So the yearlong production, set to close after Massachusetts’s devastatingly negative Jan. 19 review, saw the curtain raised one last time. Obamacare lives.

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A record $3.47 billion was spent on federal lobbyists in 2009, according to a new study by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Ergo, fair now to say that Wall Street and K Street had a bull year, while Main Street suffered in recession.

The lobbyist boon times were tied to the legislative debates of the day: health care reform, financial reform and energy policy.

Still, 2009 looks not greatly different from 2008. There was about a 5% total increase in spending between the two years. But most of that increase occurred in the 4th quarter. And in the 4th quarter of 2008 there were those two mega events, financial crisis and the presidential election, likely tamping down spending. For example, the report finds that spending in the 2009 3rd quarter was up 3% compared to a 16% rise in the 4th quarter.

Nevertheless, it exhibits how disconnected the worlds of Wall Street and K Street are from the larger American experience. Both industries earned record profits the same year foreclosures shattered previous records.

Notably, with health care reform atop the 2009 legislative debate, the report found that federal lobbying expenditures for the pharmaceutical and health products industry were larger than any single industry ever. Health care lobby’s total 2009 bill: $266.8 million. Bloomberg reported last August that there were 3,300 health care lobbyists working Congress – six lobbyists for each of the 535 House and Senate lawmakers.

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Fully 62% of Americans say they are “angry” about the bank bonuses. Other subjects of public disgust: 48% say banking bailout, 39% say partisan gridlock and 37% say the budget deficit, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.

Bank anger transcends partisanship. Among those who say financial executives record bonuses make them angry: 72% of [...]

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“Iam not an ideologue,” protested President Obama at a gathering with Republican House members last week. Perhaps, but he does have a tenacious commitment to a set of political convictions.

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$14,294,000,000,000.00 is The new debt limit of the government of the United States because the House agrees to $1.9 trillion more #debt

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There’s been a remarkable amount of coverage of President Obama’s appearance at the House Republican retreat today, but I haven’t seen anyone focus on the President’s rather stunning admission about the Democrats’ health care legislation (Video):
The last thing I will say, though — let me say this about health care and the health care debate, [...]

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The real scandal surrounding the failed Christmas Day airline bombing was not the fact that a terrorist got on a plane — that can happen to any administration, as it surely did to the Bush administration — but what happened afterward when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was captured and came under the full control of the U.S. government.

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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg lobbed a pre-State of the Union surprise for the White House yesterday, reversing course on the administration’s plan to hold the Khalid Shaikh Mohammed trial in a lower Manhattan courthouse. Today, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) introduced legislation that would cut off funds for such a trial.

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