been proven wrong, and it will have been proven wrong permanently: If it can happen once, it can happen again in 20 years. In that world, the cheap debt that America enjoys and relies on is gone forever, and our economy is likely to be permanently worse off for it.

The Bill Daley rundown...

Jonathan Bernstein:

When I was describing Rouse's strengths, I listed: "he's a problem-solver, he doesn't cultivate enemies, he knows the Washington landscape well, he has an excellent working relationship with the president." As far as I know, those all apply to Daley, as well, with the possible exception of an as yet unproven working relationship with Barack Obama. I'd say it's also a plus that Daley knows his way around a presidential campaign, since keeping the presidency running during one of those is going to be one of his challenges over the next two years. I like the idea that when the campaign demands that Obama absolutely, positively needs to be in San Dimas tomorrow or else California is lost, Daley will have a good idea of how to evaluate that request.

I can also say that my biggest hesitation about Rouse, enough to make me suggest at the time that Obama would be better off seeking someone else, was that Rouse does nothing to address the administration's biggest weakness, which is its administration of the executive branch departments and agencies. Daley, as a former cabinet secretary, should be more oriented towards that side of the presidency than the numerous former Hill staffers in the Obama WH (and, perhaps more to the point, the former Senator in the Oval Office) tend to be.

Greg Sargent:

This has all been argued already at length by others, but here goes. Obama's approach to the crises he inherited were by any sane measure mostly moderate and reasonable. The stimulus was smaller and less ambitious than most liberals wanted. The health care plan he adopted jettisoned the most liberal elements and embraced solutions once championed by Republicans. The Wall Street reform bill was the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations in generations, but as observers across the spectrum have noted, it wasn't fundamentally transformative. Obama is winding down the Iraq War, but he escalated in Afghanistan. And he has embraced some controversial Bush policies on civil liberties and terrorism. And so on.

Despite all this, Republicans and conservatives have uniformly condemned the Obama administration as in the grip of unrepentant leftism run amok. Yet what's actually happened is that in so doing, Republicans have moved to the right, and we've all agreed to move what we arbitrarily call the "center" to the right in order to accomodate this.

The pick of Daley, however, will reinforce the conventional narrative that Obama has recognized the error of his ultraliberal ways and has picked a "seasoned Beltway hand" to steer the adminstration back to the center. Obviously this is only one of many things to consider about the Daley pick, and there may be many other good reasons to pick him that outweigh this problem.

But in interpreting the Daley pick, many commentators will be pointing to Daley's interpretation of the first two years as if it's, well, true. They'll assert that Obama has internalized it. And maybe the President has internalized the Daley interpretation of his young presidency. But that doesn't mean it has anything to do with what actually happened.

Ezra Klein (same article as before, but still...):

Perhaps Daley is simply an obscenely good executive vice president type: He seems to have impressed everyone who could one day promote him, alienated virtually no one (or at least no one who has come forward publicly) and effectively advocated for the interests of whoever happened to be paying him at the time.

Or maybe the answer is that the Obama administration has simply decided to tack right, and they figure the way to do that is to hire someone who legitimately believes that tacking right is a good idea. I don't find Daley's theory of politics persuasive, but if you wanted to get credit in the media for moving to the right, it'd help to hire someone who had publicly and clearly attacked your moves to the left.

But the evidence here really doesn't add up. Dean wanted more a vastly more progressive administration, but he likes the guy who wanted a vastly less progressive administration. The administration likes its own record but appears interested in hiring someone who doesn't. There's a widespread perception that the White House is too close to Wall Street, but the leading candidate for chief of staff is a top executive at J.P. Morgan. Oh, and he was on the board of Fannie Mae, too.

The Daley pick seems like a bad idea to me. The particular theory of politics he espouses seems woefully detached from the realities of the modern partisan environment.

Ezra went on to quote Jonathan Chait, so I'll go ahead and save you the trouble:

And there is the problem. I don't know what easy method there is to respond to McConnell's tactics. But Daley's method, allowing extreme positions to redefine the parameters of the debate, is almost surely the wrong way.

