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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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 …
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
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 …
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.
Discussion:
Christian Science Monitor, The Politico, The Swamp, Daily Kos, Salon and The TrogloPundit
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:
Daily Kos, Wonk Room, TalkLeft, The Huffington Post, TPMDC, Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! and AMERICAblog News
Nicholas Ballasy / CNSNews:
Reid ‘Likely’ to Make Entire Health Bill an Amendment to Unrelated Tax Bill That House Passed in March — (CNSNews.com) — A senior aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told CNSNews.com that it is “likely” that Reid will use H.R. 1586—a bill passed by the House in March to impose …
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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Carol Vogel / New York Times:
A Bold and Modern White House — The Obamas' taste in art is as broad as abstract canvases by Josef Albers, American Indian scenes by George Catlin and paintings by little-known figures like Alma Thomas, the African-American Expressionist painter. Works by those artists were among …
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Kathryn Jean Lopez / The Corner on National …:This, Apparently, Is Not a Joke — By: Kathryn Jean Lopez
Discussion:
The TrogloPundit
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 and TPMMuckraker
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Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
In Private Meeting, Pelosi Floats Watered-Down Public Option, Frustrating Liberals — Just when things were looking good for the public option... In a meeting today between House leaders and rank and file Dems in the capital, Nancy Pelosi frustrated many liberals by suggesting that they consider …
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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.
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.
Jean Kaufman / Weekly Standard:
Reagan and Obama — Is America a city on a hill or a country in decline? — Ronald Reagan believed in America. — One way he expressed this faith was through the image of “a shining city on a hill,” a phrase Reagan uttered in one form or another in many of his speeches …
Discussion:
The Jawa Report
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
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.
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 …
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 …
Tankerbabelc / From Cow Pastures to Kosovo:
Survivors in Afghanistan Need Immediate Help - 56 Soldiers Lost EVERYTHING — MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!! - Please read to the end of this update (7 OCT 2009 1930 hrs) — We are “mission accomplished” for the replacement of personal articles for the Soldiers from COP Keating.
Daily Mail:
Thugs attack two transvestites... who turn out to be cage fighters wearing fancy dress — Two thugs who attacked what they thought were a pair of transvestites picked on the wrong men - when their intended victims turned out to be cage fighters on a night out in fancy dress.
Washington Wire:
Did the First Dog Leave a Number Two on Air Force One? — Elizabeth Williamson reports on the White House. — The mystery begins in a Pittsburgh bar where several high-flying airline types met last month. — The group swapped stories over drinks when three people present let loose with a good tale.
Discussion:
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