The New York Times recounts Senator Ted Kennedy's final days and how he coped with his illness. It's both sad and inspirational.

President Obama has issued an executive order that flags be flown at half-mast until Sunday.

What's next? Sen. Kennedy will lie in repose Thursday and Friday at the JFK presidential library. His funeral will be Saturday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston. President Obama will deliver a eulogy. He will then be buried at Arlington next to his brothers.

And after that? Democrats are hoping his legacy will spur support for the health care reform bill. Will the Dems rename the Health Care after him? If they do, I hope it's one that includes the principles he fought for. And that means a strong public option. Here's the letter he and Chris Dodd wrote to Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. [More..]

Via SaferChoice: In 2007, Denver voters passed a referendum amending a city ordinance so that law enforcement would make marijuana enforcement their lowest priority. In response, Mayor John Hickenlooper appointed a panel to implement the new ordinance.

The Denver Marijuana Policy Review Panel recommended today that the fine for marijuana possession be set at $1.

"Upon reviewing the fine schedule, we have noted that a number of offenses carry a $50 fine -- including urinating in public, park curfew, and open container violations -- and others carry even lesser fines, such as disobeying a signal light ($40), light rail violations ($26), and spitting in public ($25)," the Panel wrote in the letter. "We are...requesting that you revise the schedule to reflect the lowest law enforcement priority approved by the voters. "[W]e believe the court should reduce the fine to the absolute minimum allowable, or $1."

If Denver's presiding judge Mary Celeste accepts the recommendation, the $1 fine would be the lowest fine for marijuana possession in the entire nation. The entire letter to Judge Celeste is pasted below.

Dana Houle appears to argue that the President is irrelevant to the health care debate:

I'm still cautiously optimistic that we're going see a decent bill, quite possibly with a public option, clear the senate, and if it can clear the Senate it will become law.

Apparently, the President is irrelevant to those events. Digby sees it differently:

This health care debate is looking like it's finally going to tell us what our president really believes in. . . . The Republicans have completely taken themselves out of the debate and the only arguments are among Democrats. And that means President Obama's going to have to decide which side he's going to put his weight behind.

Will the President weigh in? I honestly do not know. In any event, the Progressive Block can hold the line and say 'no public option, then no bill.'

Speaking for me only

I've been humming this song all day, thinking of the passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy -- our lion in the Senate. I'm off to the jail and the gym. BTD is also occupied this afternoon.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Have you read something like this before?

[T]he reality is that the first and worst deception was the Democrats' own. Step back for a second, listen to what the non-screaming skeptics are saying, and it's clear the party severely overestimated its mandate . . . What would have been a hard sell in any environment has turned into an epic challenge. Yet the Democrats have been charging ahead as if it's still November 2008, oblivious to the dramatic change in the electorate's mood.

. . . The left assumed that change on health care meant a public insurance plan. But most other Obama voters had (and likely still have) no idea what the term "public option" meant. If they were voting for him on health care at all, it was simply for lower costs and better care. They may have been open to that component of Obama's plan, as polls earlier this year showed. But to say that a vote for Obama was a vote for a public option is as much a canard as Palin's phony claims about death panels.

(Emphasis supplied.) No. It was not Ezra Klein. That would be the dangerstein hisself. Though confusion would be understandable.

Speaking for me only

She writes a great one, but this is the best part:

John McCain said the other day that Kennedy's great gift was in making concessions to Republicans. That may be correct, but not in the way McCain meant it to be. Kennedy's great gift was fighting for progress without shame or obfuscation, making the moral argument for liberalism, and always trying to move the ball forward, inch by inch if that's all he could get and in great leaps if the opportunity presented itself. If he made the right concessions, it sure as hell wasn't in service of McCain's pinched and cruel agenda.

He was everything the conservatives hate: a proud, fighting liberal who didn't shirk from the label. Each day his presence was a rebuke to everything they believed in. . . . And all the while, Kennedy just kept going, getting more concessions from Republicans by being true to his principles, than mealy mouthed centrism ever did. There's a lesson in that.

