NRDC Action Fund Clean Energy Bill Celebrity PSA (VIDEO) With DiCaprio, Norton, Bateman

Jon Stewart Destroys Fox News For Reveling In Scott Brown Win

Dan Abramson, HuffingtonPost.com: Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts has made for a variety of moods and responses coming from cable news. Jon Stewart mocked the atmosphere of Fox News last night, comparing the network to someone trying really hard to hide an erection and intercutting their reaction with clips of the phallic Shake Weight.

Stewart went on to note that Fox News anchors seemed to be reveling in the fact that Scott Brown and his family are becoming celebrities. Pointing out the hypocrisy of this, he recapped what Fox News has thought of political celebs in the past, as the network has repeatedly bashed Obama for being a celebrity, rather than an experienced politician.

Adding that Fox News apparently differentiates between what celebrities are acceptable for politics, Stewart "agreed," jokingly describing the two types:

"The elitist scum who prey on the dreams of real of Americans. And the ones you agree with."

Fox News Covers Scott Brown's Victory

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Jon Stewart Takes On Keith Olbermann, Olbermann Responds

HuffingtonPost.com: Jon Stewart took on Keith Olbermann Thursday night, slamming him for his remarks on Scott Brown, performing an impression of the "Countdown" host and mocking his trademark Special Comments.

"I think that's the harshest description of anyone I've ever heard uttered on MSNBC," Stewart said of Olbermann's comment that Brown is "an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees."

Stewart would go on to impersonate Olbermann in the same vein that Ben Affleck did on "SNL": a multi-angle, shouty Special Comment featuring many pairs of glasses and utterances of the word "Sir."

Olbermann responded, telling TVNewser, "It was a little bit of a ripoff of the Affleck thing, but overall, I'd give it a B-."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Special Comment - Keith Olbermann's Name-Calling
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

New Mexico State Legislator Introduces Bill To Move State's Money

Arthur Delaney, HuffingtonPost.com: New Mexico state representative Brian Egolf has introduced a bill to move the state's money out of Bank of America and into banks and credit unions chartered in New Mexico.

"I saw the Move Your Money video the day it came out and thought it made a lot of sense," Egolf told HuffPost.

So the Santa Fe Democrat wants to move as much money as he possibly can -- that would be $1.4 billion.

Egolf's bill would direct the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration to "give a preference to a community bank to act as the fiscal agent of the general fund operating cash depository account."

Egolf said the account, which is essentially the state's checking account, holds $1.4 billion and is managed by Bank of America. Egolf's bill directs state officials to study the feasibility of dividing up the account and distributing it between community banks and credit unions throughout the state. He said he discussed the measure with Gov. Bill Richardson (D) for an hour on Thursday, and that the governor supported the measure.

Egolf said moving state funds into local banks or credit unions would benefit the New Mexico economy by freeing up local credit. "The potential size and impact of moving this money is monumental. The biggest bank in the state right now has $2 billion in assets."

He added that he hasn't heard any opposition to his proposal from any of his colleagues in either party in the New Mexico legislature and expects the measure to be taken up in the next three weeks. His goal is to move the money by the end of the year.

"The only concern I've heard really is, 'How soon can we do it?'" he said. "I'm not getting any defense of the big banks. There's a huge appeal to keeping our money local. The income Bank of America earns from managing this money goes straight to New York."

Bank of America doesn't seem very intimidated by the bill.

"We are pleased to have the State of New Mexico as a client and look forward to continuing that relationship," said a bank spokesman in an email.

Egolf said he was in the process of moving his own money to the Los Alamos National Bank.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) Explains Scott Brown’s Victory

From the Left: Let it never be said that Republicans aren’t prone to bouts of revisionist history.

According to a memo from Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), head of the Senate Republican campaign effort, yesterday’s stunning upset election of Scott Brown to fill the seat of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, was the result that “voters realize that there is only one party who bailed out the automakers and insurance companies.”

Really John? Do you really think Americans are as stupid as you?

The fact is, it was actually fellow Texan, former President Bush who orchestrated the bailouts of both AIG and the automakers at the 11th hour of his second term. Nice try, though.

LSB: From the state that gave you George W. Bush, we're so proud of this dickwad. Ugh!

