US strategy in Afghanistan consists of clearing areas of insurgents so that government can step in and provide services to the citizens. The assumption that functional government will follow after a decrease in violence has failed in Iraq, so why do we think it will work in Afghanistan?

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and apparently love is in the air in our nation’s capital. Unfortunately, though, any smell you might notice isn’t the odor of fresh flowers wafting over the recently fallen snow — instead, it’s the hideous congealing of conventional wisdom among Beltway pundits.

Note that Trumka is putting the pressure squarely on the White House, not the Senate, to get the job done during the recess by appointing Becker and Pearce. Importantly, no Republican has raised any vocal objection to Pearce being seated; there was a deal previously to seat all three outstanding nominees for the NLRB (including Republican nominee Brian Hayes, a former staffer to Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) – there’s always a 3-2 partisan split on the board based on which party holds the Presidency) at once. So failing to seat Becker means that the NLRB can effectively do nothing.

It is often heard in response to Republican abuse of the filibuster that the solution is to make them actually talk until they can’t talk any longer, and then pass the bill with a simple majority. There are a variety of problems with this solution, in addition to potentially preventing the Senate from passing more than two bills all year.

The Sunlight Foundation has a superb report of the way in which Bill Tauzin, whom Obama attacked during his campaign for his slimy deal-making, pushed through a deal with the Obama White House that limited savings from the pharmaceutical companies in the health care bill to $80 billion.

The Democrats are running for the hills! Everyone hates Obama! TEA PARTY!!!1!!

OFA could have provided enormous support to Democratic members of Congress that they critically needed in 2009. With 13 million enthusiastic members, they could have launched a fundraising drive right after the election that swelled the coffers of every Democrat in Congress and freed them from their ties to lobbyists.

But those were the ties that Rahm Emanuel was trying to forge not break, so that didn’t happen.

“President Obama is planning to insert himself into the debate about where to try the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, three administration officials said Thursday, signaling a recognition that the administration had mishandled the process and triggered a political backlash.”

It’s not until the 16th paragraph of the article that the WaPo reports the big reason why Holder originally chose a civilian trial (and therefore, for security reasons, NY): because it stands the best chance of success.

I actually gave Harry Reid too much credit yesterday in counting up the remaining elements of the jobs bill. I said it would be a $50 billion bill, but the Section 179 fix allowing small businesses to write off capital expenditures would cost the government $35 MILLION, not $35 billion. So this is actually a $15 billion dollar bill to deal with a giant unemployment problem in a $13 trillion economy. I know this is the first step in a jobs agenda, but that’s not going to do a thing.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand described on Thursday the Congressional strategy to end the military discharges of gay and lesbian service members under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, saying that a repeal or an 18-month moratorium would move inside the defense authorization bill later in the year.