I think liberal criticism of some potential Obama nominees is overblown -- the fact that Gene Sperling got paid a lot of Wall Street money to run a charitable program doesn't bother me. But putting a figure like Daley in a position of strategic importance seems like a major blunder.

Andrew Sullivan (however briefly):

Look: he's chief-of-staff. That's about management more than policy. Let's judge him on that when we have the data.

When it comes to Bill Daley, there is only one thing I'm am surer of (other than Boehner crying in the next 24 hours)

What was it I said about Bill Daley? Oh yeah:

I'm not wild about William Daley coming into the White House as Chief of Staff, but I'm not that opposed to it happening either. (It's not impossible, but...) He seems qualified enough for the job, which is more than I can say for Ed Rendell (cough-cough, Joe Klein) In any case, I have my doubts about it happening.

Euuuhhh, shoulda stopped one sentence earlier than that.

First off, I've got to learn about these wide release trial balloons the Administration floats up. Whenever they make a decision, there's a wide release about who the choice is. There is a flurry of complaints (i.e. a flurry of activity on Huffington Post and Firedoglake), the Administration denies any hire has happened (which is technically true), then the hire happens anyway.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this procedure is? Other than a classic trial balloon to get any opposition to show its cards in advance. I think the White House would be better served in skipping step two, the denial portion, and just going ahead, making their decision, and living with the consequences.

Anyway, here's Ezra's piece on the New Chief of Staff, he expresses for me my own mixed feelings better than I ever could. (Thank you, Mr. Klein!)

Imagine I told you that one of the candidates President Obama is considering for chief of staff opposed the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, opposed doing health-care reform and led the Chamber of Commerce's effort to loosen the post-Enron regulations on the accounting and auditing professions. His major qualification for the job is that he's extremely well liked by the business community, in part because he routinely advocates for their interests and in part because he's a top executive at J.P. Morgan. His theory of politics is that the Democratic Party has become too liberal and needs to tack right. Last year, he doubled down on that argument by joining the board of Third Way.

Now imagine I told you that one of the candidates President Obama is considering for chief of staff has been endorsed by Howard Dean as a "huge plus" for the Obama administration and previously chaired Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. Dean, of course, was the great liberal hope in 2004, and has been a key voice for progressives ever since. Gore's 2000 campaign was a notably populist effort, in tone if not in content.

Now imagine I told you they were the same guy.

This is the mystery of William Daley. Reports suggest that he'll be named Obama's chief of staff fairly soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow. But how is it that a centrist banker who opposed the Obama administration's signature initiatives has such a large constituency among liberal political types both inside and outside the White House?

Daley certainly has his backers. The Obama administration, home to many liberals, clearly likes him. So does Howard Dean, and so did Al Gore. He's apparently quite popular among business leaders, as well. His performance shepherding NAFTA through the Congress certainly sounds like it was an impressive political feat, whatever you think of the underlying legislation.

Perhaps Daley is simply an obscenely good executive vice president type: He seems to have impressed everyone who could one day promote him, alienated virtually no one (or at least no one who has come forward publicly) and effectively advocated for the interests of whoever happened to be paying him at the time.

One more point, I say this to remind the Professional Left fans out there who think that this is the President tacking right, or that Daley will "manipulate" the President like they think Rahmbo manipulated Obama.

Right, the guy the President hires has somehow put the President under his sway. Now that's a Jedi mind trick!

As the Attorney General is the guy or gal who runs the Justice Department, as the Treasury Secretary is the guy or gal who runs the Treasury Department (and so on), the White House Chief of Staff is the guy who runs the White House. That is not the same as the guy who runs the Country. William Daley is guy who makes sure the ship runs smoothly, but the Captain (that'd be Obama) ultimately charts the course.

If I am sure of any one thing, other than Boehner crying sometime in the next 24 hours, is that some of my ideological colleagues are going to make the asinine assumption that Daley is somehow tacking this country rightward. He won't. If White House policy tacks rightward, it'll be Obama. Granted, it may be the consequence of a deal with the GOP, but it won't be Daley.

Rep. Ron Paul is a blithering idiot. (VIDEO)

Sorry, I take that back. Calling Ron Paul a blithering idiot would give blithering idiots a bad name.

