Monday evening

Happy MLK day!

Beautiful weather today. Was over at Starbucks. Had a turkey & Swiss and sipped coffee while reading magazines.

Just saw this:

If Coakley loses in Massachusetts, I don’t see how health care reform passes without reviving reconciliation, and, by default, the public option. The evidence indicates that Nancy Pelosi could not find the votes to pass the Senate bill as is. It would seem her only option is to promise to seriously fix the bill right away with reconciliation, or pass a completely redesigned bill using reconciliation. Either way, I don’t see how health care reform could move forward without using reconciliation in some manner.

From Firedoglake here. Actually I hope she does lose. Then people will get the health care bill they wanted in the first place, instead of this turkey. It'll be a win-win for everyone. There's this too:

Joe Biden, seeming to lay the groundwork for the case for moving health care legislation forward without 60 votes in the Senate, described the supermajority rule as a perversion of the Constitution.

"As long as I have served ... I've never seen, as my uncle once said, the Constitution stood on its head as they've done. This is the first time every single solitary decision has required 60 senators," he said at a Florida fundraiser, according to the pool report. “No democracy has survived needing a super majority."

Amen.

[Much later] Finally got in touch with my friend in Canada tonight. Had an important chat.