By GLENN THRUSH & MARIN COGAN

Politico: Democratic Incumbents Call for Less Legislative Ambition

Moderate Democrats, coping with the electoral fallout of President Barack Obama’s grand and ground-down legislative ambitions, have a message for their leaders: Stop supersizing us.

If the first year of Obama’s term was dominated by the so-called Big Bang push for enormous, politically risky initiatives — the stimulus, cap and trade and health care — Year Two is fast shaping up to be year of small ball, retrenchment and backlash. Continue reading >>

Civilian Unemployment Rate

Posted by Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer on The White House Blog:

While unemployment remains a severe problem, today’s employment report contains encouraging signs of gradual labor market healing. The unemployment rate fell three-tenths of a percentage point and employment rose in a number of industries, though overall employment fell slightly.

The unemployment rate declined from 10.0 percent to 9.7 percent. This decline occurred despite a modest rise in the labor force. The broadest measure of the unemployment rate, which includes all persons marginally attached to the labor force and workers working part time for economic reasons, fell almost a full percentage point. Obviously, the unemployment rate remains unacceptably high, and is even worse for certain demographic groups such as teenagers and black or African American workers. Continue reading >>

Obama Health Care Speech to Joint Session of Congress

In light of rising dissatisfaction with current policies and increased government spending, the White House hopes to quickly raise Treasury borrowing limits before the congressional 2010 elections. Only a few hours after Senator Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, the Senate opened debate on a plan to increase the nation’s debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion.

The current national debt limit, $12.4 trillion, is expected to be exceeded within the next month. Of the $12.4 trillion, over $7.5 trillion (54 percent of the nation’s GDP) is borrowed from foreign governments and private investors. Continue reading »»

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann

Apparently Keith Olbermann doesn’t like GOP Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Scott Brown very much. Here’s what he said about Brown in a last-minute comment on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olberman:

“In Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees…The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is close to sending this bad joke to the Senate of the United States.” Continue reading »»