I wouldn't trust Dr. Ron Paul give me first aid. It's probably a safe bet that if you go to his son, the Senator from Kentucky, you'd probably go blind.

The following should serve as testament once and for all about this man's complete inability to understand even the most basic of economic concepts. Thank you Stephen Colbert, you may have done as big a service as Jon's recent efforts to get the 9/11 Health Bill passed. You exposed Ron Paul as a fraud.

Problem is, most people (especially his supporters) don't know it, or won't acknowledge it.

Well, watch the two clips...and learn something.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Gold Faithful
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> March to Keep Fear Alive

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Gold Faithful - Ron Paul & David Leonhardt<a>
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> March to Keep Fear Alive

I was only pissed off at New York Times writer David Leonardht for not just cutting to the chase and calling Rep. Paul a @#$%ing moron to his face.

Did Rep. Paul really suggest utilizing Gold "Certificates" to represent how much gold you have?

And the difference between than the Federal Reserve Notes (Dollar Bills) in your pocket is...what exactly??

Don't expect an answer. Ron Paul's got his ideology...that and a room temperature IQ.

The Washington Post delivers the most shocking bit of news on the Tea Party...evah!

By the way, my tongue is so deep into my cheek, I'm practically chewing on it.

Tea party supporters [surveyed by Roanoke College] included more men (60 percent) than women (40 percent) and were overwhelmingly white (94 percent). Interestingly, 79 percent of those who said they disagreed with the tea party also were white. It's worth noting that the college said nearly 84 percent of those polled overall were white, 11.5 percent were black and 2 percent were Hispanic/Latino.

By the way, what's the formal, journalistic way to say "No Duh" in print?

A great post about the William Daley non-hire, and how to feel about it by Ezra Klein

I'm not wild about William Daley coming into the White House as Chief of Staff, but I'm not that opposed to it happening either.  (It's not impossible, but...) He seems qualified enough for the job, which is more than I can say for Ed Rendell (cough-cough, Joe Klein) In any case, I have my doubts about it happening. The Citibank stench, at the end of the day, will overwhelm. Added to that, its supposed purpose probably won't work for the reasons Erzabelow outlines :

It's frankly slightly insulting to business leaders to say that their relationship with the White House relies on how many close personal friends they have in the building. It's not that that stuff doesn't matter, but what really matters, as you'd expect, are actual policy decisions. And the reason Daley is well liked by business, at least right now, is that he has been siding with them on major disputes. If he gets to the White House and stops doing that, he won't be as well liked among them.

If the administration wants more support from the business community, that's going to mean giving the business community more things that it wants, or at least fewer things that it doesn't want. So far, that's not happened because the administration has thought that good policy meant pushing some high-profile changes -- such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- that the business community really didn't like. If the administration decided it was wrong about that, and has resolved to not do things business doesn't like going forward, it can build a better relationship with the business community even without Daley. Conversely, if the administration plans to keep pushing policy it likes even if business doesn't like it, then relations with corporate America will be icy even if Daley is working the phones morning, noon and night.

You know the old saying, "nothing personal, this is just business"? Well, the business community knows it, too.

The first Fireside Chat for January 1, 2011 (VIDEO)

Happy New Year! We're (I'm) back and blogging away...



The President resolves to do all he can to get the economy growing and create jobs, and encourages Republicans to embrace their new responsibility to govern.

The Christmastime Fireside Chant for December 25, 2010 (VIDEO)

Yeah, I missed it. Sue me, I was stuck in...Texas (shudder).



President Obama and the First Lady wish families across the country a “Merry Christmas” and encourage everyone to support the troops and their families this holiday season. Visit www.serve.gov to find ideas for what you can do to help our servicemen and women and their families.

TPM: Dan Choi gets his West Point ring back from Harry Reid (VIDEO)

Still pumping my fist, and doing a victory lap.

President Obama signs Don't Ask-Don't Tell repeal (VIDEO)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

One day, this will be normal. One day there will be a GLBT President, and no one will know the difference.

I was in the air headed to (shudder) Texas for the Christmas Holiday when the first cloture vote was cast, and I had just gotten in a hearty Goode Barbecue Company lunch when I got the word, via the CNN iPad App, that DADT was dead once and for all.  All day, all I managed was a Tweet paraphrasing my standard phrase of joy: "DADT Repealed...and let the church say Amen."

