Obviously it hasn’t run through the legislative wringer yet, but the Local Jobs For America Act proposed by House Education and Labor Secretary George Miller looks like an exceedingly good piece of policy. It would provides through the community development block grant program $100 billion dollars to create local jobs through state and municipal budgets. Miller claims he could create or save a million jobs with that money.

While Democrats fret over whether we should investigate BushCo torture, Republicans move to investigate teh gay.

Someone in the Washington Post criticizes FoxNews as a propoganda outfit…this will not stand with Howard Kurtz.

Keb’ Mo’ — Dirty Lowdown and Bad.

Well, Obama held up his end of the bargain and announced the recipients of his Nobel largesse. Your turn, Sarah.

Democrats seem to have an unsolvable legislative problem on their hands. It would appear like the Gordian Knot this is a mess the Democratic leadership simply can’t untie. But if they follow the historic example of Alexander the Great they can pull out their sword and cut straight through the knot instead.

We recently learned that Harry Reid (D-NV) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) were actually whipping against the public option and trying to deny the American people a real up-or-down vote on the issue in the Senate. It is good to see that Bernie Sanders (D-VT) is willing to defy them and instead go with the will of the American people.

It’s interesting that they didn’t get it in writing and leaked it to the DC publication Roll Call instead of forcing a statement into the open: The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday. This would disrupt the strategy to act on reconciliation before passing the full health care bill. The House simply does not trust the Senate to get the job done, and members also don’t want to have to take a vote on the Senate bill and its various distasteful deals. The idea before was to make a “self-executing” rule where the House would pass the reconciliation sidecar and “assume the Senate bill to have passed. According to these GOP sources, the Parliamentarian said they cannot do that.

John Kyl has officially announced he intends to waste an oversight hearing on March 23 beating up Eric Holder because he did not disclose an amicus brief opposing unlimited Presidential power.

Senate Democrats signaled that they would add the student loan reform bill to the reconciliation package being prepped for the health care bill. While the House may have to pass the Senate bill fully and have it signed by the President before moving to a reconciliation fix, this sweetener – providing college affordability for hundreds of thousands of students in their districts and ending subsidies for big banks – may make it worth their while to move forward.