Stocks Whistle Past the Political Graveyard

Everyone's acting shocked that Maine's Olympia Snowe is voting with the Democrats on healthcare, but for the life of me I can't understand why. As I wrote a month ago: Olympia Snowe is a Yes Vote on Obamacare

For weeks, Wall Street has been kidding itself, trading as though a healthcare takeover was dead. It's obviously very much alive, as is Cap and Trade, which the market is also currently making the mistake of dismissing.

What's worse, here's one more market-killing tidbit you'll want to watch for: I just got back from D.C. and I can say with a high degree of certainty that the Democrats will  be passing an estate tax increase before the year is out. The President apparently hates the idea of it falling to 0%, as it is scheduled to do next year, so this is one Bush tax cut they're not going to wait to let expire. Expect a death tax hike soon.

Meanwhile, stocks whistle past the graveyard on all of this.

A return to lasting economic growth? Dream on. This rally's over, it just may not know it yet.

Actually, with today's healthcare news, it might.

Today's political backdrop is the ugliest it has been since the Great Depression; let's see how much longer stocks can ignore this fact.