The progressive demand that public health insurance programs must be part of the solution is based not on pure ideology, but overwhelming domestic and international evidence. The track record of private insurance is terrible, and no honest economist could look its performance compared to public insurance and think it a smart solution. The public option is not symbolic, it is foundational. You may not agree with the methods that the supporters of the public option are using, but pretending that they are somehow fools chasing after symbolism completely ignores what the true stakes in the fight really are.

As Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos said, “remove the mandate or kill this bill.” We’ve opened a “war room” at Firedoglake with information about calling your member of Congress to demand that this provision to bail out the insurance industry be removed from the health care bill before they agree to cast their vote in favor of it.

And nobody needs to pass an ideological purity test before they can use it.

Join us to oppose the mandate. Enter the war room.

If there’s going to be an immediate consequence of the underpants bomber, it will be to effectively shut down the emptying of Guantanamo, particularly of the 80 or so remaining prisoners who are Yemeni nationals.

We’ve started a fundraising page at ActBlue to thank Dennis for taking this bold step, and doing it quickly. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to leadership, the White House and the banks like that. GSEs are going to be much in the news in the upcoming year and he is announcing that he will be setting the agenda, not standing on the sidelines for a coverup.

Donate to Dennis Kucinich

A short explanation of why Jane Hamsher and Howard Dean are playing the politics right by attacking Obama from the left.

There has been an unsavory blending of the private interests of corporations and financial institutions with the power and hand of the US government that has created a new breed of robber barons that will prove the downfall of the American society and empire if left unchecked.

Seriously. IOKIYAR.

Fred Hiatt and company cannot be happy unless they are ordered to crap their pants, even if they are conditioned to do so anyway. As I recall, a guy went all Richard Reid on his private parts — fortunately nothing more happened. What is a President to do? Apparently act completely insane: By staying in [...]

The O’Jays – What Are You Doing New Years Eve.

If his attempt to hipsterize his image by appearing on an upcoming episode of Family Guy wasn’t enough of a clue of Karl Rove’s shift into singledom, his Twitter status should have been the give away today–Karl Rove was soliciting for names and addresses so he could mail out free autographed bookplates…Mmmhmmm, right. And now [...]