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 …
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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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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.
The Note:
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.
Washington Post:Grassley Urges Scaling Back on Health-Care Reform Plan, Citing Town Hall Anger
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Abby Goodnough / New York Times:Kennedy Asks for Quicker Procedure to Pick His Successor
Discussion:
NewsBusters.org
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:
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Michael Calderone / Michael Calderone's Blog:
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” …
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:
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Michael Calderone / Michael Calderone's Blog:
ALG to MSNBC: Fire Brewer, Ratigan, Toure — I wrote earlier how an MSNBC segment is drawing heat from conservaties who accuse the network of selectively cropping an image so as not to show that one of the people carrying guns at an Obama event was an African-American.
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.”
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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Jordan Fabian / The Hill's Blog Briefing Room:
Leading Blue Dog: Covering uninsured not top priority of health reform — Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) said on Wednesday that providing healthcare to uninsured Americans is “not what this healthcare reform debate is about.” — In making his comments, Ross, who is the centrist Blue Dogs' health …
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 …
KRQE-TV:
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 …
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Chris Ariens / TVNewser:
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.
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.”
Steve Chapman / Reason:
An Odd Silence on Gay Marriage — Why won't leading opponents of same-sex marriage go on the record with their predictions? — Opponents of same-sex marriage reject it on religious and moral grounds but also on practical ones. If we let homosexuals marry, they believe …
The Huffington Post:
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 …
Discussion:
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John H / CNN:
Coleman headed to Harvard — (CNN) — Former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman has a new gig — at successor Al Franken's alma mater. — Harvard University's Institute of Politics announced Thursday that the former Republican senator will be part of its latest class of teaching fellows.
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.
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.
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JammieWearingFool
Erick Erickson / Erick's blog:
DNC Admits Barack Obama WAS Collecting Information on People Via Flag@Whitehouse.gov — Greg Sargent, doing his part as a mouthpiece for the online left, is trying his best to deflect concerns over flag@whitehouse.gov, but in the process reveals that Democrats are now admitting …
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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Charlie Cook / The Cook Political Report:
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.
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