The Republican position in a nutshell: Most of them know there’s a crisis, and they just don’t care. It doesn’t matter what’s best for the country, only what’s best for the Republican Party, their wealthy friends, and their corporate donors. It doesn’t matter if 20,000 people die every year, as long as the victims’ families are so pissed off that they start voting Republican.

So much of DC politicking over the last few years has been centered around the idea that if Democrats actually act like Democrats, they’ll lose their seats “just like they did in 1994″. Guess what? It’s not 1994, chronologically, culturally or demographically.

Here’s Michael Steele, lying about how the public option will allegedly cost Americans so much more than what we have now. Here’s Michele Bachmann, undercutting Steele with what to her and her insurance-company buddies is a scaaaary idea: That the public option will be much cheaper that what we have now — so much so that it, in finest Law of the Marketplace fashion, drives the inferior private insurers out of business. Geezo peezo, Republicans! Can’t you keep your health care lies straight?

The standard line of defense used by persons sticking up for the Blue Dogs is that they’re not corrupt or money-driven or anything like that, but are simply voting the way their constituents want them to vote. Let’s put this to the test by looking at their stance on the public option.

As Christy points out, Republican and insurance-lobby whinings about “rationing” and “more choices” sound particularly silly when you realize that health care already is being rationed by a system that makes it impossible for anyone but the rich to take full advantage of the choices it provides.

Here it is, folks — the moment we’ve been waiting for since last friggin’ November: Norm Coleman concedes the election contest to Al Franken.

It’s not out of the question formNorm Coleman to choose to ask Alito to issue a stay to keep Al Franken’s election certificate from being signed. But as Hasen noted a few weeks ago, actually getting a stay is unlikely. And considering that Norm’s legal fees for this case alone are around $145,000 a week, the NRSC may figure their money is better spent on protecting vulnerable GOP senators in next year’s elections.

There have been persistent rumors locally — rumors referenced by Dan Feidt at Politics in Minnesota — that the Supreme Court will be handing down a ruling in the Coleman appeal sometime today. My own particular source for this allegedly got the information simply by asking a person quite close to the case.

Remember how the three-judge Election Contest Court ruled that because of the egregious frickin’ misconduct committed by his legal team, that Norm was going to be on the hook for at least some of the court costs incurred by his opponent, Al Franken? Well, the bill was finally totaled up yesterday, and the ECC ruled that Coleman must pay Senator-Elect Franken $94,783.15. And counting.

In the face of what looks to be an imminent slam-dunk win for Senator Al Franken, his soon-to-be colleague John Cornyn (R-Texas) has, um, graciously decided to allow America’s newest Senator to be seated after all. How good of him.