And yes, that is my hand held up in praise of the almighty as I type/say that.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I'm a straight man, so I don't think I'm ever going to fully comprehend the joy (at least, I hope its joy) that our friends in the GLBT Community are feeling today, but I am Black, so I think I have an idea.

In 1948, a Democratic President (Truman) signed an Executive Order desegregating the Military.

(Side note: Unfortunately, it was a complete and utter misreading of this bit of history that gave rise to the bull@#$ notion that President Obama could simply wipe away DADT with the stroke of a pen...isn't that right Jane Hamsher?)

Anyway, what happened after that wasn't just a bunch of black Soldiers fighting and dying alongside whites (it was Korea, after all).  What really happened was African-Americans finally had a feeling of true citizenship, a feeling that finally, finally, there was a place for us in America.  Finally, we counted...or at least we started to in a major way.

I remember typing something along those lines when President Obama was first elected in 2008, the absolute lift and joy I felt as a black man, and the pride as a similar feeling came over me.  It was just as the First Lady (may or may not have) said, for the first time I felt proud to be an American, and I hoped that one day my fellow Latino Americans feel the same way when President Martinez or Solares takes the Oath of Office, or my fellow Asian Americans when President Cho or Leung is sworn in.

Now is the GLBT's moment.  No, this isn't an openly Gay President...but it could be the start to one.

Don't tell me that a Gay man or woman, straight-laced, and suited up, bearing none of the stereotypical bull@#$% characteristics best left to Sitcoms, openly in love with the partner of their choosing, and carrying with them a resume of medals won, and valor attained, can't one day, and one day within my lifetime, stand before the Chief Justice of the United States (who doesn't screw up the ceremony), and become our next President.

The miracle won't be that magic moment happening...

...the miracle, is that magic moment happening, and no one noticing the difference.

I know there is still a long way to go between that day, and today.  But my fellow Americans, you will one day be able to look back on this day, and do something that maybe you haven't been able to do in a while...

You will look back on DADT repeal...and know hope.



Note: Special hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for that last line which is almost his signature nowadays, and to The Only Adult in the Room for hitting that Rachel footage first.

The Fireside chat for December 18th, 2010 (VIDEO)

President Obama urges the Senate to heed the calls from Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, every living Republican Secretary of State, our NATO allies, and the leadership of the military: ratify the New START Treaty with Russia.



One more victory before y'all hit the road, right guys?

TOUCHDOWN!! United States of America!!

DADT is dead.  GLBT Community, feel free to spike the ball.

Of course, the rest of the world is wondering what the hell took us so long.

Looks like Jonathan Chait's made his choice!

And apparently, it's Multiple-Choice Mitt.  And apparently, I was wrong.  It wasn't Working America who came up with the name, it was the late-great Ted Kennedy.  My total bad.

[Jonathan Chait once thought that] Romney was the heir to the tradition of moderate Republicanism that his father, former Michigan Governor George Romney, had once championed. During the 1960s, the elder Romney had fought the good fight against the Republicans' Goldwater wing, urging the party to distance itself from John Birchers and other conservative extremists. The elder Romney never made it as a presidential candidate but maybe the younger Romney would.

Mitt wouldn't be getting my vote, obviously: He was still pretty conservative, particularly on economic issues. But I thought his problem-solving instincts and apparently sincere interest in public service would serve him well and that, when it was all over, he might end up doing good things in office.

But by early 2007, when I began the reporting of my profile, Romney was in full pander mode--saying whatever it took to win over the Republican base, even if that meant campaigning as precisely the sort of conservative ideologue his father had once disdained:

...if any one moment epitomized the new Mitt Romney, it was his speech before the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) in February. There, gathered in one place, were the intellectual and ideological heirs to the conservative movement that first captured control of the Republican Party in the 1960s. But Mitt Romney had not come to carry on his father's fight against the right wing. He had come, instead, to do what every other aspiring Republican presidential nominee was doing: beg for the group's approval. After being introduced by Grover Norquist, the conservative activist perhaps most responsible for the radical makeover of government economic policy in the last decade, Romney began his speech by suggesting it was a "good thing" the crowd would soon hear from Ann Coulter, who was next on the speaking agenda. From there, he fed the crowd red meat--attacking Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, and the press; promising to fight the liberal social agenda, to close U.S.borders, and to never, ever raise taxes. "This is not the time for us to shrink from conservative principles," Romney thundered. "It is time for us to stand in strength."

