In an online chat about health care this Saturday, several Arkansans pointedly questioned the Senator about her opposition to a public option in health care. These questions clearly indicate that positions and individual votes by members of Congress aren’t being forgotten.

By public option, Burris means a real public option. Not a trigger that might someday, hopefully create a public option. Not “allowing” states to maybe set up small, highly restricted state-based public plans. Burris is talking about a real, national, public health insurance option. . .

The WaPo continues its institutional whitewash of its Pay2Play scandal.

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Here’s a handy tip for the ‘Cuda: potential employers typically don’t like typos.

  A major story out of Afghanistan, with implications for the US strategy in the region. The United Nations’ Electoral Complaints Commission has completed their work on the Afghan elections, tossing out so many fraudulent votes to bring Hamid Karzai under 50% in the first round of voting, necessitating a runoff. However, the UN commission [...]

  An excise tax on high-end health insurance benefits is an extremely regressive tax on the middle class. Even though Ezra Klein claims this tax is progressive, it is not. It would raise relatively little money from the wealthy.   It is true that the bottom 30% is unlikely to pay very much of the [...]

Education has kind of taken a back seat to some of the other facets of the Obama agenda, but on one measure they have sought to make tangible progress – the utterly common-sense notion of ending the subsidization of the private student lending market, and using the savings of providing student loans directly to increase Pell Grants and other awards to make college more affordable. This would redirect $87 billion dollars over 10 years from the pockets of bankers to students. It’s about as simple and clear a position as you can take.

So naturally, it faces resistance from Republicans and ConservaDems who have private student loan operations in their states. Back in April, the Senate, preparing for this resistance, authored budget reconciliation rules to move this education measure forward with 50 votes instead of having to break a filibuster with 60. And now, Tom Harkin is planning on doing just that.

After agonizing for weeks on what to do about the deteriorating situation in Afganistan and Pakistan, the White House has finally come up with an excuse for not deciding: blame it on President Karzai’s lack of legitimacy. But when did they discover this?

Duh. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel continued the assault during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Said Emanuel: It’s not so much a conflict with Fox News. I suppose the way to look at it and the way … the president looks at it, we look at it is: It’s not [...]