Preliminary Analysis of the Senate Finance Committee Chairman's Mark As Amended  —  CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have just issued a preliminary analysis of the Senate Finance Committee Chairman's mark for the America's Healthy Future Act of 2009 …

Ayers Dreams of Obama — By: Jonah Goldberg  —  I am not sure what to make of the story that Ayers has now admitted to writing Obama's autobiography.  If it pans out, that is to my mind a very big story.  Stay tuned.  But I do think I should revise my earlier pooh-poohing of Jack Cashill's effort to prove the Ayers-Obama connection.

This, Apparently, Is Not a Joke — By: Kathryn Jean Lopez  —  Barack Obama has this hanging in the White House:  —  It proves a gift to Nick Schulz.

Franken Wins Bipartisan Support For Legislation Reining In KBR's Treatment Of Rape  —  In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad.  She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water …

Carter Joins New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Buffalo News, Minneapolis Star-Tribune in Calling for Chairman to Step Down  —  (WASHINGTON, DC) - House Members Wednesday will have to cast a recorded vote on whether it is acceptable …

Bob Dole: Health Care Will Pass, GOP Should Get On Board  —  WHAT'S YOUR REACTION?  —  Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kans.) told a group of local Kansas reporters on Wednesday, that opposition to the president's health care package had been driven by knee-jerk partisanship …

McCaughey And Me  —  I said my piece about this on this blog a while back.  I do not think it's professional to air the specifics of internal battles after the fact, and I take full responsibility for being the editor of the magazine that published the piece.  I accepted an award for it.

Deep Denial  —  Toughened by their frontier ethos, steeled by serial wars, Israelis are not prone to flattery.  Most, in fact, eschew using the closest equivalent to the Hebrew word for flattery—chanupa— in favor of the derisive Yiddish-derivative, firgun.

Feds strip Arpaio of immigration authority  —  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has stripped Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio of his authority to arrest suspected illegal immigrants based solely on their immigration status.  —  But Arpaio said Tuesday he plans to continue his controversial …

TIME FOR A WAKE-UP CALL, NOT FOR PANIC.... A new Gallup poll shows Democrats losing their edge on the generic-ballot question.  Asked which party's congressional candidate they'd support if the election were held today, 46% preferred the Democratic candidate, while 44% sided with Republicans.

New plan might allow Dems to slip public option through Senate  —  Senate Democrats desperate to find a way to pass a health care bill that includes a federal insurance plan may have come up with a way to do it without putting moderate members who oppose it in political jeopardy.

Tom Shales: I'm Shocked to Be Told I Minimized Polanski's Crime!!  Here, Let Me Do It Again!  —  From a Washington Post chat with Tom Shales today (thanks to several readers): … I'm sure it was you, Tom Shales.  Evidently you need the citation, so here it is, from a column of yours dated June 9, 2008:

Gun Show Undercover  —  Ever wonder how criminals are able to get guns so easily?  It's depressingly simple.  On any given weekend, at dozens of gun shows held in states across the country — criminals can buy guns from “private sellers” who are not required to perform background checks.

Breitbart shapes conservative agenda  —  When Andrew Breitbart first saw video footage of workers from Acorn, a community activist group, telling two undercover reporters how to set up a brothel and avoid paying taxes he knew he had a big scoop on his hands.

‘Code Pink’ rethinks its call for Afghanistan pullout  —  In Afghanistan, the US women's activist group finds that their Afghan counterparts want US troop presence - as well as more reconstruction.  —  KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -  —  When Medea Benjamin stood up in a Kabul meeting hall this weekend …