This tax deal is the public option fight all over again, but not the way Obama falsely tries to spin it. Both times, Obama had no intention of fighting for his promise. Both times, he argued that in order to obtain some help for regular people, he was “forced” into endorsing a huge transfer of wealth to the ultra rich and big corporations.

Of course, these aren’t reasonable objections and, as such, shouldn’t be held up for examination for logical consistency. I just think repeal opponents have reached funny-papers status. They remind me of the kid who says, “This ice cream really sucks, can I have more please?”

A statement from individuals across the ideological spectrum that there is simply no place in our federal budget for wasteful, ineffective spending that is basically just corporate welfare. This is what good trans-partisanship looks like. And it is remarkably rare.

The Democratic Party is the war party! The party of more war and the need for unquestioning allegiance to war. Its platform is never to look back. Always ignore history, and if you make a mistake, the only option left is to double down on the same mistake. It is unpatriotic to question our country’s foreign policy even if it has failed for a decade. Or in other words, the Democratic Party now proudly and fully embraces Karl Rove’s legacy.

Several left-leaning writers like Greg Sargent have all noted the basic game theory 101 involved. Voters will blame Democrats, and vote for Republicans, if the economy stays bad. So, Republicans have a huge incentive to block Democrats from passing legislation that would improve the economy, and Senate Republicans have the tool to do that with the filibuster.

My question is: If Democratic Senators like Stabenow actually believe Republicans are trying to destroy the lives of millions of Americans and our economy, why on Earth are Senate Democrats letting Republicans do it?

We recently learned that Harry Reid (D-NV) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) were actually whipping against the public option and trying to deny the American people a real up-or-down vote on the issue in the Senate. It is good to see that Bernie Sanders (D-VT) is willing to defy them and instead go with the will of the American people.

This is the deal Lindsey Graham thinks he can use to get the White House to abandon a civilian trial for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed: Republican support for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. According to the more sophisticated explanation/rationalization I’ve heard for accepting the deal, it’s not so much that Graham can really bring along Republicans as much as he can provide political cover for reticent Democrats to vote for what in 2008 was a bipartisan consensus position, endorsed by even George W. Bush and John McCain. This is the world we live in.

Via Greg Sargent, the Senate’s most committed civil libertarian, Russ Feingold, calls on the President not to give in to Republican fearmongering and to hold the KSM trial as scheduled, in an Article III court.

Obviously, the large part we’ve played in driving and reporting on the health care debate, the dominant story of the latter half of the year, gives FDL a big leg up in any annual overview of the best of online reporting, but the other three stories on Sargent’s top five list were also, for lack of a better word, “ours.”

The AFL-CIO issued a statement on LieberCare, and the labor federation isn’t happy. President Richard Trumka says the current bill is “inadequate,” is funded “the wrong way,” and stops short of outright opposing the whole package for now.