Since the Helmand River Valley campaign began, I’ve grown increasingly worried that the mismatch between tactics, strategy and U.S. interests in Afghanistan was growing deeper. Is Michael Cohen right? Is the Obama administration’s strategy drifting further into mission creep? After a conference call with Steve Biddle, one of the advisers to the McChrystal strategy review, I’m starting to agree.

In 2003 right before her wedding to one of Los Angeles’ up and coming chefs, my friend Edith was diagnosed with breast cancer. Self-employed with health insurance, Edith was stunned to see bills of over $35,000 after her treatment and double mascetomy. After her surgery her premiums and deductibles skyrocketed. All of her savings were gone, her dreams of owning a home dissolved and she and her new husband were now on the verge of bankruptcy.

Edith, a stunning tattooed brunette entrepreneur, rallied her friends, including the Go-Go’s Jane Weidlin and threw herself a benefit called Bowling for Boobies which helped offset the costs not covered by insurance.

The Cash for Clunkers program has already supported the trade in of 250,000 cars.

Earlier today Jane reported that 53 House progressives signed a letter stating they won’t vote for the Blue Dog compromise. That number has grown to 57, and the names of the signatories have been released.

Max Baucus is a bipartisan fetishist who has been flipping off the 76% of Americans who want a public plan because the three Republicans he’s been dealing with behind closed doors are more important to him.

Well, here’s Mike Enzi’s idea of bipartisanship.

Roll Call is reporting that the Republican leadership is pressuring the Republican negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee not to reach agreement on health care reform, so Harry Reid is calling them out.

The Progressive Caucus doesn’t plan on releasing the names of those who are signatories until 5:00 pm because they say they want to get to 60. And according to Charles Rangel, when the 3 committee bills get reconciled in the Rules Committee there will be a public plan.

Whether there will be one when the bill gets through the conference meat grinder with the Senate bill is another thing, which is why it’s critically important that members take the Pledge.

There are three irreducible minimums emanating from the arrest of Henry Louis Gates at his home in Cambridge Massachusetts. First, it was an illegal and unconstitutional arrest. Second, it may or may not (my inclination is not, at least at the outset) have been a racially motivated moment. Third, it is an event that has become embedded in the national consciousness.

The WaPo reveals that they had an hour-long interview with Karl Rove earlier this month–at which he tried to spin his role in the US Attorney firings. Apparently, though, his spin was debunked by documents the WaPo received.

The right’s sudden concern about black Democratic presidents appointing Presidential ‘Czars’ has been simmering in the wingosphere for a while — and now Eric Cantor gives it a Congressional imprimatur.

By appointing a virtual army of “czars” — each wholly unaccountable to Congress yet tasked with spearheading major policy efforts for the White House — in his first six months, the president has embarked on an end-run around the legislative branch of