If this were some rank and file Senator saying this, it would mean one thing. But Reid is the Majority Leader, and in charge of the Senate schedule. So this could suggest that Reid is basically done with trying to move Obama nominees, seeing them as a waste of the Senate’s time and better dealt with through recess appointments. If Reid essentially shuts down the nomination process, Obama really has little choice if he wants to fill these key positions.

The entire myth told to explain the torture memos (and Abu Zubaydah’s treatment) is a lie.

Each of these members of Congress will all receive a $10,000 FDL ActBlue fundraiser, and the FDL community will phone bank into their districts to ID 500 likely voters for GOTV efforts. At that point, we’ll open up the contest for Round 2 and start it again in a contest for 3 more candidates.

Donate and sign up for phone banking now

Reconciliation is kind of a one-shot deal. There’s basically one reconciliation bill per budget. So if you may need that process for the health care bill, you cannot finish the student loan bill. They would have to go together. To the Democrats’ credit, they did not jump the gun on the student loan bill, even though it would be a real accomplishment they could tout, and with reconciliation seen as probably the only option to finish off the health care bill, they still have the ability to do that and end the privatization of student lending besides.

“Obama Says Bipartisanship, But What He Wants Is GOP Surrender.” For reals?

It’s completely incoherent that there are now tea party-identified candidates that are trying to oust Ron Paul himself from his seat. I hope the libertarians lay down markers and come down on the side of ending ConAgra’s corporate welfare, and showing Palin and her many bombs to the door.

One of the reasons I have always argued for a full investigation of the treatment of prisoners by the U.S. government is that the truth is going to come out sooner rather than later. For those who want to hide from accountability under the law later is always the better goal. The longer it takes for the abuses of the Bush Administration torture program to come to light the less likely there is to be an outcry and the more likely those who ordered and carried out torture are to elderly or dead.

Not long ago on GRITtv, Hamid Dabashi told us that the Iranian protests are turning into a civil rights movement with long-term potential for change. We’ll talk to Hooman Majd, Hadi Ghaemi, and Kelly Golnoush Niknejad at noon about the protests, the regime, and what happens next.

Also, President Obama made news with his question and answer session with Congressional Republicans. Now he’s planning a televised health care summit with the GOP. We ask Mother Jones’ David Corn if this new strategy will work, and why he’s calling for more question time.

Ben Nelson wants college kids and their families to pay through the nose to keep a tiny number of jobs in Nebraska. Is there any limit to his willingness to extort money from Americans to benefit a few people in Omaha?

Why is the Becker vote drawing such outrage? It’s difficult to find any other instance of a nominee for the National Labor Relations Board even coming up for a cloture vote at all. Becker’s confirmation hearing was the first for a non-chairman NLRB nominee since 1980. The fact that Becker actually got 61% of the votes of those present yesterday may also be a factor.