The rather painless vote on a no strings attached temporary increase in the debt limit back in January and the easy passage of a continuing resolution this week made it seem as if the age of manufactured budget crises might finally be over. But apparently Speaker John Boehner is not ready to give up on them just yet. Yesterday, he said he was planning to hold the debt ceiling hostage once again.

One of the best pieces of news I have seen in awhile is that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is not very optimistic about a grand bargain being reached. He currently puts the odds at less than 50 percent.

Journalists with the web-based project dedicated to bringing attention to the widespread use of solitary confinement, Solitary Watch, report the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is going to be expanding the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois to hold federal prisoners in supermax conditions. This means cells will be holding prisoners in conditions of solitary confinement and conflicts with plans by the Bureau to review the practice of solitary confinement in US prisons.

According to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), one of Obama’s closest allies in the Senate, raising the Medicare age from 65 to 67 is no longer on the table.

Staffers in this White House in particular float trial balloons on a continual basis on virtually every issue of importance to gauge public response, and the whole point of that exercise is to actually respond to it rather than not take it seriously. And if that’s the case, and the eligibility age conversation represented a trial balloon, I think we can say it’s been effectively and efficiently popped. Because over the weekend, Dick Durbin, perhaps the closest US Senator to the White House, criticized the idea.

Join other Chicagoans tomorrow – December 6th – in the Federal Plaza at Noon where we’ll be demanding that Senator Durbin stand up for our communities instead of championing the interests of Wall Street CEOs. Senator Durbin, the message is simple: revenue, not cuts.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who has almost become the liaison to the left for cuts to federal health care programs in the grand bargain, gave a speech today at the Center for American Progress that included a couple important points…

Somehow, the Democratic majority spent two years putting a health care bill together and they somehow forgot to restrain the growth in health care programs, even though that was the main watchword of the entire policy debate, is that what I’m to believe here? In fact, the Affordable Care Act committed the federal government to $800 billion more spending on Medicaid through 2022, 99% of the total federal-state costs in expansion. I support that as the major driver of coverage expansion in the ACA, and it’s all paid for. But now we’re told it’s completely unsustainable and needs to be dealt with RIGHT NOW, the base be damned.

The big story I’m supposed to chase today concerns Republican legislative figures distancing themselves from the Grover Norquist pledge, opening the door a crack to increases in tax revenue. This is really a Washington process story about lobbying power rather than a legitimate policy evolution, however.

Schumer, who has been at the forefront of defending the carried interest loophole, actually sacrifices it in this speech – at least some of it, in the interest of getting half a loaf over none at all.