Romney's latest panders make me wonder not if those of us who believed in Romney were wrong about him from the beginning. After all, it was Ted Kennedy, back in 1996, who first zeroed in on Romney inconsistencies on abortion with the devastating line: "He's not pro-choice, he's not anti-choice. He's multiple choice."

Of course, most politicians pander. And there are times that I believe, as Frum apparently does, that the real Romney would make a decent public servant. But mostly I'm with Douthat these days: It's become virtually impossible to tell where the fake Romney ends and the real one begins.

ThinkProgress: The only shocking thing about this...is that this guy's shocked!

Apparently, the founder of Muslims for Bush is shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU, that there's anti-Muslim Bigotry in the GOP:

Last week, Muhammad Ali Hasan, a lifelong Republican and the founder of Muslims for Bush, announced he was switching parties because he is disgusted with the GOP’s tolerance of bigotry and adoption of thinly-veiled Islamophobia. Hasan and his family have raised money for Republican candidates in their home state of Colorado, helped GOP campaigns, and Hasan has run for public office on the GOP ticket. But after months of watching conservatives fan the flames of intolerance for political gain, Hasan had had enough, and wrote an open letter to the GOP published last Friday in the Huffington Post:

In watching this summer, with the promotion of Arizona’s SB 1070, calls to revoke the 14th Amendment, anger at the overturn of California’s Proposition 8, and lastly, aggressive protest against a mosque in New York City, I came to question how much the GOP values the vision of our American Saints, the Founding Fathers. Quite frankly, we are no longer the party of Constitutionalists.

Honestly, I think Republicans are convinced that a) They're still the Party of Lincoln, and b) It's still 1864.

How should the Senate Vote?

First caught by Andrew Sullivan. If I had a frame, I'd hang it on my wall.

What should be the official Mitt Romney political nickname?

Okay, as he head into the 2012 Presidential Campaign (odds are, starting just after Oregon vs. Auburn), I think its incumbent on the Professional Left (or in my case, the semi-professional Left) to come up with a suitable nickname for Mitt Romney.

As you may be aware, I've taken to calling him RoboMitt. But there have been a lot of really attractive contenders out there.

Jonathan Bernstein refers to him as the Mittbott. Not bad.  Close to mine, but not bad.

Andrew Sullivan uses He Who Makes Plastic Look Real, which is really good, oh-so British...but ultimately takes too long to say.

And Working America came up with Multiple Choice Mitt, which is irresistible.

But in the end, it may not matter, because as Jonathan Chait said (while calling him Arch-Ironist...to blocky)

Sadly, I think Romney has virtually no chance to win the nomination. He is trapped in the position of both desperately needing to repudiate his signature achievement and being unable to risk another flip-flop. It's a real loss for American politics, and irony.

Give it some thought, I might go with Working America's creation. But thoughts on this topic are welcome in the coming year(s).

Why has the Media abdicated actual Journalism to the Daily Show? (VIDEO)

Remember when Network TeeVee news used to do this?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Worst Responders
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> The Daily Show on Facebook

And the roundtable afterwards:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
9/11 First Responders React to the Senate Filibuster
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> The Daily Show on Facebook

I'm not going to bother with the Mike Huckabee portion of the interview, as he seemed more interested in defending (and lying in favor of) Fox News than about the GOP's blocking the bill.

Fort McHenry has gone Mobile...

For the two of you who might care (and I could be overestimating things), Fort McHenry is now available as a Mobile Blog.

Greg Sargent: How the House Dems put themselves in a bind over the Tax Cut Deal

Okay, so it's a little old, but no less interesting:

Here's the situation, in a nutshell. Despite their own dislike of the tax cut compromise, House Dem leaders want it to pass the House. Period, full stop. They want the middle class tax cuts and unemployment benefits to continue, and they don't want to thwart an initiative upon which President Obama has staked so much.

