Looking at the current political environment and gaming out the possible actions that could be taken it seems abundantly clear that progressives best course of action on Social Security is to simply refuse to even think about allowing any changes in the program. Progressives should also follow Harry Reid’s advice by sticking to this “just [...]

After the health care law passed, we were promised a massive, $125 million PR campaign staffed with top quality talent that would really sell the new law to the American people. In a fascinating article, Politico found that this promised campaign essentially crashed and burned: Wal-Mart Watch founder Andrew Grossman unveiled the Health Information Campaign [...]

Despite predictions by some prominent Democrats that the popularity of health care reform would soar after passage, one year after it was signed by President Obama, support for the law has actually dropped slightly. According to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 42 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of the law while 46 [...]

It is important to put budget issues in perspective, so I have a simple request that President Obama, the top members of his administration, and his allies in Congress send a hand written version of this letter to constituents: Dear low-income American, I know times are tough. I know many of you saw your savings [...]

Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid didn’t just fail to deal with filibuster reform, he totally committed himself to the defense of this disgraceful practice. From his floor speech about his deal with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: Senator McConnell and I both believe our reverance for this institution must always be more important than our [...]

Senate Democrats had an opportunity to get together and make the Senate a working, majority-rule-based chamber. They could have recently used the “Constitutional Option” at the start of this new Congress to rewrite the Senate rules to either eliminate the filibuster outright or at least make staging a filibuster more difficult. Yet, due to a [...]

The House Democratic caucus is truly pathetic. They are, in fact, so pathetic that I’ve been forced to use a thesaurus to find new ways of describing their pathetic behavior: weak, impotent, pitiful, feeble and toothless. Last night, they again folded completely and passed the Senate’s version of the Obama-McConnell tax deal–as is–even though only [...]

He’s the least popular man in the Senate with the public: only 24% of Connecticut voters say they’d vote for him again. His sheer bottom-scraping numbers are causing likely opponents to drool at the thought of challenging him. But in the House of Lords, they love him. Politico reports “Senior Democrats” are urging Joe Lieberman to run again

The House Democratic caucus voted today to reject the Obama-McConnell tax deal. From Sam Stein: In a meeting on Thursday morning, the House Democratic caucus rejected the president’s proposed deal on the Bush tax cuts but did not fully submarine the possibility of its passage, multiple sources tell The Huffington Post. Members, by voice vote, [...]

Michael Bennet gets caught in a moment of rare honesty with an open mike in the Senate: “It’s all rigged. The whole conversation is rigged. The fact that we don’t get to a discussion before the break about what we’re going to do in the lame duck. It’s just rigged.” Of course it is.  They [...]