This Steve Benen post is a wonderful example of how bad some Democrats are at the political game:

Jacob Hacker, the intellectual popularizer of the "public option" idea, argues that he "believes" in the Senate health bill as a step towards reform, yet argues:

If it does not deliver--if the new options offered through the exchange do not attract broad enrollment, if insurers continue to undermine health security with impunity--then the worst fears of progressives will come true. [. . .] And Americans will become increasingly disillusioned with the promise of reform.

[MORE . . .]

In addition to the six detainees who arrived back in their home country of Yemen yesterday, six others were sent to Afhanistan and the Somali region:

Those released are:

* Afghans Abdul Hafiz, Sharifullah, Mohamed Rahim and Mohammed Hashim.
* Somali detainees Mohammed Soliman Barre and Ismael Arale.
* Yemenis Jamal Muhammad Alawi Mari, Farouq Ali Ahmed, Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher, Fayad Yahya Ahmed al Rami and Riyad Atiq Ali Abdu al Haf.

A Tunisian detainee, Moez Ben Abdelkader Fezzani, also known as Abou Nassim, was sent to Italy where he will be tried on terror charges for recruiting Afghan fighters.

198 detainees remain. About 100 will be sent to Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois, some of whom will be tried by military commission. [More...]

There are football games today. Should be fun to watch some snow games.

This is an Open Thread.

While Ed Kilgore has done a great job highlighting the fault lines on policy between Democrats and progressives on the health issue, there is another fault line in the discussion - those who think it is important that President Obama and the Democrats get to take a victory lap on the issue and others who think that holding a parade is counterproductive to better policy outcomes in the future. After all, if you have already "solved the problem," what else would you need to do? I think that a confluence of events has actually made this a false choice. It seems to me Tom Harkin has his the sweet spot with his "starter home" formulation. Nate Silver writes:

Paul Krugman:

[T]he Senate bill tries a wide variety of approaches to cost containment — in fact, just about everything that has been suggested. We don’t know which of these approaches will work or how well, but that’s more than anyone has managed to achieve ever before.

(Emphasis supplied.) Actually we know the approach that has worked historically in the United States to control health care costs, the public insurance option, was stripped from the bill. The bill does some good, but it does nothing meaningful in terms of cost containment. Weak stuff from Krugman.

Speaking for me only

Are you snowed in on the East Coast or just relaxing inside tonight?

If you missed the health care news (BTD has followed the developments, just scroll down) the Dems have their 60 votes, here's the CBO summary of the Manager's Amendment (full letter here. ) And no one likes the abortion compromise.

Six detainees from Guantanamo have arrived home in Yemen. 91 Yemenis remain, among the 200+ detainees still being held.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Via John Cole, here comes Stupak:

An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D. Mich.) coordinated opposition to a Senate compromise on the place of abortion in health care legislation this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, the Conference Catholic Bishops, and other anti-abortion groups, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO. The emails show that Stupak — who has so far remained silent on language accepted by Senator Ben Nelson (D. Neb.) and faces intense pressure from the White House to accept it — is already working behind the scenes to oppose the compromise.

While John goes apoplectic, I am not surprised. In a sense, Stupak is being principled. He wants to ban abortions being offered in the Exchanges. Nelson's "compromise" does not do that. We'll see what happens.

speaking for me only

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