At the same time, Dem leaders need to do something about the anger and near-despair among the House Dem rank and file. The idea has been to change the bill in some way to make it more palatable to Dems and to make them feel they've had a role in the process -- perhaps via an amendment on the hated estate tax provision.

But here's the problem. The tax deal passed the Senate yesterday by a huge number, 83-15. Worse for House Dems, a number of notable liberals voted for it, including Barbara Boxer, Chris Dodd, Sheldon Whitehouse and John Kerry.

The overwhelming support for the tax deal -- even among Senate liberals -- gives House Dem leaders less maneuvering room to make any substantial changes to the bill. They don't want to risk making changes that wouldn't have support if the bill were kicked back to the Senate, because they don't want to risk imperiling the deal.

"It really takes the air out of the sails of House Democrats when there's such a huge vote in the Senate for it," one House aide lamented to me. "It changes the dynamic in an unfortunate way. If you have the Senate saying they're accepting this deal in large margins, you have no partners to improve this."

That's why, as I noted yesterday, House Dems may end up voting on amendments to the bill that are likely to fail. It will enable Dems to register their disapproval of the estate tax provision and other things -- without preventing the bill from passing in the end, as Dem leaders and the White House want. Strong GOP support is expected to help it clear the House.

It's like I said before: Please, Mr. President lead us...at least up until the point you actually get a deal done, so we can turn around and blame you for it.

And nothing says process like wasting a bunch of time on amendments that are going to go exactly nowhere.

The Photoshop Rap (VIDEO)

This should tell you what I think about today's news day.

My favorite line in the video "Oooh, an urban!"

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Actually, the tips described in the video are 100% valid. But getting a Photoshop Book would probably make things easier for you.

Courtesty @vdaze, the "I'm Grateful" site... (VIDEO)

Just a nice collection of photos and videos containing reasons to be grateful to the President.

Actually, I missed this video:

RoboMitt 2.0 for Prez 2012! (Because the GOP deserves the very worst) The hilarity begins!

Josh Marshall has a fantastic piece up about Mitt's travails and troubles for 2012. Is he suggesting that RoboMitt 2.0 is doomed in 2012?

Yeah.  Actually, I think he does right there at the end.

There are two more big liabilities on his ledger: 1st, he changes his ideology about every cycle and his actual policies predilections seem much more moderate than what flies in today's GOP. In other words, it's hard for him to shake the perception that he's a weather vane who doesn't have any real political principles. 2nd, and more devastating, the terror of 'Obamacare' is based on the legislation Mitt pushed through in Massachusetts. It's his signature piece of legislation. And going into 2012, that's a big, big problem.

To overcome those liabilities, Mitt has to do everything in his power to avoid a scenario in which he's the 'moderate guy' in the 2012 primary season against some other person who ends up as the Tea Party / hard right standard bearer, whether that's Palin or maybe Huckabee or whoever else. And so you have him at every point needing to stake out the most hard right position available -- in this case, proposing that we get rid of our system of unemployment insurance since, in his telling, unemployment insurance promotes laziness.

All that said, while I'd bet against Romney beating President Obama in 2012, he's probably the only one of the current crop who even stands a serious chance.

Weather vane?  What are you talking about, Josh?

By the way, Editor's note. While you were reading those paragraphs, RoboMitt upgraded himself to 2.1 status.

Whoops. Spoke too soon, he's at 2.2 now.

BREAKING: Richard Holbrooke has died.

It's too bad. I was hoping that since he was in critical, but stable condition today, things were looking better.

Thoughts, prayers and love to his family. I am so, so sorry for your loss.

Greg Sargent: Looks like Judge Hudson decided to re-write the Commerce Clause...

Wasn't that nice of him?

Tim Jost, a professor of law at the Washington and Lee University Law School, dismissed this argument, deriding it as a fundamental misreadling of the Constitution and claiming that the judge has "rewritten the Commerce Clause."

Jost, who spoke to reporters on a conference call organized by the pro-health reform Center of American Progress, accused Hudson of an overly narrow reading of the Commerce Clause. He said the judge's reading turned on the idea that the Commerce Clause only focuses on regulating economic activity, when in fact it also empowers Congress to regulate economic decisions that are "not immediately classifable as activity."

