Christmas 2012 has come early! Democratic Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson reportedly will announce that he's not seeking reelection, a move that will disappoint precisely zero people in the United States of America.

The Democrats will need complete party cohesion to pass Barack Obama's extension of all Bush tax cuts except those for the top two income brackets. But now, predictably, Sen. Ben Nelson and other Democratic "centrists" are voicing their bullshit opposition.

Politico reporter Mike Allen, whose hot-about-town Washington status was recently confirmed via an 8,000-word New York Times Magazine profile, has a dream. It's that Republicans win nine Senate seats this November, making politics more fun for reporters!

Democrats just voted to advance financial regulatory reform today, thanks in part to the Tea Party's ex-boyfriend, Scott Brown. Hippie Senators Russ Feingold and Maria Cantwell refused to vote yea. So, is it a good bill?

The student loan reform legislation that's tied up in the Senate is one of those no-brainer obviously good-policy bills that you have to be a corporate-money beholden parochial stooge to oppose. Those stooges signed a letter of stoogedom.

Fill-in-the-blank: "Four months ago, it appeared all but certain that the White House and Democrats in Congress would succeed in ___." If you guessed "cutting off private student loan sharks from the federal trough," you lose. Sallie Mae wins!

Senator Ben Nelson would like the Medicaid deal he finagled for Nebraska to apply to all the other states, according to a hilariously ass-covering public letter he sent Harry Reid.

The healthcare bill was held hostage by a cabal of bandit-senators who refused to vote for it unless they got cash money. Here's what a vote goes for these days.

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, you cantankerous mufuh, you always need a little push. He got it with 13 hours of negotiations. Nelson puts Democrats at 60. Nobody's arguing that Joe Lieberman remains an asshole.

Occasionally, Bill Kristol lets his "boring hack" disguise slip and reveals his "shameless raging partisan asshole" side. Like in a Weekly Standard post, today, about how Democratic Senator Ben Nelson should kill health care reform because of the weather!