A Hatchet Job So Bad It's Good  —  In the past, the insurance industry's power has been a major barrier to health-care reform.  Most notably, the industry paid for the infamous “Harry and Louise” ads that helped kill the Clinton plan.  But times have changed.

Tea-Party Activists Complicate Republican Comeback Strategy  —  PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. — The rise of conservative “tea party” activists around the country has created a dilemma for Republicans.  They are breathing life into the party's quest to regain power.  But they're also waging war …

Don't Call Me a Slut  —  Blogs and Stories  —  Hours after The Daily Beast's Meghan McCain posted a self-portrait on Twitter it made national news and she was a pariah.  But she says it's the media who are the real boobs.  —  On Wednesday I posted a hastily-taken self-portrait on Twitter …

John Edwards, Sarah Palin Both See Favorable Ratings Slide  —  Edwards' popularity down 27 points since January 2008  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Former presidential and vice presidential candidate John Edwards, embroiled in personal scandal, is rated favorably by 21% of Americans and unfavorably by 59%.

Exclusive: How Dems set stage for corporate-backed health care campaign  —  At a meeting last April with corporate lobbyists, aides to President Barack Obama and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) helped set in motion a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, primarily financed by industry groups …

No Nobel Results From Obama Foreign Policy  —  About the only thing more comical than Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was the reaction of those who deemed the award “premature,” as if the brilliance of Obama's foreign policy is so self-evident and its success so assured that if only the Norway Five …

The Reality Moment  —  That which can't continue doesn't.  A nation can spend and spend, pile debt upon debt, but eventually there comes a reality moment when some leader emerges to say enough is enough and when decent people, looking around at themselves and their own best nature, respond by demanding a return to responsibility.

FOX News vs. White House: Round three  —  In Glenn Beck's pursuit of every member of the Obama administration who ever hung a Che Guevera poster on his college dorm wall, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn has become a new target for.... Well, for criticizing FOX News.

“Grab A Mop”  —  “What I reject is when some folks say we should go back to the past policies when it was those very same policies that got us into this mess in the first place.  Another way of putting it is when, you know, I'm busy and Nancy is busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else's mess —

CBO Estimates House Health Bill at $905B or Less  —  Congressional budget analysts have given House leaders cost estimates for two competing versions of their plan to overhaul the health-care system, concluding that one comes within striking distance of the $900 billion limit set by President Obama and the other falls below it.

Interracial couple denied marriage license in La.  —  HAMMOND, La. — A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.  —  Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish …

Michigan Dem responds to GOP charges about Muslim interns  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) - House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers is blasting charges by a group of Republican lawmakers that a Muslim activist group has planted interns on Capitol Hill in an effort to alter national security legislation.

What's “Divisive”?  —  A postscript on the Rush Limbaugh/St. Louis Rams story, which I wrote about here: the conventional criticism of Limbaugh, by those not dumb enough to fall for the fake racist quotes, is that he is a “divisive” figure.  That, for example, was the objection …

Interview Sets Off Skeptics of Balloon Drama  —  Falcon Heene, fearful of being punished for messing around with his father's balloon, had been hiding out above the garage at the family's home in Fort Collins, Colo., his parents said.  —  But on Thursday evening, after Falcon and his family appeared on CNN …

Pence's trips to Iowa, South Carolina, spur White House chatter  —  In the unofficial race for president, just one Republican has been to both Iowa and South Carolina.  —  It's not former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty or former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

A Tea Party greets Obama in San Francisco  —  Even in San Francisco, Pres. Obama cannot escape protesters.  He held a fundraiser at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco tonight (Thursday) and a crowd turned out across the street on Union Square to let him know what they thought …

The Army says it exceeded its 2009 recruiting goals.  But the numbers are very fishy.  —  The Pentagon boasted this week that the U.S. armed forces have exceeded their recruitment goals for this year.  Some officials attributed the success to high unemployment in the civilian job market, others to a spurt in civic-mindedness.

Patient Denied Care For Her Brain Tumor Says Insurers Want You To ‘Die Now, So We Can Save Money Later’  —  Yesterday, Dawn Smith — who has a brain tumor her insurer has refused to help treat — traveled from her home in Atlanta, Georgia to request a meeting with H. Edward Hanway, CEO of the health insurance giant CIGNA.