Top Items:
John / Power Line:
Dumb “Reform” — Today's big news story is the release of a report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers on the impact the Senate Finance Committee's health care “reform” bill will have on health insurance premiums. PWC concluded that the cost of health insurance for the average family will rise by $4,000 by 2019, as compared with doing nothing:
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Carrie Budoff Brown / The Politico:
Insurers face blowback after report — In the health care reform debate, where playing nice has been the rule, a scathing insurance industry report looked to critics Monday like a grenade aimed at scuttling progress in Congress. — But it also looked to some like too little, too late.
New York Times:
Congress Is Split on Effort to Tax Costly Health Plans — WASHINGTON — A proposed tax on high-cost, or “Cadillac,” health insurance plans has touched off a fierce clash between the Senate and the House as they wrestle over how to pay for legislation that would provide health benefits to millions of uninsured Americans.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty / Big Government:
The Baucus Prescription: Higher Taxes and Higher Premiums — Today, the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on Senator Max Baucus' health care overhaul. Like most Americans, I believe that our health care system needs to be reformed. However, this bill is a tax and spending bill masquerading as a health reform bill.
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar / Associated Press:
Dems scramble after warning from health insurers
Dems scramble after warning from health insurers
Discussion:
Scared Monkeys, Discriminations, Donklephant, Associated Press, ChrisWeigant.com, ABCNEWS, Think Progress and BackyardConservative
Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Sens: Snowe's healthcare vote puts her top Commerce perch at risk — Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine) is risking a shot at becoming the top Republican on an influential Senate committee by backing Democratic healthcare legislation, according to senators on the panel.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, TPMDC, The Politico, USA Today, Washington Post and No More Mister Nice Blog
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Sarah Lovenheim / Capitol Briefing:
All Eyes on Snowe as Finance Committee Prepares to Vote — Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Me) takes questions from reporters on Capitol Hill. — (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg). — By Sarah Lovenheim — Today marks the day in which the Senate Finance Committee votes on its highly debated health-care bill …
Washington Post:
As Panel Votes Today, Democrats Look Ahead — The Senate Finance Committee will hold a landmark vote on health-care reform legislation Tuesday that is expected to underscore the deep partisan divisions that have emerged and hardened over five months of debate.
Ann Scott Tyson / Washington Post:
Number of U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Overlooks Thousands of Support Troops — Additional Deployments Not Announced and Rarely Noted — President Obama announced in March that he would be sending 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized …
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New York Times:
Views on Afghanistan Buildup Bring Clinton and Gates Together in an Alliance — WASHINGTON — The last time the Obama administration arrived at a moment of truth in the debate over what to do about Afghanistan, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Robert M. Gates delivered a one-two punch in favor of a more ambitious approach.
John Nichols / The Nation:
Whiner-in-Chief — The Obama administration really needs to get over itself. — First, the president and his aides go to war with Fox News because the network maintains a generally anti-Obama slant. — Then, an anonymous administration aide attacks bloggers for failing to maintain a sufficiently pro-Obama slant.
Discussion:
The Confluence, Top of the Ticket, Althouse, Pajamas Media, D-Day, Don Surber, Media Decoder and MoJo Blog Posts
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Fox News:
White House Escalates War of Words With Fox News — Anita Dunn, White House communications director, calls Fox News a “wing of the Republican Party,” after the White House began using its government blog to criticize “Fox lies.” — FOXNews.com — Calling Fox News “a wing of the Republican Party …
The Politico:
BRUCE JENNER: BARACK OBAMA UNDESERVING OF NOBEL AWARD — TMZ has a video of former Olympian and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” reality star Bruce Jenner weighing in on President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize win. — “He's done nothing,” Jenner said. “He's done absolutely nothing.”
Brendan Murray / Bloomberg:
Obama Dollar Retreats Most Against Commodities in Wealth Shift — Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama's effort to lead the world economic recovery by spending the U.S. out of its recession is undermining the dollar, triggering record commodities rallies as investors scour the globe for hard assets.
Discussion:
NPR Blogs
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Ben Smith / The Politico:
Liz Cheney takes on ‘radical’ W.H. — Former Vice President Dick Cheney's eldest daughter Liz will launch a new group aimed at rallying opposition to the “radical” foreign policy of the Obama administration which it says has succeeded only in undermining the nation's security.
Discussion:
The Note, Washington Monthly, Commentary, The Washington Independent, The Page and American Power
Vernon L. Smith / Forbes:
Governing The Commons — No one should now say “Elinor who?” Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom, Oct. 12, 2009 — I have just returned from an undergraduate multidisciplinary class that my colleague (Bart Wilson) and I teach, “Foundations of Economic Exchange.”
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Eugene Robinson / Washington Post:
Obama's Peace Prize Won't Reset His Agenda — Somebody explain this to me: The president of the United States wins the Nobel Peace Prize and Rush Limbaugh joins with the Taliban in bitterly denouncing the award? Glenn Beck has a conniption fit and demands that the president not accept what may be the world's most prestigious honor?
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Adam Liptak / New York Times:
A Question of When Dishonesty Becomes Criminal — In February, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that federal prosecutors had developed an unseemly crush on a particularly vague law, one that had “been invoked to impose criminal penalties upon a staggeringly broad swath of behavior.”
Adam Nagourney / New York Times:
Second Thoughts in Battle for Virginia — WASHINGTON — When State Senator R. Creigh Deeds defeated Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic Party chairman and confidante of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, to be the Democratic nominee for governor of Virginia, the argument among many Democrats …
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David Leigh / Guardian:
Gag on reporting MP's Trafigura question lifted — The question from Paul Farrelly MP which was subject to a gagging order related to the Trafigura toxic waste scandal — How the Guardian reported the Trafigura dumping story — The existence of a previously secret injunction against the media …
Discussion:
Crooked Timber
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Andrew Ross Sorkin / New York Times:
Don't Fail, or Reward Success — “Compensation continues to generate controversy and anger,” Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said last month. “And, in many respects, much of it is understandable and appropriate.” — On Thursday, Mr. Blankfein and his colleagues …
Spiegel Online:
German Ship Transporting Arms for Iran — US troops boarded a German-owned freighter in early October and found eight containers full of ammunition, allegedly headed to Syria from Iran. The shipment is in violation of a UN weapons embargo and has become a source of chagrin in Berlin.
Washington Post:
Leadership on Gay Rights — FULL EQUALITY for gays and lesbians is the civil rights issue of our time. Men and women who want to preserve and protect the ideals of this nation are being booted from the military because of who they are. Same-sex couples who seek the recognition …