Senate Democrats, in the hope of attracting Republican votes, appear to have surrendered on the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. They've mastered the art of negotiating against themselves. READ MORE Political Oscars 2010 It's time again for our annual mash-up of this year's noteworthy achievements in the worlds of politics and entertainment. READ MORE Want to Come to the Taping of Our New Sitcom? WATCH: Arianna Discusses Move Your Money on CBS Sunday Morning WATCH: Arianna Discusses Weakened Financial Reform Legislation on CNN WATCH: Arianna Talks Too Big To Fail, Undercover Boss, and "Air Traffic Control Boy" on Real Time With Bill Maher

Like Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th, the public option rose from the grave this week (instead of slashing teenage victims, it would slash health care costs). With zero input from the White House, 41 Senators have agreed to support a public option via reconciliation. Ryan Grim lays out how that can easily become 50 -- and Dick Durbin has promised to "aggressively whip" a health care bill that includes a public option. But Nancy Pelosi won't include it in the reconciliation package. Why? She claims it's because the Senate doesn't "have the votes" -- which could also be said about the House passing the Senate bill (Stupak, anyone?). So the Senate blames the House, the House blames the Senate, the White House acts as if it doesn't have a say in the matter, and the insurance companies -- lacking real competition -- keep laughing all the way to the bank.

Sen. Ted Kaufman has emerged as one of the Senate's fiercest critics of Wall Street and a champion of the need to push for a serious rebooting of our financial system.

This week, Virginia executed Paul Powell for murdering a 16-year-old girl and raping and attempting to murder her 14-year-old sister. Reading the details of the crime, your instinctive response is utter revulsion and a cry for justice to be done. But state-sanctioned killing -- unless it is for reasons of national security -- is not something we as a society should be doing. In America, 139 people on death row have been exonerated. And a study on death penalty appeals found two-thirds of all death sentences were overturned due to serious errors, including prosecutorial misconduct. Then there is the cost: it is much more expensive to execute a prisoner than to send him to prison for life. For example, California could save $125 million a year if it eliminated the death penalty. That's a lot of money for a state cutting social services to the bone. It's time for the death penalty to be put to death.

The lives of millions of Americans will be improved because of what the Democrats have done. The Republicans, meanwhile, have been hoisted with their own deeply cynical petard.

The GOP playbook on health care only had two lines: "scare people" and "make stuff up." The result was a resounding defeat. Republicans responded to the clanging wakeup call by...offering up more of the same. This week brought the petulant shutting down of Senate committees; a desperate attempt to turn a slip of the tongue by Rep. John Dingell into a totalitarian smoking gun; and Sarah Palin adorning her Facebook page with 20 gun sights, one for each of the Democrats "targeted" by her PAC. This craziness has consequences. Witness the threats and vandalism directed at Democratic lawmakers, and the Harris poll finding that 38 percent of Republicans say Obama is doing many things Hitler did, and 24 percent believe Obama might be the Antichrist. However flawed this poll -- even if the numbers are a fraction of these -- this is certifiable. And very troubling. To quote Joe Biden: This is a big effing deal.