In case you were worried that the new health care law, the so-called “government takeover of health care,” was going to hurt the profits of the completely unnecessary private health insurance middlemen, don’t be. From Politico: [I]nvestors say they’re increasingly optimistic on health insurers’ future for two crucial reasons: regulations released this year have been [...]

Small government activist Grover Norquist is calling for Republicans to begin a serious debate on the Afghanistan war. Not surprisingly, Norquist was focusing on the cost of financing our seemingly endless military commitment to the country. From Dan Froomkin: Norquist said the question for those who want to reduce government spending is this: “If you [...]

It is interesting to think that the creation of the Senate wasn’t just a political compromise between the small and large states, but also a de facto technical compromise between republican ideals and what the existing limits of technology allowed. At the time the Constitution was written, sending a message and getting a response from [...]

The US Chamber of Commerce has decided to come out in public support of repealing the recently passed health care law. From Chamber CEO Thomas Donohue’s State of American Business address: By mid-December, HHS had already granted 222 waivers to the law—a revealing acknowledgement that the law is unworkable. And, with key provisions under challenge [...]

While there seems to be some growing intellectual consensus in support of slightly reforming Senate rules to modestly reduce obstructionism, the idea of returning the Senate to its original intent of a majority rule chamber is still labeled too radical. In reality there is nothing radical about merely bringing back the original Senate rule that [...]

Politics in a democracy is about changing minds, and to change minds you need to get your message to the people you hope to persuade. Reformist groups throughout history have often run into opposition from the established mainstream media, which tends to be supportive of the current status quo structure. Being able to speak directly to supporters and the population as a whole has been critical to independent political movements. I have previously stressed in my Non-partisan League series the importance of owning your own means of communication and being a financially independent organization, but it is a message that bears repeating because history is always repeating itself.

Toby Harnden at the Telegraph says John King says that Gibbs got the boot because Daley didn’t want him around. I think I was one of the first to report on the pending White House shake-up back on December 9 on MSNBC, and again on FDL on December 20. But you didn’t have to be exceptionally wired in to see that the President had lost confidence in Gibbs.

It is not unusual for politicians to lie, but, in his efforts to repeal health care reform, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has turned it into a metaphysical art form. In his first press conference as speaker, Boehner was asked to defend his party’s official claim that the new health care law will increase the deficit [...]

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) is trying to gain support for a modest proposal to change Senate rules to deal with the issue of filibuster support by proxy. The current arrangement allows Senators to support a filibuster even while on a tropical vacation. The rules regarding cloture in the Senate are unlike almost any other rules [...]

This morning is the tale of two headlines — one from The New York Times and one from the Los Angeles Times — which are completely at odds with each other with regard to health care costs and the rationale for premium rate hikes. If health care spending has grown by only 4%, why does Blue Shield of California need to increase its rates by as much as 59%?