If you’re a politician not inclined to deliver under “intense political pressure,” you have no business being a politician.

Larry Kissell, one of the three North Carolina Dems who voted No on health care, has a primary challenger in Nancy Shakir, and this might be somewhere the NC First Party wants to go. But the primary is, um, next month, and right now NC First is in the “talking” and “figuring out what it wants to do” stage of development. It is virtually impossible for it to be a factor in the 2010 midterms.

Wah! The press isn’t applauding my partisan hypocritical grandstanding.

Conservatives last verse same as the first…and all subsequent verses.

Stevie Ray Vaughan — Life Without You.

That rasping, guttural sound you hear is the death rattle of the American dream.

The disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine in Coalmont, West Virginia has justifiably brought a lot of attention to the issue of worker safety and the need for strong regulation to protect America’s workers. But this is the kind of story you can write every day in America.

Like many questions that arise in these military commission hearings, the answer to this one could not be found anywhere in the rules or the military commission precedent.

That’s partly because the current military commissions, created by the Military Commissions Act of 2009 – have no rules. The military hasn’t issued them yet.

President Obama just released a statement showing an extreme attentiveness to the Massey Energy mining disaster in Coalmont, West Virginia. He has called for an initial assessment report from federal mine safety officials next week, as well as action items for how to prevent accidents like the one that caused the greatest loss of life in over 25 years.

There’s a very simple way to make mining safer – put Don Blankenship and Massey Energy out of business.

Want to see into the future? Look at the ongoing fight over premium increases for policies on the Massachusetts Connector (exchange), and the effort by the state regulator to control prices, and you’ll get a glimpse–because the health care plan just put into law would effectively replicate the Massachusetts health care system in every state. What we are seeing in Massachusetts is a complete failure of middlemen–health insurance companies–to do their main job, which is to use their size to negotiate good prices with providers.