The CIA documents released in the latest FOIA batch prove that all the claims that CIA (and Crazy Pete Hoekstra) have made about briefings Congress received on torture are, at best, reconstructions based on years old memors, if not outright fabrications.

Tags: CIA, CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, Crazy Pete, Jane Harman, Jay Rockefeller, Pete Hoekstra, Porter Goss, Stan Moskowitz

If this is the best we can do after the nation pours its collective hope into something, it really is the end of empire. And everyone in town, at one level or another, seems to know it.

Tags: Chris Van Hollen, health care bill, Jonestown, Paths of Glory, sati, Stanley Kubrick, Steny Hoyer

Rachel Maddow plays Clue on “who killed the public option.” Nancy Pelosi should put a strong PO — a Medicare buy-in available through the exchanges — in her reconciliation bill and let the White House carry the burden and the risks of getting its signature agenda proposal through the Senate.

Tags: Congress, Democrats, Harry Reid, Health care, health care reform, Media, MSNBC, Nancy Pelosi, public option, Rachel Maddow, Senate

You can see why Pelosi and House leaders are talking to Stupak. There are simply no more than a handful of no votes even considering flipping to yes, and possibly not enough to offset the Stupak bloc.

Tags: Bart Stupak, health care reform, House of Representatives, whip counts

While it might be a “fact” that the House could pass the Senate bill unchanged, it is also a “fact” that the Senate could quickly pass the House bill unchanged. Maybe the reason the Senate is so dysfunctional is that major news organizations like the New York Times seem to ignore the simple facts about what the Senate can actually do, and, instead, lets senators get away with pretending there are no ways around their own made-up rules. The 60-vote threshold is not part of the Constitution, nor is it carved in stone. It can be changed. It should be changed.

Tags: cloture, constitutional option, filibuster, health care reform, House bill, New York Times, Point of order, Senate bill

Speaker Pelosi used her closing comment at today’s Health Care Reform Summit to remind the President that he once claimed to support the public option.

Well, I don’t know that for a fact. But I do know that the publication of Marc Thiessen’s propagandistic claims about Pelosi on the WaPo’s editorial page says more about the WaPo’s editorial page than it does about Pelosi.

Tags: Congressional oversight, Fred Hiatt, Marc Thiessen, Washington Post

The Harry Reid is in the process of merging the two Senate bills, but what the final Senate product will be is still a secret. For the most part, the bill from the Senate Finance Committee (SFC) is expected to serve as the base that the new Senate bill is being built upon. It is [...]

Tags: Harry Reid, Health care, House of Representatives, Max Baucus, Nancy Pelosi

Don’t leave the goal unattended; activists would do well to cover members of congress until they are forced to commit to a position.

Pelosi is absolutely correct that going into conference with the strongest public option puts the House in the best possible negotiating position. It puts pressure on the Senate to finish their deliberations and come up with something approximating the House’s bill, and strengthens the hand of Senate liberals who are pushing Harry Reid to include the measure. Even Kent Conrad, inventor of co-ops, is now saying that a weaker public option with negotiated rates “could pass,” a sign of real movement in the Senate. Plus, the House moving forward will make it easier to reach the year-end deadline and get something to the President’s desk.

Tags: Health care, Medicare, Nancy Pelosi, public option