publius comes out of retirement to let everyone know how he really feels about the Democratic majorities

The hard part of health care, in the era of the automatic filibuster, is setting up the initial institutional framework.  After that framework is in place, everything else becomes much easier.  This is a moral issue -- people die because of the country's policy failures.  And doing nothing is a policy choice.  But the FDL crowd spent its efforts making nothing a reality.  Well, they've almost realized their dream.  And I wish them a hearty congratulations on that.

But this time, it's different.  This is a betrayal.  If the party can't pass health care reform after the anachronistic Senate has okayed it, and with reconciliation so doable, then I don't really see what the point of having power is.  Power must be about more than simply denying one's opponents the opportunity to do bad things.

Not everyone is impressed with the idea of New Math and accepting it as the new normal

Yesterday it was determined that the Democrats could not pass any legislation since the Republicans now had a 41 - 59 majority in the Senate, and still not everybody is buying it.

No, I can't imagine Republicans ever saying such a thing. They'd shout from the rooftops that Democrats were obstructing progress and endangering the nation. The traditional media would join that chorus -- and the Democrats would cave. Mitch McConnell has really done a number on the Democratic psyche.

Myth of 60 could have been busted another way.

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Gingrich's Majority Leader Dick Armey was on the ground in Massachusetts back in December with his Astroturf group.

And so FreedomWorks sent out a query to dozens of its best organizers across the country. Within days, the clamoring response made clear that what seemed improbable suddenly seemed very attainable; within weeks, the Tea Party movement had established a beachhead in Mr. Kennedy’s home state.

Earlier the GOP Chair criticized Missouri Senate candidate Roy Blunt who is hoping to replace the retiring Kit Bond for being an enabler for big government.

GOP officials on Capitol Hill erupted in anger earlier this month when Steele said his party would not take back the House and wondered if the GOP was even ready to lead again. After those remarks, House and Senate leadership aides vented their frustration in a conference call, during which RNC staffers admitted they had no control over the chairman.

On this surface this makes them look disorganized.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, predicted Wednesday that Republicans stand a good chance of taking back the House from Democrats in November and said he is at odds with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on that prospect.

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It is nice to have the committee chairman open to the idea.

Meanwhile, staffers who attended today's meeting of Senate Democrats said they were comforted that the moderates in the room wanted to see the House pass the Senate bill rather than give up on health care altogether. They also said there's a recognition that passing nothing at all is electorally unthinkable.

Consonant with that, Senator Kent Conrad chairman of the Budget Committee, said he's open to using the reconciliation process to modify the bill, a key admission if the House is going to pass the Senate legislation.

The House hasn't decided yet, maybe.

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Since Sen. Brown R-MA isn't clamoring to be able to vote on raising the debt ceiling to avoid default, deficits scolds take another course during the recession.

It seems that in lieu of the statutory deficit commission that Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg wanted, they've instead reached some deal whereby Barack Obama will appoint a commission by executive order.

(Yglesias link to NYTimes article is not quite what I expected, and maybe this is it)

In the short run, such a commission would buy time for the White House and Congress, putting off decisions until after this year’s midterm elections while the commission deliberates. Democrats and most economists argue that this year is not the right time to make big cuts in spending or raise taxes while the economy remains at risk of falling back into recession.

And Closer Max was against it.

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In the halls of who would have thunk it, Sen. Murkowski R-AK has help in her effort to hobble the EPA

This is not just a future threat. Climate change significantly intensified Hurricane Katrina, which cost this nation $80 billion, killed thousands, and displaced a million people. As hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel has explained, "Probably if Hurricane Katrina had happened in 1980, the levees would have held."

Evidently it is lots of help.

In other climate change news Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is set to debate the scourge of environmentalists in West Virginia, Don Blankenship, the man who loses cases in the Roberts Court.

THE LINK FOR THE DEBATE WEBCAST!

Blankenship is organizing force behind bringing West Virginia Crusty Pants Nugent for Labor Day

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Maybe Sen. Ensign R-NV is has not completely accepted forgiveness, Bret Hume style.