The Commerce Clause, Jost said, "really turns on economic decisions." By this Jost means that the Commerce Clause empowers Congress to step in and regulate when Americans fail to participate in economic activity in a way that impacts interstate commerce. In other words, failing to purchase health insurance does not constitute economic activity -- in a sense it's the absence of economic activity -- but Congress can step in anyway.

Jost argued that the Supreme Court has already upheld the right of Congress to regulate such economic decision-making. For instance, Jost noted, in the 1942 case Wickard v Filburn, the Supreme Court ruled that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the authority to prohibit wheat farmers from growing wheat for their own use. This forced them to participate in interstate commerce to get wheat.

The Constitution, by the way, empowers Congress "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States."

Jost noted that with Wickard v Filburn, the Supreme Court affirmed Congress' authority, under certain circumstances, to step in and force participation in interstate commerce when individuals declare: "I'm not in the stream of commerce. I'm just out here on my own." This is directly comparable to the debate over the individual mandate, Jost pointed out.

"This decision is very defective," Jost concluded, "and will be reversed by the appellate court or the Supreme Court."

How to separate the Lazy from the non-Lazy among the Media when it comes to the Health Care Reform ruling.

Do they say something like Jonathan Chait or Ezra Klein does?

Second, even given the above, Hudson conceded that striking down the individual mandate would not invalidate the whole Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. If you strike the individual mandate but leave the rest, you have a system that could easily be patched up with a better mechanism to avoid free-riding. The real loser here is the health insurance lobby. Health insurers would have preferred to avoid any health care reform at all. But the health insurance lobby's second-highest priority would be a working system with an individual mandate. A world in which they cannot discriminate against sick people but in which healthy people can avoid buying insurance until they're sick is a nightmare.

The health insurance lobby spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat health care reform. They have a lot of pull among Republicans. A system that gouges the health insurers but keeps in place the subsidies and regulations liberals want is not a status quo I see lasting very long.

Or are they Huffington Post?

Anyone...and I mean anyone who wrote today that the Health Care Reform was ruled unconstitutional either is lazy, stupid or both...and let's just say there are a lot of lazy and/or stupid folks among media of all classes.

Because people who write what Jonathan and Ezra did, took a little time, and...you know...read the decision.

Who needs to get their swagger back again?

Josh today in a somewhat accurate statement:

Even knowing all this and with all the policy particulars having their importance, some things are critical to leadership that are more personal and intangible. Look at President Obama today and the guy just doesn't have his swagger. The confidence is gone. And so is the smile. That's human, I guess. It's been a rough year. And like other presidents you can see the age on this president after only a couple years.

But people want to know they're on board with a political leader who's got a plan, who's got something up his sleeve, who's got some extra angle, some well of charisma or luck to draw on that makes the math in his team's favor more than just 2 + 2 = 4.

Now, as I tried to hint over the weekend, people tend to forget that it took President Clinton the better part of a year to get his head screwed back on right after the 1994 congressional midterms. And even beyond the psychological dynamics it's just hard to look too on top of your game when you've got all these jaunty Republicans milling around.

But it's still important, perhaps the critical factor. No one wants to follow someone who looks like a loser or feels beat. Yes, I know all the different arguments about the tax cut deal and where he's going to pick his fights and where he's not or where he's refused to so far. But the president needs his swagger back. Right now it may be his most critical deficit.

What Josh says is not totally wrong, but I think he's way overstating the impact of one statement to the press. At the same time...The President wasn't the one who went on 60 Minutes, and cried...twice...like John Boehner .

If anyone needs to get their swagger back, it's the crying man of Orange.  Or did he ever have it in the first place?

Today's Tweet of the day winner is...

vdaze, from Baltimore, Maryland, responding to a post about the President's announcement of the Tax Cut Deal passing the Senate:

@Yeggo: THAT ... is a sharp suit/tie combo. #potus // It could be better. PRIMARY CHALLENGE!!!!!

Sorry, vdaze...our prize budget is...well, roughly the same as the budget for Fort McHenry as a whole. But I loved that tweet with all my heart. Still laughing.

