Obama Ally: Dem Majority Is History If Health Reform Fails  —  ABC News' Teddy Davis reports:  —  A top Obama ally predicted Wednesday in an interview with ABC News that Democrats will lose their congressional majority in next year's midterm elections if they fail to put a health-care reform bill on President Obama's desk.

Tom Ridge on National Security After 9/11  —  Tom Ridge, the first head of the 9/11-inspired Department of Homeland Security, wasn't keen on writing a tell-all.  But in The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again, out September 1, Ridge says he wants to shake “public complacency” over security.

Republicans Calling for Super-Supermajority for Health Care  —  In order to become law, a health care bill needs to secure a majority on the House Ways & Means Committee and also the House Energy & Commerce Committee and also the House Education & Labor Committee and, of course, the full United States House of Representatives.

Special Update from the Cook Political Report  —  For those of you not addicted to the 1:00pm EDT daily release of Gallup's three-night moving average tracking poll, President Obama's job approval rating in both their August 16-18 and August 17-19 averages was just 51 percent, the lowest level of his presidency.

Righty bloggers slam MSNBC over ‘gun’ clip; network responds  —  Several conservative bloggers, including Hot Air, RedState, and NewsBusters, have taken MSNBC to task for not identifying a man with a gun at an Obama event as an African-American in a segment that discussed the “racial overtones” …

Credible Threats  —  Via ActBlue, Blue America has raised nearly $200,000 for members of Congress who have pledged to vote against any bill that doesn't contain a public option.  Pretty impressive.  If push comes to shove, and the choice is no bill vs. a bill without a public option …

New Poll: 77 Percent Support “Choice” Of Public Option  —  Read More: Poll Public Option, Public Option Poll.  Nbc Poll, Public Plan, Survey Usa, Survey Usa Poll, Politics News  —  More than three out of every four Americans feel it is important to have a “choice” between …

The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists  —  In one of those awful collisions between public policy and real life, I was in the midst of an awkward conversation about end-of-life issues with my father when Sarah Palin raised the remarkable idea that the Obama Administration's attempt to include …

You won't win the healthcare debate by calling people stupid racists  —  The folks listening to them are mostly just scared  —  A man speaks at a town hall held by Democratic Reps. Vic Snyder and Mike Ross at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock on Aug, 5.

An odd silence on gay marriage  —  Opponents of same-sex marriage reject it on religious and moral grounds but also on practical ones.  If we let homosexuals marry, they believe, a parade of horribles will follow — the weakening of marriage as an institution, children at increased risk of broken homes …

Terminally ill Lockerbie bomber lands in Libya  —  GREENOCK, Scotland (CNN) — The man convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, two decades ago received a boisterous welcome when he landed in his native Libya on Thursday.

ABC's Charles Gibson to Cindy Sheehan: Thanks for your sacrifice.  Now get lost.  —  In an appearance August 18 on WLS radio in Chicago, ABC News anchor Charles Gibson was asked about anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan's plans to travel to Martha's Vineyard next week, where she will protest …

Glenn Beck Off This Week: Vacation or Something More?  —  First on TVNewser: Tipsters inside Fox News tell us Glenn Beck's vacation this week from his Fox News show was not planned.  We hear Beck was told to take this week off to let some of the heat surrounding him die down.

Obama: everything gets ‘wee-weed’ up in D.C. in August  —  President Obama is betting on a more successful September than August, when it comes to his bid for healthcare reform.  —  At an online forum on healthcare held Thursday at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) …

Obama's lost summer  —  At the start of the year, Democrats were convinced they'd finally cracked the code.  —  They'd spent years testing and refining their message on health care reform.  They had a popular president to push the effort, and Democratic majorities in Congress to support it.

clunkers pile up  —  ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Some New Mexico auto dealers have backed out of the cash-for-clunkers program and more may do so as the federal government takes its time providing cash reimbursements.  —  Dealers across the state are owed more than $3.6 million …

Bachmann: No Government Control Over My Body!  —  Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who is a a staunch champion of the religious right and an opponent of President Obama on all things under the sun, has a new line against the Democrats on health care: Keep the government off my body!