The man who never met a Republican talking-point he didn’t adopt, from unemployment assistance to killing the public option is retiring. Democrats on Tuesday lamented Sen. Ben Nelson’s decision to retire rather than seek a third term in Nebraska, fearing the move sets up Republicans for an easy and crucial victory in their effort to [...]

Corporatist Democrats have a sweet scam going. Even when they lose an election, they still win.

The big-business-worshipping Blue Dogs are (along with Big Media allies like Lawrence O’Donnell) trying to push the myth that they lost big, not because they pressured Obama to go with a stimulus package that every economist worthy of the name said was too small, but because of (get this) Nancy Pelosi.

The Democratic Party will never survive as long as there are leaders in it who believe GOP gospel. These people need to change their minds about the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans, or they need to change their work address.

Nobody in the history of electoral politics, and I mean nobody, believes that telling people to “get over it” will get them to the polls. (Well, nobody but Spiro Agnew.) And you can bet your bottom dollar that come 2012, when Obama’s own electoral future is on the line, that won’t be his message.

The Blue Dogs and conservadems engineered their own electoral demise by putting their “fiscal conservatism” ahead of the wellbeing of their constituents and the country as a whole.

The Democrats are going to lose big this fall, especially in the House. I don’t think anyone is disputing this. What is worth debating is why we’re going to see such a dramatic reversal of the gains that were won in 2006 and 2008.

Like they did to Dawn Johnsen, the Obama White House has hung absolutely outstanding progressive nominees Goodwin Liu and Edward Chen out to dry, and are well on their way to doing the same with Elizabeth Warren. It is a pathetic track record on progressive nominees.

While you work within the constraints put on any Speaker, to implement the agenda of the president who’s in your own party, please let San Francisco have real representation again. San Francisco values really matter to America. The City needs a Congressperson again. Let San Franciscans elect someone who needn’t compromise on their every viewpoint for the sake of the Speakership. You can do this, Madame Speaker. Please make it so. Finally, as I always close my letters and emails to you, more and more futile though they seem because of your dual role nowadays: Thank you for your service to San Francisco, to California, and to the United States of America.

With Olympia Snowe joining Susan Collins and Scott Brown by signing on to the financial reform bill, many outlets have reported that this gives the Democrats the votes they need to pass the measure. That’s only half-true; Democrats may have the votes after a replacement Senator is named in West Virginia. But at the moment, the fate of the bill rests in the hands of none other than the still-undecided Ben Nelson.