. . . but it’s not because I have any special ability to draw a primary challenger out of thin air. It’s because there are credible challengers sitting on the sidelines, waiting to jump in if Lincoln does filibuster health care. And if I know it, she knows it. Blanche’s numbers in Arkansas are weak. [...]

Jim Cooper is out of step with his district. Barack Obama won 56% of the vote in 2008 to John McCain’s 43%, so the typical Blue Dog trumpet that their corporatist-friendly vote is necessary to hold office in a heavily Republican district just doesn’t apply.

We’re launching a blog today, Cooper Uncovered, which will chronicle Cooper’s exploits on a daily basis.

Arlen Specter crawls to Grover Norquist and says he won’t vote for cloture on Employee Free Choice. As bankers gleefully rub their hands at the prospect of their trillion dollar gift from Timothy Geithner with no limits on what they can pay themselves, the one thing that might have made a tiny dent in the huge transfer of wealth taking place in this country is tabled — for now.

I was on MSNBC last week trying to make this point, but I don’t think I made it as well as Ron Paul does — it’s easy to pick out salacious-sounding “earmarks” and harumph around in the press like you’re the pig that just found a giant truffle, but it really just obscures a much larger problem that progressives and libertarians agree on: there needs to be more transparency in government.

As Rick Williams said when I visited Break the Matrix to discuss recruiting Ron Paul Republicans for primary challenges, the talking points of FDL’s No More Dough Til We Know Where It Goes campaign could have come off a Ron Paul website. 

Markos is here in DC for the day and we did the rounds — CNN, ABC, the AP, US News, the New York Times, the Huffington Post — talking about Accountability Now and the Primary Project. It was really hard to get people out of the frame that we’re attempting some kind of party purge rather than trying to neutralize the influence of corporate lobbyist money and beltway “groupthink”. . . .

It’s really all about priorities

Craig Crawford makes a good point:

Instead, Obama’s idea of change seems to be less dramatic than advertised. But that does not mean that the status quo will be maintained. He is building a team that brings competence and experience to the work of making a difference.

Changing Washington from the inside requires players who actually know how the place works.

If Dick Cheney has taught us nothing else, it is this…

Diane Feinstein and Jay Rockefeller don’t get it

I didn’t know who to blame for the Black Friday crushing death at WalMart until Fox News set me straight. And not just anybody at Fox News…

That privatizin’ thing worked well overseas too