Bring on the bread and circuses! Republicans now expect Democrats to pass health care through the House with a trick only Capitol Hill could dream up: approving the Senate bill without voting on it. Democrats will vote on a separate bill that includes language stating that the original Senate bill is “deemed passed.” So by voting for the first bill — a reconciliation measure to fix certain things in the

HM: “You ever hear that song about the meatball that rolled off the table and into a bush? That was me. Though it helped that the bush in question was already wet as a canoe bottom. So I can’t take all the credit…”

— A caffeinated, piping hot beverage Party that the mainstream press can get behind! Meet the “Coffee Party.” Whose most important redeeming quality seems to be, well, that they bill themselves as “an answer to the Tea Party, a year-old protest movement that’s steeped in fiscal conservatism and boiling-hot, anti-tax rhetoric.” And what is that “answer”? A gathering together of salt of the earth folk like John Purser, a “humble”

Backlash against Colorado lawmakers — who joined New York, Rhode Island, and North Carolina lawmakers in an attempt to tax online merchants like Amazon into “fairness” — has been fairly loud, as such things go, and my sense is that all but “progressives” (and state reps with a D in front of their names) are none too fond of the new laws, which won’t generate any more revenue for the