Top Items:
Douglas Elmendorf / Director's Blog:
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 …
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Igor / Wonk Room:
CBO: New Baucus Deficit Neutral Bill Costs $829B, Will Reduce Deficit By $81 Billion Over Next Decade — The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the new version of the Senate Finance Committee's health bill “will result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $81 billion over the 2010-2019 period.”
Discussion:
Megan McArdle, Matthew Yglesias, The Politico, Ezra Klein, Daily Kos, Open Left and NOW! Blog
Ezra Klein:
Meet the New Health-Care System, Not That Different From the Old Health-Care System — You probably can't see that table particularly well. Click on it, and it'll enlarge. It comes from one of the final pages of the Congressional Budget Office's score (pdf) of the Senate Finance Committee's bill …
Discussion:
Democratic Strategist
Jeffrey Young / The Hill:
CBO: Baucus bill costs $829 billion, reduces deficit by $81 billion — The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a cost estimate of the healthcare reform bill under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee, concluding it would increase federal spending by $829 billion over 10 years …
Discussion:
Hot Air, The Politico, The Swamp, The Note, Ben Smith's Blog, Blue Crab Boulevard, thedanashow.wordpress.com and George's Bottom Line
Jonathan Cohn / The New Republic:
CBO's Latest Projections Out. Reason for Relief? And Concern? — CBO is out with its rough estimates of the Senate Finance bill as it looks now, following the amendments made during the recent markup hearings. Here's my initial take, informed loosely by a few conversations with experts and insiders:
Amanda Carpenter / Washington Times:A new mommy tax — When Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max …
Discussion:
Moe Lane
Erick Erickson / Erick's blog:
BREAKING: Senate GOP Folding Over Health Care Reform — I am told quite reliably that in a meeting today on Capitol Hill, Republican Senators began to rapidly move toward concessions on health care because they are afraid they cannot hold their members. Some Republicans are now thinking of supporting a government program.
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Barb Shelly / Midwest Voices:
Bob Dole outs naysayer Mitch McConnell — Bob Dole supports health care reform. — “This is one of the most important measures members of Congress will vote on in their lifetimes,” the former Republican Senate majority leader and presidential candidate told an audience in Kansas City today.
The Huffington Post:
Dems Discussing Public Option With Opt-Out Clause: The Silver Bullet? — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? — Senate Democrats have begun discussions on a compromise approach to health care reform that would establish a robust, national public option for insurance coverage but give individual states the right to opt out of the program.
Discussion:
TPMDC, Daily Kos, Wonk Room, TalkLeft, The Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! and AMERICAblog News
Dave Helling / KansasCity.com Prime Buzz:
Dole: Health care reform coming late this year or next; “you lost” when Clinton-era reform failed — Former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole says “there will be a signing ceremony” for a health care reform bill either late this year or early next. — But the former presidential candidate says he isn't sure what the bill will say.
Faiz Shakir / Think Progress:
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 …
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Kathryn Jean Lopez / The Corner on National …:
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.
Discussion:
The TrogloPundit
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Jonah Goldberg / The Corner on National Review Online:
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.
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Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
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.
Discussion:
MoJo Blog Posts, TalkLeft, The Atlantic Politics Channel, J. Bradford DeLong's …, Ezra Klein and Balloon Juice
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Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Rep. Waters: ‘Many members’ suffer from disclosure problems like Rep. Rangel — “Many members” of Congress suffer from the same disclosure issues as the embattled Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), one of his congressional allies suggested Wednesday. — Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) …
Discussion:
The Politico, Michelle Malkin, The Sundries Shack, Weekly Standard, Moe Lane, Gothamist and TPMMuckraker
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Michael B. Oren / The New Republic:
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.
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias, Haaretz, TPMCafe, Commentary, Ezra Klein, Newshoggers.com and The Majlis
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Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Latest Internal Whip Count: Nearly Three-Fourths Of House Dems Support Robust Public Option — Still more grounds for cautious optimism about the public option: — I've got the latest internal whip count numbers from Dem Rep. Raul Grijalva, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressional Caucus …
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Patterico's Pontifications:
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:
Michael R. Bloomberg / The Huffington Post:
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.
Rasmussen Reports:
Election 2010: Louisiana Senate — Louisiana Senate: GOP Candidates Lead by Double Digits — Senator David Vitter holds a 10-percentage-point lead over Democrat Charlie Melancon in an early look at Louisiana's 2010 General Election. The first Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 survey …
Tankerbabelc / From Cow Pastures to Kosovo:
Survivors in Afghanistan Need Immediate Help - 56 Soldiers Lost EVERYTHING — UPDATE as of 7 OCT 1430 hrs — We do NOT need fleece blankets, wash clothes or towels. Still need everything else on the list below — UPDATE as of 7 OCT 09 1300 hrs — STILL NEED
Matthew Garrahan / Financial Times:
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.
CNN:
NOW blasts Letterman over affairs with staff — WASHINGTON (CNN) — The National Organization for Women has sharply criticized comedian David Letterman, accusing him of promoting a hostile, uncomfortable work environment. — “The latest Letterman controversy sheds new light …
Discussion:
Taylor Marsh
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