Lawmakers agreed last night to a $1 trillion omnibus spending package, which will fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, until September 30, 2012. The agreement eliminates some but not all of the policy riders that Republicans coveted in the deal.

As a complement (hopefully) to Jane’s and Kevin’s fine coverage of the October2011 and related actions in Washington DC, I thought I’d share a few (overexposed, smartphone) pics to illustrate life in Freedom Plaza.

We live in a culture that is more comfortable asking rape victims “why did you let yourself get raped?” than asking their attackers “why did you rape?” After a Toronto cop’s remark seemed to put the responsibility for rape on how a victim dressed, it lit a fuse of anger that has spread around the globe.

Slutwalk. “Because We’ve Had Enough”

It’s coming to Kansas City today, and maybe to your city next.

The Washington Post, which regularly uses both its editorial and news pages to push for budget cuts, has a front page article today that warns the United States could end up like Greece.

Washington DC Mayor Gray and several other DC City Council members have been arrested protesting in the streets over the shabby treatment of the District and its women in the “budget compromise” passed last Friday night. If only other leaders in Washington DC had the guts to stand up for their citizens.

At the end of the health care debate, when Obama was desperate to get the final bill passed in the House, he agreed to make a deal with Bart Stupak (D-MI) on the issue of abortion, by offering an executive order that restricted the availability of insurance coverage for reproductive health. The right to abortion for many in need was traded away as a bargaining chip to get that final bill passed.

Last week, as part of the negotiations to get a budget for the rest of fiscal year 2011, President Obama again decided to use abortion rights as a bargaining chip to secure a final deal

In the end, the deal to a avert a government shutdown and keep funding going for the rest of the fiscal year amounted to a $38.5 billion cut in appropriations from the 2010 baseline. There was a time last December, with the McCaskill-Sessions compromise, promoted by the very conservative Republican ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, when Republicans agreed to a 2011 budget appropriation $20 billion ABOVE the 2010 baseline. If mixed in with the tax cut deal, that level could have been put in place. Therefore, this deal inked late last night cut $58.5 billion from the level of McCaskill-Sessions. This equals all of the tax advantages that didn’t extend current law, outside of the business expensing provisions, in the December 2010 tax cut deal. The entire stimulus is gone.

Reid specifically mentioned two ideological points that were holding up the debate, saying that Republicans on the House side “have drawn a line in the sand.”

The two policy pieces? Abortion, and the environment.

I think it’s important that this is part of Michelle Rhee’s legacy, while I’m not necessarily holding her responsible. She put a premium on success at DC schools, and that pressure can lead to some dastardly things. Moreover, if the Noyes School is found to have cheated on standardized tests, it invalidates a lot of the results Rhee held up as a model in how to best teach students.

The mass movement is working on a number of fronts – in the courts, in the streets, and with the ballot petitions. This is a state-based progressive movement that has had no need for national Democrats or their poll-watching, continuously compromised manner. They are using principle rather than an individual politician as a rallying cry, and they believe they can build the movement into a political force. And they have buy-in from the state Democratic Party, with a unanimity between the politicians and the grassroots.