Weekly unemployment claims spiked up again today, and the NY Fed’s survey of regional manufacturing, a key indicator of the economy, was down sharply relative to expectations. This is a crisis time in the economy, and big solutions are needed to arrest the slide.

So! H.R.3 supposedly won’t redefine rape anymore, but the fight’s just getting started. We learned last week that the new Congress followed H.R. 3 with H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act, which would redefine “conscience” clauses to allow pregnant women to die if saving them would require harming the fetus.

HR3 – “The No Taxpayer Money for Abortion Act” – is a vile piece of legislation by its title alone. That the bill contained, until yesterday, a provision to redefine rape as “forcible” rape was even more insidious. In a Republican-controlled House, it’s not shocking to see this kind of medieval treatment of women become a priority over, you know, job creation. But let’s focus on the Democrats involved in this travesty. A look at the DCCC’s contributions to and on behalf of the 10 Democratic co-sponsors of HR3 show the committee spent a whopping $3,379,322.85 to keep these members in office – in 2010 alone.

The bottom line is, either you believe in your theory of change or you don’t. If you believe that progressive policies such as a bigger stimulus package, or more banking regulation will have a greater impact on restoring the economy and creating jobs, then the people who won’t let you do that are hobbling your ability to succeed. Because the public doesn’t really care whether the change is happening because of liberal or conservative policies, they just care that it’s happening. And they make their choices at the ballot box based on what is happening in their lives.

Keep in mind that for the most part, Pelosi never brought anything up for a vote in the House unless she knew she would succeed. I assume we have the same dynamic here.

Thirty-nine House Democrats voted against health care reform; 27 of them lost. House Democrats who distanced themselves from the party by bashing Nancy Pelosi almost all lost. Almost every House Democrat who voted against unemployment benefit extensions lost.

All of these groups strongly correlate with Blue Dogs.

The other day, when Sheldon Whitehouse asked Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar why BP had gotten an exemption from the full-blown NEPA process from which it presumably should have been categorically excluded, Salazar referenced a 30-day deadline from Congress to approve exploration plans. Senator, there has been significant environmental review, including Environmental Impact Statements that [...]

When important cancer drugs can’t go into cheaper generic forms, and cancer and AIDS patients around the world can’t afford them, they should all remember the helpful role they played.

The rest of us can ask Sherrod Brown to save us from PhRMA and this truly shitty piece of lobbyist-written legislation HERE.

As the NYT reported earlier today, Genentech/Roche wrote a Republican script and a Democratic script for its parrots to enter into the Congressional Record. Here’s what the Republican script looks like (I’m going to try to do the Democratic one next–but this is tedious stuff; and yes, Heath Shuler was working from the Republican script).

“I oppose this bill but love the appropriate balance it gives to monopolistic biologics”

Joe Wilson

You don’t have to be Kreskin the Magnificent to figure out that Bush will do as much damage as he can as the sun sets on the Worst Administration Evah, the only question is when and how.

Look to the border