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The reviews for "The Rally to Restore Sanity" are generally favorable. We all want our political discourse to be civil and fair, right?

The pinnacle of Saturday's rally was Jon Stewart's "merging into the tunnel" speech:

And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river. Carved, by the way, by people who I’m sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by conscession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go. Then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go. Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car? Well, that’s okay—you go and then I’ll go.

And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst.

Andrew Breitbart has been hired as an election night analyst by ABC News.

FOX News is a safe haven for any prominent right winger to get a paycheck.

And it's more than just an occasional "selfish jerk." The GOP leadership has this very week assured voters that they will not compromise with the Democrats if they win the House and/or Senate.

Here's the deal, Jon. (We love ya, but...) Take your 'merge into the tunnel' analogy: Here we are, trying to work together to get through the tunnel and resolve the problems of America.

The Right jumps in front of our car and says we don't own that car and where's the papers showing we can drive through the tunnel? We show them, over and over and over, the car's birth certificate, but the Right screams that's not the actual paper we need to drive through the tunnel. And it's their tunnel! They want their tunnel back!

We get just enough help from a few on the Right to get one or two cars through the tunnel. The Healthcare and Financial Reform cars crawl out of the tunnel, and by the time they're through they're missing tires and several cylinders, but somehow they're through. As soon as some on the Right see them emerge, they scream that the cars were "shoved down their throats" and they vow to push and repeal the cars backwards through the tunnel so it looks like it never happened. And it's their tunnel! They want their tunnel back!

The very people who told us to sit down and shut up because they had a "mandate" in 2004 insist that a "Kenyan Usurper" has "stolen" the White House. And if a Democrat points out that Obama, a US citizen, won with a ten million vote majority and 365 electoral votes? La la la la la socialism! They want their tunnel back!

One could argue that the Birthers are a small overly vocal fringe. But it's not just the birthers. The LEADERSHIP of the party now vows that any ONE of them can block the entire tunnel, because "Senate Rules." Gridlock is better than sharing the tunnel.

Michelle Bachmann is a member of Congress! And she says forget the tunnel she's taking everyone back to the DMV for two solid years of "investigations." She promises this.

And by the way, death panels exist, Social Security and VA hospital privatization are a good plan, and unemployment insurance is "unconstitutional." Those are words not from birthers or fringe elements. Those are statements from GOP candidates. And that's the GOP leadership's PLAN for the tunnel.

One cannot be "civil" to those who refute proven facts, like 'Obama is a US Citizen' or 'there are no death panels.' One can ignore them, but if they attempt to control our discourse and elections, calling them out, loudly and with a verbal punch, is the only alternative. And if they want to block progress, we must stop them from doing so, even if it costs us our civility.

One sign at the rally said, "I may disagree with you, but I probably won't step on your head." Would that the right wing goons of Rand Paul and Andrew Breitbart felt the same way.

I am for civility, honesty, and a reasonable political discourse. But attention Comedy Central: You can't have a bi-partisan discussion about civil discourse if one side is throwing cinder blocks into traffic.

Keith Olbermann Voter Irregularities Video Part V

"Kerry/Edwards Campaign Joins Ohio Recount."

"As Senator Kerry stated in his concession speech in Boston, we do not necessarily expect the results of the election to change, however, we believe it necessary to make sure everyone's vote is counted fairly and accurately." White called for witnesses, volunteers, and donations.

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This is great news. A new CBS/NY Times poll (click here for the document) shows Sherrod Brown way ahead. The GOP is pulling out their cash on DeWine which seems to be a very cool concession speech.

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT

The poll shows that:

Ohio Democrats are particularly energized about voting in general this year. 58% of them say they are more enthusiastic than usual,
compared to just 32% of Republican voters. That trend is also evident nationally, although the gap between the two parties is much smaller; nationally, 50% of Democrats are enthusiastic, compared to 35% of Republicans.

John Kerry's concession speech.

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Really, doesn't this whole thing have the feel of a show trial? "Let the people have their moment and then we can get back to business as usual." I figure, if this is what they're actually admitting, God only knows what else they were up to:

WASHINGTON — Goldman Sachs' chief acknowledged Wednesday that the investment bank engaged in "improper" behavior in 2006 and 2007 when it made huge bets on a housing downturn while peddling as safe more than $40 billion in securities backed by risky U.S. home loans.

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman's chairman and chief executive, made the surprising concession at the opening hearing of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a 10-member panel that Congress created to investigate and lay out for the public the causes of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Blankfein and senior officers of three other of the nation's most prominent banks told the panel that serious flaws in their risk models and business practices contributed to Wall Street's meltdown and the massive taxpayer bailouts that followed. The commission also heard testimony that the banks and quasi-government mortgage giant Fannie Mae recklessly took on as much as 95 times more risk than they could cover, and that Wall Street excels "at pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people."

Blankfein faced the toughest questioning.

Commission Chairman Phil Angelides, a former California state treasurer, warned Blankfein that he'd be "brutally honest" in his questioning. He asked why Goldman thought it was necessary to take out protection against investment-grade mortgage securities it was selling by purchasing insurance-like contracts known as credit-default swaps. Angelides likened it to selling a car with knowledge it had faulty brakes and then taking out an insurance policy on the buyer.

"I do think the behavior is improper, and we regret . . . the consequence that people have lost money in it," Blankfein told Angelides.

I don't want Blankfein's feigned regret. I want him to have to live the rest of his life eating ramen noodles and living in a cardboard box on the street, just like the people who lost their life savings have to do.

Until Wednesday, Goldman had insisted that it was merely managing its risks when it placed "hedges," in the form of wagers against the housing market, various venues including in secret offshore deals, with insurance giant American International Group and on a private London exchange.

