I think that reconciliation bit deserves a more substantive post.

Dick Cheney is now whining about President Obama bowing to the emperor of Japan.

Yes, Dick Cheney is all about the dignity and decorum of the office. I think we can all remember the very dignified nylon parka and knit cap he wore to the Auschwitz remembrance.

"Anything to add?"

Phuck the lying Holy Joe with a rusty spanner.

Bill Moyers is a huge loss. I hope PBS see the wisdom in maintaining a similar show. Don't know if Brancaccio is heavy enough, though he is available apparently. Where is the media? Worried about Oprah in 2011. Go figure...

Joe LIEberman needs a flaming cactus rammed straight up his ass

I recall that Bill Moyers considered retiring several years ago, then decided against it because somebody had to dissent from the Bush administration excesses.

Bill Moyers's Journal is the single smartest program on television, and it's merely the capstone of a decades-long career of gently encouraging the viewer to be learn more and to be more decent.

I'll miss him, and I wish him a long, happy retirement with frequent returns in front of the camera.

I think that reconciliation bit deserves a more substantive post.

Agreed. Why not skip one post deconstructing some celebrity winger's latest media utterance in favor of really explaining the limits of reconciliation?

Hardly anyone else on the center-left/left is paying attention to this, and ignorance on this topic is rampant. Way too many people still think this is a perfect and simple solution to what ails healthcare legislation.

I am *really* unimpressed with the reasons for not using reconciliation. (1) it will make Blanche Lincoln mad; (2) republicans will make a lot of cumbersome procedural objections; and (3) it only lasts five years, after which another vote is required. These are minor inconveniences compared to losing the public option. Unless I hear better reasons, I am in favor of reconciliation.

(2) republicans will make a lot of cumbersome procedural objections

They're a little more than cumbersome "minor inconveniences" when each one requires 60 votes to overcome.

[* Encouraging real estate news: "Home sales surged for the second month in a row in October, climbing to the highest level in 2 1/2 years as first-time buyers rushed to take advantage of an expiring tax credit. Home sales nationwide are now up nearly 37 percent from their bottom in January."]

I don't consider this particularly encouraging. First, the underlying causes of the housing bubble (you know, the thing that largely caused the economic meltdown) have not really been addressed. Second, I don't see why house ownership is necessarily such a wonderful thing anyway.

Why not skip one post deconstructing some celebrity winger's latest media utterance

New around here, eh?

New around here, eh?

Someone -- you know who you are -- owes me five bucks. Pony up. Doggie needs new toys.

"Fun fact: Cheney worked for Nixon and H.W. Bush, both of whom bowed to the emperor of Japan." Small correction: if you follow the links provided, Nixon's bow was to Mao Zedong, not to the emperor of Japan. Of course this still supports the point that Cheney is being hypocritical.

Americans working with local militias against the Taliban in Afghanistan

That's where the strategy against the Taliban can be fine-tuned. All Washington can decide are the overall commitment levels and who is in charge of American efforts.

Party is the only mechanism by which voters can influence actual outcomes.

That's what I came to realize, and the huge flaw at the heart of being an independent in America: having but two choices, presented to you by others, is hardly independence.

I am *really* unimpressed with the reasons for not using reconciliation. (1) it will make Blanche Lincoln mad; (2) republicans will make a lot of cumbersome procedural objections; and (3) it only lasts five years, after which another vote is required.

Well , I think you are being a bit blithe about losing Lincoln's vote on other substantive matters and the 5 year rule is significantly more problematic for the long term cost control issues in the bill, but no matter. The real point is that, as a few people like Bowers and Ezra Klein have pointed out, is that reconciliation is not really an easier hurdle than the current rules because it would still require 60 votes to move forward.

Now that is not precisely correct. As others have pointed out, 50 Senators and Joe Biden can basically make the Senate rules anything they want. As the Republicans threatened to do years ago, they could go "nuclear" and change the rules to require only 51 votes for either reconciliation or a regular vote. But are their 51 votes for a nuclear option? I tend to doubt it. Either way, the belief that reconciliation is some sort of magic bullet is unfounded. I for one would be happy to see the Senate just completely get rid of the filibuster altogether but here we are.

Rising home sales, particularly in a market like Vegas, is a highly misleading statistic. That market is headed for a year with more resales than any other, yet the median resale price has dropped in 2 years from over $235,000 to $125,000. Over 80% of the resales are foreclosures or short sales.
In Vegas, the new home market is down more than 50%.

Without the tax credit and low rates as well as investors buying for rental unites (buy low, rent the house out and sell in 3-5 years) there wouldn't be as much of a "market."

Looks like a false positive.

If policymakers are looking for areas for infrastructure investment, sewage treatment plants are definitely worth the money.

Not least for the fuel that they can make.

