Top Items:
Frank Phillips / Boston Globe:
Kennedy, looking ahead, urges that Senate seat be filled quickly — Seeks law change for interim post — Senator Edward M. Kennedy, in a poignant acknowledgment of his mortality at a critical time in the national health care debate, has privately asked the governor and legislative leaders …
Discussion:
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Wall Street Journal:
New Rx for Health Plan: Split Bill — The White House and Senate Democratic leaders, seeing little chance of bipartisan support for their health-care overhaul, are considering a strategy shift that would break the legislation into two parts and pass the most expensive provisions solely with Democratic votes.
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Washington Post:
Grassley Urges Scaling Back on Health-Care Reform Plan, Citing Town Hall Anger — Republican Grassley Cites Town Hall Anger — Sen. Charles E. Grassley, a key Republican negotiator in the quest for bipartisan health-care reform, said Wednesday that the outpouring of anger at town hall meetings …
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Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
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.
New York Times:Obama Calls Health Plan a ‘Moral Obligation’
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Althouse, QandO, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, BLACKFIVE, TPMDC, Facing South and Dennis the Peasant
Kevin Drum / MoJo Blog Posts:Healthcare Maneuvering — The latest trial balloon …
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Megan McArdle
Perry Bacon Jr / Capitol Briefing:Ailing Kennedy Asks for Speedy Replacement Process
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, The Note, AmSpecBlog, Glenn Thrush's Blog, Boston Globe and msnbc.com
Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Unreal: MSNBC edits clip of man with gun at Obama rally to support racism narrative — I missed this yesterday at Newsbusters but Treacher, rightly aghast, tipped me to it this afternoon. Never will you see a starker example of MSNBC getting away with the sort of deception for which Fox News …
Discussion:
Michael Calderone's Blog, Reclusive Leftist, theblogprof, Right Wing Nut House, The Moderate Voice, Polimom, Too, Reason, Patterico's Pontifications, Mudville Gazette, The Confluence, Scared Monkeys, QandO, Neptunus Lex, Don Surber, The Jawa Report, Confederate Yankee, Pundit & Pundette, TigerHawk and Blue Crab Boulevard
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Megan McArdle:
Who's Crazy Now? — A series of posts at Reason illustrates that the liberal rage at right-wing loonies is starting to sound, well, a little loonie: — From Jesse Walker: “The social construction of the brownshirt menace, chapter DXXIII: … Here's the video:
Discussion:
Reason
Ace of Spades HQ:Oh, My: MSNBC Carefully Crops Shot of Black Man Carrying AR-15 …
Discussion:
Moonbattery, American Power, Reason, Macsmind, IMAO, Moe Lane, Confederate Yankee, TBogg and The Sundries Shack
US News:
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.
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Faiz Shakir / Think Progress:
Ridge admits Bush administration pushed to raise security alert for political reasons on eve of re-election. — Former Bush Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge is releasing a book on September 1 titled, “The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again.”
Mark Mazzetti / New York Times:
C.I.A. Sought Blackwater's Help in Plan to Kill Jihadists — WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.
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Mike Soraghan / The Hill:
Left flexes muscles on healthcare reform — The fury from the left about President Barack Obama's shift on a public option has raised the prospect of House liberals joining together to defeat a healthcare bill that doesn't meet their standards. — Heading into the August recess …
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Joe Klein / Time:
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 …
New York Times:
Scotland Lets Lockerbie Convict Return to Libya — LONDON — Despite strenuous American opposition, the Scottish government on Thursday ordered the release on compassionate grounds of the only person convicted in the Lockerbie bombing, permitting Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi …
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Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Hatch and Kennedy — In principle, there's something ridiculous about the fact that Ted Kennedy's possible medical incapacitation could play a role in the outcome of the health care debate. Even if Kennedy is too sick to travel to Washington without endangering his health …
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Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
The Limits of Incrementalism — A disheartened Ezra Klein looks at a WSJ/NBC poll showing that people have lots of false beliefs about the president's health care agenda and offers the following chart: — My first thought is “reform opponents are lying like crazy and it's working.”
Mike / The Baseline Scenario:
Has Mortgage Modification failed? — Obama's mortgage modification plan, HAMP (Home Afforable Modification Program), isn't working very well. Designed to help prevent foreclosures by incentivizing and giving legal protection to previously indifferent middle-men servicers it isn't producing anywhere near …
Discussion:
Felix Salmon
Steven Erlanger / New York Times:
A Good-News Photo Op Embarrasses 2 French Ministers — PARIS — It was apparently just a little summertime spinning with the aid of a grocery chain, but Luc Chatel, the education minister and government spokesman, found himself in some hot water over a supposedly staged visit to a quiet supermarket on Monday.
Discussion:
Marginal Revolution
CNN:
Elizabeth Edwards: I expect a paternity test on Hunter's child — (CNN) — Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, told CNN she believes a DNA test will be conducted to confirm the paternity of the child of Rielle Hunter, with whom her husband conducted an affair.
Michael Cooper / New York Times:
Government Jobs Have Grown Since Recession — While the private sector has shed 6.9 million jobs since the beginning of the recession, state and local governments have expanded their payrolls and added 110,000 jobs, according to a report issued Thursday by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.
Ed Kilgore / The New Republic:
Don't Sweat It — Obama sure looks to be in trouble, but we've seen this summertime hysteria before. — As the Dog Days of August descended upon us, there developed across the progressive chattering classes a deep sense of malaise bordering on depression, if not panic …
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