Top Items:
David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times:
Abortion Fight Complicates Debate on Health Care — WASHINGTON — As if it were not complicated enough, the debate over health care in Congress is becoming a battlefield in the fight over abortion. — Abortion opponents in both the House and the Senate are seeking to block the millions …
Discussion:
Megan McArdle, AmSpecBlog, Prescriptions, Telegraph, The Caucus, RedState, Taylor Marsh, The New Republic, The BLT, RHRealityCheck.org, Michelle Malkin, The Foundry and The Page
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Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Harkin says he has the votes to pass public option bill in the Senate — The Senate has the votes to pass a healthcare reform bill including a public option, a key Senate chairman said Tuesday. — Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa.), the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) …
The Politico:
Public option may have new life — The public option limped out of August, battered and left to die in the Senate. — But its supporters are working hard this week to bring it back, against the odds, with a series of high-profile votes in the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday.
Discussion:
The Hill, The Note, New York Times, ABCNEWS, Politics Daily, Los Angeles Times, The Foundry, GayPatriot, Think Progress, Washington Post, TPMDC and Political Byline
Ed Hornick / CNN:
Senate Democrats plan to force vote on public option — WASHINGTON (CNN) — Two members of the Senate Finance Committee plan to put their Democratic colleagues on the spot on Tuesday by offering amendments on whether to give uninsured Americans the opportunity to join a government insurance program.
Chris Harris / Media Matters Action Network:
More Americans Believe In UFOs Than Oppose A Public Option … THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE — As health insurance reform makes its way through congress, it's easy to observe the partisan fighting in Washington and believe the country is deeply divided over a “public option.” — Luckily, that is not the case.
Patrick Yoest / Wall Street Journal:
Senate Committee Rejects Public Option for Health Overhaul — WASHINGTON—The Senate Finance Committee rejected amendments Tuesday that would add a government-run health-insurance plan to the committee's health-care legislation, but debate over whether to adopt a public plan isn't expected to end at the committee.
Discussion:
Fausta's Blog
Katharine Q. Seelye / Prescriptions:
Live Blogging: Senate Finance Committee Debate on Public Option — A Democrat steps in... | 11:47 a.m. Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, is allowed to speak out of turn because he has a pressing engagement elsewhere. He strongly backs Mr. Rockefeller's proposal and says if that fails, he's for Mr. Schumer's.
Discussion:
TPMDC, The Huffington Post, Firedoglake, The Nation, Blogometer, Open Left, Left in the West, Politics Nation and Daily Kos
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:DEPRESSING DEBATE.... As advertised, the Senate Finance Committee …
Patricia Murphy / Politics Daily:Senate Finance Committee Rejects Public Option for Health Insurance
Jeffrey Young / The Hill:How Finance swing votes break down
Discussion:
The Politico, The Note, Associated Press, The Greenroom, TalkLeft, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog and Think Progress
Sid Vacuous / Breitbart.tv:
NEWLY DISCOVERED: COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS APPEAR TO ‘PRAY’ TO PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA — The Gamaliel National Clergy Caucus held “a New Orleans style funeral procession as they deliver a casket symbolizing the death of old ways of providing health care and pray for a new day for health care in America.”
Discussion:
theblogprof, Atlas Shrugs, The Sundries Shack, Nice Deb, HotAirPundit, RedState, Gateway Pundit and Whiskey Fire
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Richard Cohen / Washington Post:
Time for Obama to Act Like a President — Sooner or later it is going to occur to Barack Obama that he is the president of the United States. As of yet, though, he does not act that way, appearing promiscuously on television and granting interviews like the presidential candidate he no longer is.