"Ari Fleischer will be representing the BCS. Figures."

Obama, on the other hand, would like to see a FBS playoff system.

This is kind of a microcosm of the healthcare debate:

Obama wants to radically change how the national champion is decided, using a playoff system. The vast majority of fans (and I'm sure majority of the players and coaches) would also like to see a playoff.
While it wouldn't be absolutely perfect, it would at least decide who the national champs are where is should be decided, on the field.

The pro-BCS crowd, on the other hand, want to keep the FUBARed mess they forced on the sport in place, and are just painting over the rust.
So they are all for maintaing a screwed up, Charlie-Foxtrot of a system that most fans, players, and coaches despise, and which ends every season in more pain and suffering.

Okay, I watch waaay too much college football.

Go Big Red

"Your high-school civics teacher no doubt told you that you should 'vote for the person, not the party.' Madison and Hamilton, who hated what they called 'faction,' would have agreed. All three of them were wrong. Party is the only mechanism by which voters can influence actual outcomes."

In California, it was primarily independent voters who removed Gov. Gray Davis and elected Arnold Schwarzenegger in his place. So it varies by state.

good to know that all of the country isnt nuts.

http://www2.morganton.com/content/2009/nov/23/flood-where-were-conservatives-eight-years/

Bend it like Beck

Benen: If policymakers are looking for areas for infrastructure investment, sewage treatment plants are definitely worth the money.

Don't need no big stinky government telling us where to crap and how to wipe our asses...

That TIME article neglected to mention one other option: Changing the cloture rules so instead of 60 the Senate needs less votes. Alan Grayson is proposing 55 here: http://stopsenatestalling.com/

Sign his petition!

"Is reconciliation still on the table? Maybe, but there are plenty of reasons the Senate leadership hopes to avoid it."

They better start brushing up on it, as there are not 60 votes for a healthcare bill in the Senate without a Public Option and I don't see a healthcare bill without a Public Option passing the House.

About "I'm starting to get the impression that the LA Times' Andrew Malcolm is using his platform for partisan purposes. Call it a hunch."

After attributing the story to the LA Times, CNN just rambled through it during its 9 pm slot on the left coast as though there were no problems with the phony comparisons at all.

Having watched the Palinistas trying to make sense of why they support La Palin, I've given up on America.
The USA is headed for a world of pain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKKKgua7wQk

BTW - both Nixon and GHWB bowed to the Japanese emperor.

This was interesting.

Study: Political Bent Affects How We View Skin Tone.

Liberal participants were most likely to rate a lightened photo of Obama as being most representative of him, while conservatives were most likely to say that about a photo that had been darkened, according to their findings published in a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

He says it would be interesting to do a similar study with a conservative biracial candidate, to see if liberals would then "darken" the candidate and conservatives would "lighten" that same person.

Good luck finding a conservative biracial candidate.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120691088&ps=cprs

"Fun fact: Cheney worked for Nixon and H.W. Bush, both of whom bowed to the emperor of Japan."

Not to mention vomiting on the Japanese Prime Minister in the case of Bush.

Of course Lieberman is afraid of Rachel, he knows he is outclassed, on the other hand, has anyone else noticed he is a regular on Fox.

Party is the only mechanism by which voters can influence actual outcomes

The United States is AFAIK the only functioning democracy in the developed world (with the partial exception of Italy, whose membership of either category is a bit marginal) which doesn't have what damn foreigners would regard as "proper parties". I suspect one reason is that it's too darned big, geographically as much as demographically. I'm quite sure another reason is the structure of the Senate.

Curiously, it seems to be the Republicans who are making the effort to turn themselves into a party in the usual sense of the word. By doing so, they will either win very big indeed, or destroy themselves. The Democrats, who would rather jump off a cliff than take a political risk, are unlikely to follow.

"BTW - both Nixon and GHWB bowed to the Japanese emperor."

Actually, I think that GHWB may have done more than bow the the Emperor.

The United States is AFAIK the only functioning democracy in the developed world (with the partial exception of Italy, whose membership of either category is a bit marginal) which doesn't have what damn foreigners would regard as "proper parties". I suspect one reason is that it's too darned big, geographically as much as demographically.

The United States doesn't have proper parties for two reasons: first, its not a parliamentary system, so there is no essential close link between a party in the executive and the same party in the legislature, and second it uses plurality or majority-runoff for most important elections, producing a two-party system with parties which therefore tend to be fairly broad-based and incoherent.

With a parliamentary system and/or proportional election system, you get more coherent parties. Most modern democracies have one or both of those features, the United States has neither.

Another fun fact: Hirohito was still emperor when Nixon bowed to him and GHW Bush went to Hirohito's funeral while President. No Dan Quail for the last leader of the Axis.

great post. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did you guys learn that some chinese hacker had busted twitter yesterday again.

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