Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid held a second vote today on whether to begin debate on the Wall Street reform bill put forth by Senator Chris Dodd. As expected, all the Republicans voted against openly debating the bill once again. Also as expected, all the Democrats voted to move forward. Except one.

Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska voted against opening the debate for the second day in a row. He was the only Democrat to do so, unless you count the technicality of Reid himself voting against the bill (which is necessary to bring the bill back up for another vote, which is now scheduled for tomorrow). But Nelson didn't vote against the bill because Senate rules forced him to (as with Reid), Nelson voted against the bill because he wants the bill changed before debate even begins.

You may remember Senator Nelson from the health reform debate. He was the guy who infamously held out his vote in exchange for Nebraska getting a sweetheart deal. Republicans immediately jumped on this backroom deal, and dubbed it the "Cornhusker Kickback." It was eventually removed from the final law, due to Democrats admitting that it was a mistake to give in to Nelson in the first place.

Now he's back again, and fighting for "Cornhusker Kickback II" or perhaps "Son of Cornhusker Kickback." Only, this time, Democrats are not exactly capitulating to his demands. Instead, they're leaving him hanging, to twist in the wind.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just scored a political victory by losing a vote. That sounds counterintuitive, but it's true. By failing to bring the Wall Street reform bill written by Chris Dodd to the floor for debate, and by losing a cloture vote on the issue to Republican opposition, Reid has shown that the Democrats (and the White House) have learned a few lessons from the health reform debate. Because by refusing to back down, and refusing to "compromise" (read: water the bill down and add loopholes for Wall Street) with Republicans, Reid is showing real strength, and real leadership.

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Democrats had a pretty good week last week. As attention shifts away from unpronounceable volcanoes (more on them in a moment) to the struggle in the Senate over Wall Street reform, the two parties almost seem to have changed their normal methods of playing the political game. The Republicans are all over the map on the issue, and extremely worried about the impression by angry voters that they are doing Wall Street's bidding -- as well they should be. Republicans are, one day, loudly denouncing the reform bill, using their standard Big Lie technique... and then, the next day, saying a deal is very close, and even voting for strong reform in committees. Republicans (some of them, at least) are chickening out of the upcoming partisan battle the Republican leadership seems to want over the issue (more on chickens later on, too). Democrats have, so far, managed both to admirably stay on message and showed an amazing amount of backbone in countering specious Republican arguments. And, so far, polls show the voters are solidly on the Democrats' side on this one, and just not buying what Republicans are telling them. As I said, we seem to have entered BackwardsLand, or something.

What I think is happening in the Republican camp is that they woke up this week to the fact that they are truly painting themselves into a corner. Imagine yourself literally painting a floor, backing your way into a corner while the rest of the room glistens with fresh paint. At some point, you are going to raise your head, look around, and realize what a stupid mistake you've just made. I believe the Republicans just passed that point in time.

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Happy 40th Earth Day, everyone!

Earth Day, as we all know, got going through the efforts of some starry-eyed idealistic hippie-types four decades ago. The "ecology" movement scored some of its biggest victories almost immediately, under (gasp!) President Richard Nixon, with the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and passage of some updated federal anti-pollution laws. Since that time, it has become the very mainstream "environmental movement." Today (for instance), most people recycle things without a second thought for where the concept came from.

But rather than stroll down memory lane with an overall history of the movement itself... well, OK, upon reflection... here is the original 1970s "ecology" flag, just for sentiment's sake:

...and just because it's a pretty cool looking flag, don't you think? Ahem.

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Ever wondered where the Tea Partiers actually live? The PBS NewsHour website has now helpfully mapped it out as part of their "Patchwork Nation" project (in partnership with the Christian Science Monitor), for anyone interested to see. This map isn't exactly surprising, as it shows Tea Partiers are more concentrated in traditional Republican areas. But it is interesting to see such a level of detail, measured as concentration of Tea Party members for every county across America.

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The Washington, D.C. Council voted today to legalize medicinal marijuana. The Washington Post reported the story in a straightforward manner, which failed to note the amusing part of the story:

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As an observer of politics, I sometimes have to admire the Republicans for their ability to coordinate the rollout of a talking point. Even if I don't agree with it, or think it is laughably in the realm of fantasy. Because Republicans are very, very good at this sort of thing, and they can sweep public opinion in their wake, at times, behind fears of things which do not exist and are not likely to exist in the near future (see: "death panels"). As I said, they're good at this sort of thing. But the current bugaboo circulating among Republicans is so hypothetical and so impossible to imagine happening, politically, that many Democrats may laugh at the issue and feel free to ignore it. Which would be a mistake (see: "death panels"). Laugh at it all you want (actually, the correct response to such myth-making), but don't ignore it.

I speak of the "value-added tax," or "VAT." Republicans are horrified that President Obama has a secret plan to pass this tax, and are shouting from the rooftops (of the nearest Fox News building) how strongly they're going to oppose it. The facts that Obama himself has come out against the idea, and it seems to have virtually no support in Congress, have not gotten in the way of Republicans doing so, either.

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There was an amusing story in the news recently about some folks who got word that a beer company had sent hundreds of cases of beer to the local dump, because it was past its expiration date. Finding this a shame, these enterprising folks "liberated" themselves 50 cases of free beer, presumably to drink it forthwith. The most amusing part was the closing quote in the article, from the beer company's president: "Beer is a popular product."

Well, yes. It is. One might almost say beer sells itself. Almost, until you remember the zillions of dollars beer companies spend on advertising (see: any random sports event on television), and the fact that the bottles and boxes those folks swiped were prominently marked with the brand name of the beer. The motto of the story (for our purposes here today) is: Beer itself is popular -- so popular it does indeed "sell itself" -- but you've got to sell the brand for it to do any good for your particular company.

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So I got my taxes done on time. Two whole hours early, if truth be told. Yes, I am one of those "wait until the last minute" type of guys, I admit. Which is why Thursday's column is being posted now, too (although I hasten to point out that it is still Thursday, in my time zone at least).

But, aside from the procrastinatory habits of yours truly, I did notice something while doing my taxes that bears commenting upon. Actually, I did not notice it, but rather someone else pointed it out to me -- and therein lies the problem.

My wife and I got an eight hundred dollar tax break this year. In fact, almost everybody got this break -- four hundred bucks per person. Apparently, it was passed as part of the stimulus package last year. I do remember, at the time, hearing something about how Obama's stimulus changed people's take-home pay by readjusting the federal withholding figures, but I had no idea it would turn into eight hundred bucks back on my tax form.

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Protesters are in the streets. They're waving signs, and chanting loudly. Some appear in outlandish dress, and even more have outlandish slogans written on their signs and banners. But, when you look a little closer, the group is not one, but rather a collection of many groups. These subgroups within the general coalition may agree on a few certain ideals, but they may also disagree on many others, as they may disagree on tactics to right their perceived wrongs. There is a big discussion amongst the groups as to whether working within the existing political two-party establishment is the best way forward (since one party does exist which seems to at least partially share their aims), or whether working outside the whole establishment is better (since supporting that party has led to disappointments in the recent past -- and indeed, could be said to have created much of the situation being protested in the first place). At the fringes of the group there are those whose talk can only be described as "militant," who are advocating violence to achieve their aims.

What I just wrote could describe tomorrow's "first anniversary" Tea Party rallies. Or it could describe a late-1960s anti-war rally. About the only thing these two historical eras have in common is the age of the driving force behind the protests. In other words, don't look now, but the Baby Boomers are back in the streets.

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