The Taliban has agreed to open an office in Qatar, seen as a precursor to peace talks in Afghanistan. The Taliban want release of their prisoners from Guantanamo as part of a goodwill gesture preparatory to peace talks. Congress is going ballistic, and because of the NDAA and other bills, the process for getting clearance to release Guantanamo detainees is almost impossibly complex.

The release of Fazl and other Taliban may just be a Hail Mary pass, however. Talks have been suspended at the request of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President. Though asking for a prisoner release previously , Karzai doesn’t favor it now. We may get the establishment of a Taliban office in a neutral third country, with talks continuing there on a reconciliation. But Karzai stopped the talks when he found out that the US was negotiating directly with Taliban officers to use Qatar as the third country, recalling the Afghan ambassador there.

Instead of the media spreading myths about how powerless our politicians are to change anything, it should tell the American people what they actually could do if they wanted to. The American people deserve to know the truth that our politicians can actually fulfill many of their promises and that they are simply choosing not to.

There is a widely believed myth that a Republican Senate could not use reconciliation to repeal most of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. But that view ignores the history of how the reconciliation rules have been used, as well as the ability of a Senate majority to interpret or change its rules.

Jonathan Chait is a typical Beltway-minded Very Serious Thinker, which means that in his crafting of an apologia for yet another cave-in by Obama to corporate America’s well-heeled (and campaign-contributing) titans, he likes to a) assume that Obama’s most prominent lefty critics have no idea how politics works in America when in fact they understand it better than he ever will, and b) play fast and loose with the truth.

Walter Pincus was the guy at the Washington Post known for writing skeptical stories about the Iraq debacle that wound up on page A17. He still gets that level of respect today, even when he’s got better information than anyone else. In this case, Pincus advances the story of permanent bases in Afghanistan (I’m calling them permanent bases, even if they end up being “joint bases” in the end), by taking a look at the construction contracts.

Since Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung broke the suspense, I guess I’m free to say now that the President will announce tonight the removal of all 33,000 second surge troops from Afghanistan within 14 months, by September 2012. This would include a reduction of 10,000 troops by the end of the year, with the other 23,000 to be removed next year.

In a blockbuster deal announced just under the trade deadline, America will deal its war in Afghanistan for a war in Pakistan.

Looking back on the year, I believe that the best victory for progressives was student loan reform, which was passed as part of the reconciliation measure. While not as large in scale as some of the bills passed by this Congress, it still was a substantial measure that ends over $60 billion in government waste. I’m proud of the role FDL played when our “Students, Not Banks” campaign helped make sure uncompromised student loan reform was passed this year. Looking back at the year, I wish progressives had been given the chance to have more clear fights like this one.

Please support FDL with a tax-deductible contribution to the FireDogLake Writers Foundation – even $25 will go a long way.

When health care reform was passed, we were told by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) it was only a “starter home” that would be improved later. We were also offered vague promises from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that we would get a vote on a public option in the months following the passage of the new law. Obviously this hasn’t happened.

But there is no reason why Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid couldn’t bring up the public option for an up or down vote next week.