(Emphasis supplied.) Matt Yglesias remarkably points to Kennedy's 1980 concession speech as some sort of paean to pragmatic capitulation - in his campaign to gain pre-approval for an Obama health care reform cave in. It shows how little he understands what Ted Kennedy did and was. Digby got it.

Speaking for me only

Politico:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy urged Massachusetts lawmakers last week to give Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick the power to name his successor. But with reactions to Kennedy’s proposal mixed – and with the legislature not due back until after Labor Day – it appears for now that Massachusetts will be without a second senator until a special election can be held early next year.

That sounds right. It presents an interesting situation. Without Kennedy, Democrats no longer have the vote to close debate on a health care bill that is not enacted through reconciliation. If President Obama wants a HCR bill this year, it will have to be done through reconciliation. In a way, he now has an out. He can reset the debate, heck even argue for Senator Kennedy's Medicare For All Bill. What's clear though is anything passing prior to a Massachusetts special election will be weaker than necessary. In short, Democrats should delay a health care reform bill vote until after the Massachusetts special election.

Speaking for me only

What really bugs me about the New "Progressive" Broderism being championed by Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias and Co. is they have absolutely no idea what a final "compromise" health care bill will look like and they are already whipping for it like nobody's business. Today, Yglesias pens a post titled Yesterday's Compromise Is Tomorrow's Triumph:

The [. . .] point for today is that you need to judge legislative outcomes relative to the status quo, not relative to what you enact in utopia. Medicare & Medicaid (especially the very stingy version of Medicaid that was initially created) were really pretty pathetic compared to what Harry Truman proposed. But they’ve done enormous good for a lot of people over the decades.

How in blazes can Yglesias be judging "tomorrow's compromise" when he has no idea what it will be? We can judge Medicare and Medicaid now (and even then) because you knew what it was. Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias do not even have the foggiest notion what a "compromise" HCR bill will look like and they are already declaring it a triumph. Just pathetic.

Speaking for me only

I was listening to NPR this morning and as you would expect, the discussion was about Ted Kennedy and his legacy.

To me, Ted Kennedy meant progressive fighter and achiever. Kennedy talked the talk AND walked the walk. Was he perfect politically? Of course not. Certainly NCLB was a mistake. But he got so much right. And he did it by fighting and legislating. There was rhetoric and principle. And political bargaining from principle.

If anyone should gain inspiration and wisdom from how Ted Kennedy conducted himself legislatively and politically, I hope it is the Progressive Block in the House. Like Kennedy, they come from relatively safe political districts. Like Kennedy, they think big progressive ideas. Like Kennedy, they should negotiate from their ideals and use their principles as a negotiating strength. Let that lesson for progressive legislators be Ted Kennedy's lasting legacy and I believe he would be pleased.

Speaking for me only

Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy passed away last night at his home in Hyanis Port. He was 77.

May he rest in peace. He will be missed. I'm at a loss for words right now, so I've posted some photos below:

A few weeks ago, I published my interview with Richard Aborn, one of the three Democratic candidates to succeed outgoing Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morganthau. No Republicans are running, so whoever wins the September 15 primary will win the job.

I praised Aborn's mostly progressive agenda and his unique perspective on using the DA's office to do more than get convictions and lock people up.

The New York Times today profiles Aborn and says he's gaining steam: [More...]

I'm just getting home from work and BTD is traveling this evening.

What have I missed since noon? I'm seeing Dan Froomkin's criticism of AG Eric Holder and Obama's "baby steps" towards "justice for Bush's torturers" and John Sifton at the Daily Beast's criticism of the heavy redactions in the CIA document dump.

Chris Brown got 5 years probation for his assault on Rhianna. He also must do 180 days of community service that involves physical labor and stay 50 yards away from Rhianna.

Here's an open thread for you, all topics welcome.