In November, McClatchy reported exclusively that Goldman failed to tell investors about its contrary bets while selling $39 billion in risky mortgage securities it had issued, and another $18 billion in similar bonds issued by other firms. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress are investigating Goldman's swap dealings, said knowledgeable people who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

While conceding that its contrary bets were improper, Blankfein said that in most cases Goldman took those positions to offset bets it had underwritten for clients seeking to wager on a housing downturn.

So according to this L.A. Times article, the health insurance got everything it wanted in this healthcare "reform" bill - except the death of the public option. So as relatively small a concession as that is unacceptable to them - which tells you who really owns this country. (Not us.) All the more reason to push your congress critter. Call today!

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington - As President Obama's push for a healthcare overhaul moves toward its final act, the oft-vilified health insurance industry is on the verge of seeing a plan enacted that largely protects its financial interests.

That achievement, should it stand up in the final legislation, would be the capstone of a sophisticated lobbying and strategic campaign that began even before Obama was elected president.

The specifics of the healthcare legislation are still being hashed out on Capitol Hill, and key details will evolve in the days ahead. Even so, there is broad agreement that the final plan will, for the first time, require Americans to buy health coverage, with taxpayer subsidies for millions who cannot afford it.

For the health insurance industry, that means millions of new paying customers. What's more, there are likely to be no limits on what insurers can charge, while at the same time the plan is expected to limit competition from any new national government insurance plan that lawmakers create.

I mean, really. What's not to like?

These anticipated wins -- from an initiative that has at times been portrayed as doomsday for health insurers -- is the result of a strategy developed by one of Washington's savviest lobbyists, Karen Ignagni. Under Ignagni's leadership, the industry group America's Health Insurance Plans adopted the goal of universal coverage while setting out to shape it in a way that benefited insurers -- a crucial move that aligned their interests with those of other groups, including consumers and hospitals.

Insurers poured campaign donations into the coffers of key sympathetic members of the House and Senate, and loaded up on lobbyists. And when Obama and other Democrats began attacking the industry, insurers made a strategic choice not to walk away from the negotiating table.

"While so many in this town have been playing checkers, Karen has been playing chess," said Mark Merritt, a veteran lobbyist who heads the Pharmaceutical Care Management Assn.

[...] In addition to fighting the public option, insurers that offer Medicare health maintenance organizations are battling more than $100 billion in cuts in federal payments to that program. And they are trying to beat back a move by Democrats to go after the industry's decades-old exemption from antitrust law.

But in Washington, many marvel that lawmakers have not wrung more from an industry that, surveys show, is held in low regard by the public.

"The industry is really in no position to be making demands," said Celinda Lake, a longtime Democratic pollster.

And yet, they continue to do so - especially through senators like Olympia Snowe and Kent Conrad. Don't you love it that no matter how much we donate, politicians say they can't support the netroots agenda "because you're not in my district", yet are so very sympathetic to the millions of dollars poured into their states from giant industries like insurance? Looks like our bribes contributions just aren't big enough.

For much of the last three years, industry leaders have been laying the groundwork for this battle. Amid horror stories about insurers dumping sick patients, denying coverage for medical treatment and cherry-picking customers, Ignagni and a few insurance company executives pushed the idea within America's Health Insurance Plans that the industry risked political catastrophe if it did not move proactively.

"They knew they had a very big [public relations] problem, and they knew this day was coming," said Wendell Potter, a Cigna Corp. public relations executive who quit last year. "They knew they had to be perceived as coming to the table with solutions. It was a departure from their previous point of view. But they knew they would be slaughtered if it weren't."

John Cole:

During Huckabee’s concession speech, it appeared to me that he is really enjoying himself, which is kind of sick. He is starting to look like the Mayor in BTVS. I mean, no one enjoys this crap. And anyone who does has to be evil. Like the mayor.

Ahhh, Mayor Richard Wilkins III from season 3 of Buffy.....

I'm of the belief that this should be in the "Good News/Bad News" category. The bad news is that it looks like the major obstacles blocking the merger of AT&T and BellSouth have been cleared, and history shows that these mergers do not benefits consumers. The good news is that one of those cleared obstacles has scored a victory for net neutrality and eliminated one of the anti-neutrality forces' biggest arguments.

FreePress/Save the Internet:

In a striking victory for Internet freedom advocates, AT&T officials agreed on Thursday night to adhere to strict Network Neutrality conditions if allowed to complete their proposed $85 billion merger with BellSouth.

The phone company filed a "letter of commitment" with the Federal Communications Commission in which it promises to observe Net Neutrality principles for at least 24 months. Now it's left to Congress to follow the FCC's lead and make Net Neutrality permanent under the law.

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I may not be as cool as Amato to be wined and dined by CNN, but the party here at the AFL-CIO is lots of fun. There was just a nah nah nah nah cheer when Santorum gave his concession speech. Good luck finding that special man on dog you seek my friend.

In terms of races, Chris Murphy is projected to beat Nancy Johnson in Connecticut. So Lieberman has not completely screwed things in the Nutmeg State. If that is accurate, 4 down, 11 to go....

This is an intersting take on the India/Nuclear arms agreement and one that should be discussed thoroughly.

Froomkin:

"In addition to all the predictable reactions (pro and con) to the landmark nuclear agreement reached in India yesterday, a powerful and unexpected new concern has emerged based on a last-minute concession by President Bush.

It appears that, to close the deal during his visit, Bush directed his negotiators to give in to India's demands that it be allowed to produce unlimited quantities of fissile material and amass as many nuclear weapons as it wants.

But now the criticisms may focus on this question: By enabling India to build an unlimited stockpile of nuclear weapons, would this agreement set off a new Asian arms race?

And here's another question: Were Bush and his aides so eager for some good headlines -- for a change -- that they gave away the store?...read on