The Justice Department and the FBI have begun what appears to be a preliminary criminal investigation into events surrounding Sen. John Ensign’s affair with a staffer, sources tell POLITICO.

In recent days, FBI agents have contacted former aides to the Nevada Republican in Washington and Las Vegas, said several sources familiar with the matter. The sources also said that a Justice Department prosecutor has been assigned to the case but has not yet convened a grand jury.

IOKIYAR

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Oversight is what the 2006 election was supposed to bring back. And FISA changes in the PATRIOT Act were another thing that was promised to be fixed, later.

At times, what the inspector general called an "egregious breakdown" extended to misstatements to the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about how sensitive information had been obtained by federal law enforcement, the report said.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said: "This was not a matter of technical violations. If one of us did something like this, we'd have to answer for it. This was authorized at high levels within the FBI and continued for years."

We all must be guilty of something, amirite?

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Surely this will bring democracy to Iran. Not.

Dick Cheney when he was the sitting Vice President said that Iran could not be deterred: "mutual assured destruction in the hands of Ahmadinejad may just be an incentive."

So, assuming that they agree with the Vice President, Heritage is advocating the forward-deployment of nuclear weapons and threatening to use them against an apparently suicidal and undeterrable regime. If you threaten a regime with nuclear war that you don't believe is rational, doesn't that mean that you are in fact expecting to use these weapons, since it is likely that the regime’s reaction won't be capitulation, but defiance?

Some people don't like resettting theirs clocks for daylight savings time. Sen. Kyl R-AZ evidently did not like the resetting of the Doomsday Clock.

These four national security leaders, two Republicans and two Democrats, have been four of the most prominent and vocal advocates of eliminating nuclear weapons and their efforts have significantly influenced President Obama and the global nuclear debate.

Their op-ed today importantly does not support one of the key arguments made by conservatives like Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), that the US needs to build new nuclear warheads because existing ones are "deteriorating."

Another case of with us on everything but something, right Harry?

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Roberts Court called strikes on the Congress attempts at limiting corporate and labor union influence in elections. Now the question is who prevails McCain, or McConnell.

Russ Feingold is seething mad. John McCain is giving more of a disappointed shrug.

Most Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who fought the bill from the beginning, are celebrating.

Both McCain and Feingold emphasized the decision maintains the bill’s ban on soft money—contributions from corporations to political parties. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the decision should have gone further and allowed soft money.

Anybody really think this will move like the Lilly Ledbetter Act?

The lawmakers said it wasn’t clear what shape the legislation would take—because it’s a First Amendment ruling, it’s difficult to make statutory changes that would affect the decision, Schumer said.

This is probably why Sen. Demint R-SC was against unions at TSA.

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Just possibly some of the frustration expressed in Tuesday's election is the notion that the banks own the place. And whether there is the will to do something about it.

"The consumer agency is the litmus test," said Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who has been an outspoken chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel on the financial bailout.

"Is the financial reform bill designed to paper over problems and continue to protect the banks, or is this bill about serious reform?" she continued. "It’s the banks versus the people, and it’s time to choose. For me, that’s the frame, and that’s what the conversation is about. If the White House forces that choice on the Congress, then we're getting the leadership we need."

As Nobel Prize winning economists peel off and speak out, once again it is that cooling saucer.

Last year, the administration proposed a set of new regulations to prevent risky practices by large firms. They included establishing a consumer protection agency, new regulations of derivatives markets that have been outside the purview of regulation; changes to the way big financial firms are supervised, higher capital standards and liquidity requirements and new resolution authority that would allow the government to wind down big firms that threatened the entire system, like AIG.

While the House of Representatives passed a financial regulatory bill, the Senate has not yet done so and the details of the new proposals must also worked out with Congress.

The Volcker Rule.

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Now The Most Important News of the Day^TM, doublemint version.

On Wednesday, the NOH8 campaign protesting California's Proposition 8 announced a new high-profile Republican supporter: John McCain's wife, Cindy McCain.

Are they related?

@PatrickRuffini I will concede this. Of the two choices we had in 2008, Michelle makes the better First Lady.

Keep it classy.