Howard Dean: “Bush would have had healthcare a long time ago”

From the Left: On the one year anniversary of President Obama’s inaugural, former DNC Chairman, Howard Dean, had some terse words for the president about the failure to pass his signature issue: healthcare reform.

In sharply worded comments Tuesday night following the loss of former Sen. Ted Kennedy’s (D-MA) Senate seat, the former chairman of the Democratic Party asserted that party leaders needed to bypass their quest for sixty Senate votes.

“We’ve got to be tougher. I’ve said the Democrats are not tough enough. Bush would have had the health care bill done a long time ago. He would have gone through reconciliation.”

Under reconciliation, Democrats can move to pass parts of the healthcare reform bill with a simple fifty vote majority, sidestepping the need for a 60-vote filibuster-proof supermajority. Liberals lost their sixtieth vote with the defeat of state attorney general Martha Coakley in Massachusetts to Republican Scott Brown.

Brown has promised to vote against a healthcare reform bill. The bill has passed both chambers of Congress but would need to pass both again after the House and Senate versions are combined.

Quote of the Day

From the Left: “But I have to say, I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.” – Paul Krugman

A memo on what happened in Mass., and how Dems should proceed

John Aravosis (DC), AmericaBlog.com: An interesting read. This memo was just distributed to all Senate chiefs of staff:

STRATEGY MEMO TO SENATE CHIEFS OF STAFF

From: Adam Green, co-founder, Progressive

Change Campaign Committee -- on behalf of the PCCC, Democracy for America, and Credo Action

RE: The right lesson from Massachusetts & the path forward on health care

We wanted to make sure you saw the Massachusetts Research 2000 poll, reported on by the Wall Street Journal, NBC, Politico, Huffington Post, TPM, and others.It polled critical 2010 swing voters: the 18% of Obama voters who returned to the polls and voted for Republican Scott Brown.

• On health care, they oppose the Senate bill because it "doesn't go far enough" and a whopping 82% support the public option.

• On the economy, by 2 to 1 they think Democrats have put special interests ahead of folks like them -- and by large margins think stronger regulation of Wall Street is more important than cutting spending.

• And 57% say Democrats are not "delivering enough on the change Obama promised."

Why did they vote for Scott Brown? They are angry and want Congress to fight on their side against entrenched power. Scott Brown pretended to be a populist, so he won.

Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and Mark Penn are telling Democrats to learn exactly the wrong lesson: Slow down. Give Americans less change.

It's not an accident that each of these men have crashed presidential campaigns into the ground. Don't listen to them -- their thinking got Democrats into this political mess. Voters want bold populism, and if Democrats don't give it to them Republicans are ready to pretend they will.

The best thing Democrats could do in 2010 is fight big corporations like insurance companies and Wall Street. On health care, the path forward is obvious:

Step 1 -- The Senate passes a "reconciliation" bill with the popular public option and other budget-related fixes to the original Senate bill on issues like the national exchange and excise tax. This takes only a simple majority.

Step 2 -- The House passes both the original Senate bill and final reconciliation bill back-to-back and sends them to the President.

Step 3 -- A signing ceremony takes place that Democrats and voters can be proud of.

What would this "public option through reconciliation" strategy achieve? A popular public option, 30 million new Americans insured, pre-existing conditions provisions, a national exchange that "gives people access to the same kind of plan Congress gets," and all the other insurance industry reforms Democrats have been pushing. All without worrying about Joe Lieberman's vote.

Plus, Democrats would be popular -- for finally taking on insurance companies by passing the public option. Again, among the swing Obama voters, only 32% support the current Senate bill but 82% want a public option.

All the old arguments against using reconciliation are gone. It's now the only way to pass a comprehensive health care bill, building off the Senate's prior work. And once reconciliation is being used, the Senate has the votes to pass a public option.

After Massachusetts, passing the public option is a no-brainer -- it's populist, it's good policy, and it's what 2010 swing voters want.

That's why in the 48 hours after the Massachusetts election, over 150,000 people signed a petition advocating the "public option in reconciliation" strategy. More are signing literally every minute, and our three organizations will deliver these signatures to you in the near future.

You can see the Massachusetts poll here and our recent national poll here.

Please feel free to reply with any feedback. And if you would like to be part of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee's ongoing dialogue with Hill staff, please click here and let us know.

Thanks for your time.

Health Care Reform Parady