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The Huffington Post:
GOP Rep. Trent Franks Calls Obama “An Enemy Of Humanity” — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? — A Republican member of the House of Representatives accused President Barack Obama of being “an enemy of humanity” during a conservative values forum this past weekend. — In a speech Saturday …
Discussion:
Associated Press, The Moderate Voice, The Washington Independent, Glenn Thrush's Blog and TPMDC
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David Kurtz / Talking Points Memo:
Who's Legitimate Now? — Anything less than a superduper majority of 65 votes for health care reform in the Senate will not be legitimate, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) tells voters back home. — For the record, Nelson first won election in 2000 with just 51% of the vote and won re-election …
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Washington Post:
Start making your case. — Use the entry form to send us a short opinion essay (400 words or less) pegged to a topic in the news and an additional paragraph (100 words or less) on yourself and why you should win. Entries will be judged on the basis of style, intelligence and freshness of argument …
Discussion:
Michelle Malkin, Accuracy in Media, Wonkette, Michael Calderone's Blog, Matthew Yglesias, Gawker, Reason and PostPartisan
Reuters:
U.S. to Israel: Probe alleged Gaza war crimes to advance peace — The United States called on its close ally Israel on Tuesday to conduct credible investigations into allegations of war crimes committed by its forces in Gaza, saying it would help the Middle East peace process.
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Steven Erlanger / New York Times:
Europe's Socialists Suffering Even in Downturn — PARIS — A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Socialism's slow collapse. — Even in the midst of one of the greatest challenges to capitalism in 75 years, involving a breakdown of the financial system due to “irrational exuberance …
John Nolte / Big Hollywood:
Hollywood Unites to Defend Polanski — Pleading guilty to unlawful sex with an underage girl — the drugging, raping and sodomizing of a 13 year-old — isn't stopping Hollywood from ginning up an indignation campaign over the possibility of fugitive director Roman Polanski being held accountable for his crimes.
Discussion:
Politics Daily, The Smoking Gun, theblogprof, Lean Left, Hot Air, Top of the Ticket, Don Surber, Guardian, The Confluence, The Reaction, The Other McCain, QandO, Michelle Malkin, Wake up America, beliefnet, Mediaite, NewsReal Blog, YID With LID, Moe Lane, Macsmind and Clayton Cramer's BLOG
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Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:Video: Whoopi says Polanski didn't commit “rape-rape”
Discussion:
Patterico's Pontifications, The Moderate Voice, TalkLeft, Jezebel, Big Hollywood, Washington Post, Fausta's Blog and Pajamas Media
Chris Lee / kff.org:
Public Support For Health Reform Increases in September, Reversing Summer Declines as Congress Takes Up Legislation — Survey Finds Support For New Proposals For Fees And Taxes on Insurance Companies to Help Pay For Overhaul — MENLO PARK, CA — Public support for health reform ended its summer slide …
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Mickey Kaus / Kausfiles:
Did ACORN Elect Al Franken? — Robert Samuelson scorns the egomaniacal “quest for glory” of Congressional Democrats who are trying to pass health care reform. But of course the quest for glory may be the only reason a worthwhile reform could still pass. It ain't going to pass it because it's popular!
Discussion:
The Washington Independent
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
400 Pages In Four Months — That's Sarah Palin's achievement for Jonathan Burnham, who runs the marketing company, Harper Collins. Several questions naturally arise. Did she actually write those 400 pages? Please. Her peregrinations in the couple of months since she quit her “day-job” …
Discussion:
TBogg
Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
Morning Fix: Attack Dog Needed? — AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dawn Majors — The national debate over President Obama's health care plan has exposed a weakness in the Democratic Party apparatus: it lacks a high profile surrogate to push back — hard — against the rhetorical arguments put forward by Republicans.
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, Commentary, NewsBusters.org, Conservatives4Palin.com and Club for Growth
Jim McElhatton / Washington Times:
EXCLUSIVE: Porn surfing rampant at U.S. science foundation — Number of cases overwhelms watchdog, costs taxpayers — Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation …
Wall Street Journal:
French Atomic Pique — Sarkozy unloads on Obama's ‘virtual’ disarmament reality. — Printer — Friendly — President Obama wants a unified front against Iran, and to that end he stood together with Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown in Pittsburgh on Friday morning to reveal the news …
NY Daily News:
Former Bill Clinton aide claims ex-president got touchy-feely with her — A book due out in January by Stacy Parker Aab alleges Steven Spielberg's wife greeted then-President Clinton in a bathing suit. Above, Clinton gives a speech on energy efficiency. — Monica Lewinsky may not always …
Discussion:
JammieWearingFool
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