Greg Sargent: Senate votes for tax cut deal. What's route through House?

Hopefully, Greg will use tiny words so Alan Grayson can understand:

Here's the challenge for House Dem leaders right now, as I understand it: Come up with a way for Dem members to vent their disapproval of the deal, so they don't feel too stiffarmed and marginalized by the process, without it resulting in changes significant enough to cause Republicans to walk away. The deal is expected to clear the House with a combination of strong GOP support and some backing among moderate Dems. Tweaking the bill in a way that drives away Republicans could imperil its survival.

The result could be a situation in which Dems hold a vote on amendments to the bill that are likely to fail. House Dems are particularly angry about the deal's estate tax provision; Dem leaders could hold a vote amending that provision, allowing Dem members to register disapproval. But the amendment would likely be opposed by almost all Republicans and some moderate Dems. So it would likely lose.

But rank and file Dems would have had a chance to make their voices heard before the final vote passing the deal through the House.

Greg Sargent: Looks like Rank-and-File Dems support the Tax Cut Deal, putting them at odds witht the "Elites" and "Villagers"

In Greg's own words: Dems heart compromise!

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that overall, nearly seven in 10 Americans support the deal. But it's the partisan breakdown of the numbers that's of particular interest.

It finds that among Democrats, a surprising 68 percent support the package. This is true, even though only 38 percent of Dems in the same poll support the provision extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. The provisions that Obama won -- including the extension of unemployment benefits -- induced another 30 percent of Dems to agree to support the overall deal, despite their opposition to extending the cuts for the wealthy. This suggests they may buy the idea that the compromise Obama won is a good one.

A new Pew poll out today has similar numbers. It finds that 63 percent of Democrats, and 65 percent of self-described liberals, supports the deal.

Whatever the merits of the deal, these numbers do raise doubts about the depth and breadth of the revolt it has sparked among Dems. What's more, recent polls have shown that in general, Dems want Obama to compromise with Republicans in far greater numbers than GOPers want their leaders to do the same with the President. Dems heart compromise!

In case you missed the video of the Metrodome Roof Collapsing... (VIDEO)

It's eerily beautiful...only because no one was hurt when it went down.



Between this and the Dallas Practice Facility collapse (where someone was severely injured), maybe its time to realize these Inflata-roofs or "Steel" structures don't really work in areas with the potential for inclement weather...which would be everywhere.

Also, so the Gophers got a new Stadium...the Twinkies got a new Stadium...and the Vikes get what?  Bupkus?

The Huffington Post just lied to you...

Well, maybe lied is too strong a word...but this keeps happening over and over again with them.

HEALTH CARE LAW RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL

It's not. It's pointed not been ruled unconstitutional. What did Ezra just say???

And the story links to one with radically different headline:

Health Care Reform Provision Is Unconstitutional, Federal Judge Rules

Which is accurate.

Huffington Post is not an ethical organization. They lie just about as much as Fixed News...all in the service of a click.

Ezra Klein: The Virgina Judge's ruling is good news for Health Care Reform?

Really?

Hudson's ruling is the third from a district court so far. Previously, Judge Norman Moon found the mandate constitutional, and so too did Judge George Steeh. Both Steeh and Norman were Clinton appointees, which is to say that so far, the rulings are proceeding along predictably partisan lines.

Hudson ruled against the government, but he didn't stop it. He refused the plaintiff's request for an injunction against the legislation's continued implementation. The construction of the bill's infrastructure will continue. And second, he refused to overrule anything but the individual mandate itself.

The real danger to health-care reform is not that the individual mandate will be struck down by the courts. That'd be a problem, but there are a variety of ways to restructure the individual mandate such that it doesn't penalize anyone for deciding not to do something (which is the core of the conservative's legal argument against the provision). Here's one suggestion from Paul Starr, for instance. The danger is that, in striking down the individual mandate, the court would also strike down the rest of the bill. In fact, that's exactly what the plaintiff has asked Hudson to do.

Hudson pointedly refused. "The Court will sever only Section 1501 [the individual mandate] and directly-dependent provisions which make specific reference to 1501." That last clause has made a lot of pro-reform legal analysts very happy.