This pathetic whining from Democrats about problems they could and should have fixed is deeply depressing. It is like watching someone starve to death because they are too lazy to walk to their fully stocked kitchen.

Susie Madrak asked, “I’m a blogger, and I don’t know if you know this term, but are you familiar with the term hippie-punching?”

Instead of letting his members know they were in danger, Van Hollen lied to them. He commenced a propaganda campaign to keep them from finding out the truth: that for many members, voting for the health care bill could very well mean the end of their political careers.

The Treasury Department has released its latest set of HAMP data for August, and the program is winding down with very few new trial modifications, and less in the system.

Tom Scocca had the best reaction to the Larry Summers resignation that I’ve seen, with the best headline: “Larry Summers Is Resigning to Spend More Time With His Money.” He’s leaving the Administration with accomplishments like low-balling the stimulus and protecting the banks, to go back to Harvard, where he gambled with the college’s endowment and lost. Summers got religion and started arguing for more stimulus after blowing the first one, but he put the Administration in the position to make such policies politically impossible. From failure to failure, ever upward.

This word salad could be pretty much any speech delivered by The Quitter.

For Democratic leaders, threatening unenthusiastic voters with vague pictures of doom and gloom, when much of what the voters see right now is already pretty gloomy, is not going to “wake up” very many of the rank and file. Promising little else in terms of benefits if Democrats stay in power—little beyond “there’s more to do”—does not provide enough positive motivation to engender enthusiasm.

Support for Prop 19 has remained remarkably steady for a ballot measure. This recent poll is in fact a statistically insignificant change from three weeks ago when SurveyUSA last polled the question and found it at 47 percent yes, 43 percent no, and barely changed from July when the ballot measure was leading 50 percent yes, 40 percent no.

The big question that Prop 19′s success or failure hangs on is probably whether having marijuana legalization on the ballot causes the young voters that overwhelmingly support it to turn out in higher numbers, like the levels seen for a presidential election. High youth turnout could be the difference between a 49-51 loss and a 51-49 victory. The evidence from PPP polling is that Prop 19 is likely having some measurable effect on increased enthusiasm among younger voters.

If you want an example of the broken Senate, you could do worse than read Meredith Shiner’s story on the food safety bill. The background: A food safety bill has been bottled up in the Senate since last summer, when the House passed it. It has overwhelming support from both consumer groups and even industry. [...]

Shouting “Broken Promises KILL!” a group of LGBT and AIDS activists heckled President Obama as he began to speak at a NYC fundraising event that raised $1.4 million for his party and fellow Democrats seeking election this November.