Before any bill/amendment gets to the floor, it has to go through the Rules Committee, currently chaired by Louise Slaughter. It is Rules that decides what will be voted on and what won’t, and it is one of the principle ways that House leadership controls the agenda. As in, “don’t worry about electing anti-choice Democrats, leadership will never allow anti-choice legislation onto the floor.”

Just in time for Christmas: the hilariously titled, How the Left Swiftboated America: The Liberal Media Conspiracy to Make You Think George W. Bush Was the Worst President in History.

President Obama’s speech on job creation today defined three key areas where the Administration wants to indirectly devote part or all of the $200 billion dollars in unexpected TARP savings – small business job creation, infrastructure investment, and “cash for caulkers” clean energy programs.

Senior Administration officials who previewed the speech said that the reduction in the TARP price tag has provided additional “breathing space” for this kind of investment in job creation, meaning that TARP authority would not be used to directly pay for the measures, but the impact on the budget would be effectively the same. While the officials would not be pinned down on a cost for these measures, one can expect that the provisions would not go above that $200 billion dollar ceiling. Administration officials characterized this as “moving away from helping banks on Wall Street and toward hiring on Main Street.”

After 30 years in the movie business, I don’t dance around like somebody’s pet monkey and respond to offers nobody has made, and I don’t negotiate with myself. Have a nice day.

The endgame on the public option could come as early as today. The negotiations seem to be coalescing around an expansion of Medicare and Medicaid as an alternative, some unnamed stronger insurance regulations, and additional elements, amidst a host of questions.

Would there be anything at all left of the public option, even with a trigger, or would adults above 150% federal poverty level and below the age of 55 be confined to the exchange? Would anyone 55-64 with employer coverage be eligible (Probably not)? What would the impact of taking higher-risk individuals off the exchanges have on their prices? Would the exchanges serve so many less people as a result, however, that their collective bargaining power would be blunted? Would the rates for Medicare buy-in be too exorbitant for potential subscribers? How would states be affected by expanded Medicaid funding over time? Would the feds still carry the full cost of expansion in the first three years, now that the expansion is larger? Would the issue of provider reimbursement rates, a major sticking point during the Medicare + 5% conversation, rear its ugly head again?

Wingnuts really should just stop emailing and Tweeting and Facebooking all together. They can’t help themselves. According to the newspaper, the mayor’s first posting read, “Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me [...]

What kind of non-patriotic thuggery are you up to now, Republican Chip Pickering? Former Congressman (and C Streeter) Chip Pickering is reportedly under police investigation for his involvement in a brawl with a rival youth league soccer coach… Pickering and coach Christopher Hester came to blows when Pickering confronted Hester over the treatment of Pickering’s [...]

New video. Featuring We Want War by These New Puritans and Chrstalised by The xx.

AIG executives need to re-read “A Christmas Carol” — and pay special attention to the end.

Ten years ago, Congress dismantled the decades-old Glass-Steagall Act, breaking down the firewalls between commercial banks and securities houses, and helping Wall Street firms grow into the too-big-to-fail institutions that exist now.