Now if Old Hippie Druid is right about those Lotto numbers…

So let me get this straight: Obama wants the Senate to take the drastic measure of ramming a sidecar through reconciliation, fanning a colossal GOP hissy firestorm about the cheaty system-gaming Democrat Party thwarting the will of the American people who gave the obstructionists their 41-seat supermajority, all so that he can… fiddle around the edges and increase the individual mandate penalty?

Frankly, the states are struggling mightily, and millions of jobs along with mass suffering are at stake. We’re talking about a $357 billion dollar shortfall in the states, and the Senate can barely pass $15 billion dollar micro-bills.

The first, and most obvious, issue of conflict with OPR is that it places evaluation and resolution of ethical complaints against DOJ attorneys in the hands of the DOJ. The power to determine whether there is any impropriety is solely within the hands of those supervising and/or ultimately responsible for the impropriety. It is a process ripe with conflict and cronyism that protects DOJ malfeasants at the expense of the public interest and well being.

Join Congresswoman Schakowsky and Senator Sanders as they introduce legislation to roll back the use of unaccountable and controversial mercenaries, sign on as a citizen co-signer to the Stop Outsourcing Our Security Act.

290. Two hundred and ninety. That’s the number of additional bills which would have passed into law during the Obama era in an alternate universe where America has a unicameral legislature. Unfortunately we live in a bicameral world where delaying bills for the sake of bipartisanship is more important than the lives the bills are supposed to protect or save.

The game of kill the public option hot potato continues, and, along with President Obama’s cowardly “leadership” on the matter, it is on full display today. During today’s White House press conference, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the President did not include the public option because it does not have enough of the majority’s votes. . . or something like that.

David Brooks blames trial lawyers and unions for compromising the health reform bills. You’d never know the most corrupt, dispiriting deals were done by the White House to shield private health providers and insurers from public competition and anti-trust enforcement.

Two Democratic Senators from Delaware, Ted Kaufman and Tom Carper, wrote a letter to Tom Harkin, expressing “concern” with Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA, and claiming that hundreds of jobs in their home state are at risk. These concerns mirror those from other ConservaDems and Senators with student lending operations in their state but are only a con job which saves a handful of jobs at best.

The public option is incredibly popular with the American people, supported overwhelming by the Democratic base, and is fiscally conservative. It is good politics, good policy, and maybe the only hope of turning around health care reform’s awful poll numbers. The only problem is that lobbyists from private insurance companies don’t like it, and Democrats have decided it is infinitely more important to keep a few lobbyists happy, instead of delivering on promises to constituents.