Senator Bernie Sanders unveiled his single-payer "Medicare For All" plan today, and so far he's already got 15 Democratic co-sponsors. More may soon add their names to this list. The plan is -- as any such plan has to be, right now -- merely aspirational, since there is no way it will ever even get a Senate floor vote with Republicans controlling the chamber. Bernie's bill also punted completely on the crucial questions: "How much will it cost, and how will we pay for it?" -- something many will take him to task for (as indeed I already pre-emptively did). But even having said all of that, Bernie's Medicare For All bill sets a very important marker for the debate to come, whether that debate takes a few years or longer. Because Bernie has -- with his bill and also with his relentless championing of the issue both during the 2016 campaign and since -- successfully moved the "Overton window" on single-payer healthcare in the United States.

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Last week, the Democratic leaders in Congress cut a surprising deal with President Donald Trump. There were, of course, critics of this deal on the right -- which is perfectly natural, since they're the ones who were left out in the cold. But what was more surprising was the criticism directed at Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer from the left. But upon examination, such criticism has to be considered unreasonable.

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In two days, Senator Bernie Sanders is going to introduce a single-payer healthcare bill in the Senate. This bill already has the support of some major Democratic senators, and it will move the single-payer debate further forward than any other legislative effort to date. But it will also move the debate from the abstract to the concrete, if Bernie's bill provides the proper level of detail. Because average Americans are going to be considering the concept through the filter of: "How is this going to affect my pocketbook?" Democratic supporters need to be ready with solid, easy-to-understand answers to this basic question. Hopefully, Sanders will provide these answers on Wednesday, so the public can truly begin to make an informed choice on the matter.

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We cannot claim originality for that subtitle. It's taken from Republican Senator Ben Sasse, from when he was speaking out against the deal President Donald Trump cut this week with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi: "Yesterday we saw Washington's swamp continue to rise: Chuck Schumer wrote The Art Of The Steal by taking hurricane relief hostage to guarantee a December showdown that favors Democratic spending priorities." We thought it was the best description of the stunning events of this week in Washington, so we decided to use it (with attribution, of course). "The art of the steal" pretty much sums up how Trump and "Chuck and Nancy" brutally cut the legs out from under the entire Republican Party in Congress.

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President Donald Trump is on such good terms with Democrats that they're apparently now on a first-name basis. Trump repeatedly praised "Chuck and Nancy" yesterday, after striking a breathtakingly-comprehensive deal with Minority Leaders Schumer and Pelosi on a budget extension, a debt ceiling hike, and hurricane disaster relief funding. By doing so, Trump has finally fulfilled the basic theme of his campaign, which was to completely turn Washington upside-down. The master dealmaking artist finally did that by making his first big deal -- and, much to the surprise of Republicans everywhere, that deal was precisely what Chuck and Nancy wanted, while it contained none of what "Paul and Mitch" had in mind.

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Congress has returned to Washington after a monthlong vacation, and they've got their work cut out for them in September. Deadlines at the end of the month loom, and the consequences of inaction are very real, from a default on the United States' debt to a government shutdown. Which means Congress is going to have one of those rare months where they have to actually get some stuff done. But the best guess of how it will all play out is that Congress will engage in a whole lot of kicking the cans down the road rather than fundamentally solving any big problems.

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Since today is Labor Day, I thought it was time to point out something that seems incredibly obvious to me. If you listen to the inside-the-Beltway chatter, Democrats are currently seen as floundering around, searching for an agenda. This is less true than the cocktail-party-circuit crowd believes, but whatever. Simultaneously, Democrats are urged to try to win back the working-class vote, because Donald Trump supposedly seduced them all away with his empty promises. Again, the answer to this perceived problem is pretty obvious. The Democratic Party needs to rededicate itself to the Labor agenda -- thus giving it a solid agenda to fight for, and also a perfect way to woo back white working-class voters.

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Donald Trump began last week (as we measure time here, from Friday deadline to Friday deadline) by pardoning a racist sheriff who had been convicted (but not even sentenced yet) of ignoring the Constitution and defying the federal courts. Trump announced this just as Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, in the hopes that nobody but his base would notice. He also sent formal instructions to the Pentagon to begin turning away transgendered Americans who want to serve their country, also in the hopes that few would notice. In the midst of all this "news dump" frenzy, Steve Bannon's acolyte Sebastian Gorka was unceremoniously shown the door at the White House. That all happened late in the day last Friday, so for us it was a fairly jaw-dropping start to the week.

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Senator Kamala Harris is in the news today because she just announced at a town hall that she will be co-sponsoring the single-payer healthcare bill that Senator Bernie Sanders will soon unveil. Harris has previously been lukewarm towards single-payer (according to her critics on the left), so this was seen as a big political step for her to have taken. Read another way, though, it seemed more that Harris is moving with an abundance of caution rather than being in any way against the concept of single-payer healthcare.

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President Donald Trump gave a speech today in Missouri, on the subject of tax reform. True to form, it was light on details and contained almost no actual numbers. The entire speech was designed to repackage "trickle-down economics" one more time, and sell it as "populism" to the people who voted for Trump. It remains to be seen how effective this will be, but at least Trump is making the attempt to sell one of his agenda items directly to the populace -- something that was noticeably absent in the fight over repealing and replacing Obamacare. Maybe this time will be different, Team Trump seems to be calculating. Maybe Trump'll be able to sell the tired old GOP idea of: "Let's give your boss a big huge tax cut, and then maybe some shred of it will eventually trickle down to you" to his voters. Republicans seem to have an endless capacity for believing this (and an equally infinite capacity to ignore all the other times when it didn't work out as well for the middle class as promised), so perhaps Trump can get his voters excited about slashing corporate tax rates this time around, too.

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