Hold Fast

Jake McIntyre has a post on Daily Kos in which he points out that parallels between supporting the Iraq war and supporting health care reform as it stands now: Has anyone else noticed that the split in the progressive blogosphere between those who are saying “it’s a good bill in spite of everything” (Kevin Drum, Matt [...]

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I’m traveling for work this week and totally booked in meetings, so my blogging is going to be very light. But I wanted to flag John Aravosis’s post from earlier today, “The GOP had at most 55 Senators during Bush’s presidency.” Aravosis is providing an important reminder that legislation, even controversial legislation or legislation relating [...]

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You know a senator has jumped the shark when Ezra Klein writes something like this: The Huffington Post and Roll Call are both reporting that Joe Lieberman notified Harry Reid that he will filibuster health-care reform if the final bill includes an expansion of Medicare. Previously, Lieberman had been cool to the idea, saying he wanted to make sure [...]

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Van Jones speaks about holding President Obama accountable this past August. It is very powerful and an important reminder to the progressive community.

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Up at the Huffington Post, Josh Schrei has a provocative take on President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. Schrei writes: Obama’s speech, in all its wandering glory, smacked of the somewhat bewildered attempts of a true American son to reconcile his deep seated idealism against an almost impossible pragmatism. Along the way, it inadvertently [...]

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It’s important for people who work in politics, policy, and activism to recognize what world it is they are operating in. This sober understanding should influence how strategies are formed and tactical choices are made. I think we’re approaching a point in the health care reform fight were the online progressive community needs to evaluate [...]

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Ben Nelson is not a centrist or a moderate. Ben Nelson is a conservative.

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Hey Glenn Beck, you’re doing it wrong. Banks getting ripped off isn’t an emotional hook – working Americans getting ripped off is. Of course, Beck is also factually wrong, as no banks lost money in connection to Bob Creamer’s conduct in 1997. Oh well. Glenn Beck wrong, water wet, news at eleven.

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David Sirota has a very good post on the interesting coalition of votes that is emerging against the re-confirmation of Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve Chairman on the Senate Banking Committee. He thinks Chairman Chris Dodd “shouldn’t be impossibly movable to “no,” but probably is,” citing Dodd’s historic ties to the banking and finance industry [...]

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I think there’s a problem with the progressive online movement today. We came into existence under a bad Republican president and a strong Republican majority in Congress. The Democratic Party was in electoral decline. No Democratic message was effectively resonating in the face of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, deregulation of markets, and a massive [...]

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