Colorado Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff released part of an email from Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina outlining three job opportunities should Romanoff back off his primary challenge to appointed Democratic Senator Michael Bennet. Read the document here.

Want to see into the future? Look at the ongoing fight over premium increases for policies on the Massachusetts Connector (exchange), and the effort by the state regulator to control prices, and you’ll get a glimpse–because the health care plan just put into law would effectively replicate the Massachusetts health care system in every state. What we are seeing in Massachusetts is a complete failure of middlemen–health insurance companies–to do their main job, which is to use their size to negotiate good prices with providers.

In a pitch to progressives on the last day of the fundraising quarter, Michael Bennet takes full credit for the resurrection of health care reform and the passage of the reconciliation bill. Seriously.

To bring up a reconciliation bill, Congress must first include reconciliation instructions to deal with a specific issue in a budget resolution. This is why the reconciliation instructions included in the upcoming budget resolution are so important.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) promised Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) a vote on the public option in the next few months. The public option can’t overcome a filibuster, so its only hope of becoming law is using a reconciliation bill. The only way a reconciliation bill can be used to pass a public option is if Congress first passed a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions that could be used for health care-related matters. If the upcoming budget does not include reconciliation instructions that could be used for health care, then you know Reid and Sanders were just blowing smoke.

Andrew Romanoff, who is challenging Michael Bennet in the Democratic primary for the Senate seat in Colorado, will be on FDL tonight for a chat. He’ll be talking about Bennet’s failure to introduce a public option amendment, after leading the fight for an up-or-down vote in the Senate.

Romanoff issued a challenge to Bennet last week to live up to his commitment, and was on Firedoglake earlier this week to talk about it.

Please join us tonight at 6pm and ask your questions of Andrew Romanoff.

Having suckered you into giving up your email address, fundraised heavily and built up their mailing lists by disingenuously flogging the public option, the veal pen turns around and shoots it in the back to save Michael Bennet’s ass. Yesterday SEIU and Progress Colorado showed up when David Sirota and 40-50 public option supporters delivered 34,000 petition signatures to Bennet’s office to protest AGAINST the public option.

Hey, Internet! Did you know that by reading news in an online medium you cede your rights as both a voting citizen and as a person? According to Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, that’s all true!

Bennet is feeling the pressure at home for bailing on his promise to “save the public option,” and now he’s lashing out. A local TV news outlet in Bennet’s hometown of Denver reported last night that Bennet says he “doesn’t confuse the blogosphere for real people and real voters.”

The public option was never more than a bargaining chip for Trumka, something that the AFL-CIO could cash in when it wanted something. Of course, he got nothing he wanted, and in the end settled for a fix on taxing “cadillac” insurance plans. And now he is actively trying to block a vote on the public option, dooming its chances. In doing so, he’s insuring that his “fix” gets paid for by cannibalizing $22 billion from student loan reform.

David Sirota, Kelly Canfield and 40-50 others delivered a petition with 35,000 signatures on it, asking Michael Bennet to keep his promise and introduce an amendment for an up-or-down vote on the public option in the Senate.

Michael Bennet was all about the public option when it didn’t matter. Now that the health care bill has passed and the President has signed it, there’s no way that introducing an amendment can stop it from going through — so why is Bennet nowhere to be found? Thirty four thousand people have signed the [...]