Top Items:
New York Times:
Lieberman Gets Ex-Party to Shift on Health Plan — WASHINGTON — Just the thought of Joseph I. Lieberman makes some Democrats want to spit nails these days. But Mr. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, is not the least troubled by his status as Capitol Hill's master infuriator …
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Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Why Democrats push health care, even if it kills them — To some observers, the Democrats' race to pass national health care seems irrational — even suicidal. Don't party leaders understand how much the public opposes the bills currently on the table? Don't they know that voters are likely …
Ezra Klein:
The death of the public option — The public option died tonight. So, it seems, did its eager successor, the Medicare buy-in. Harry Reid buried the ideas at a somber meeting of the Senate Democratic Caucus. “Could it have been better?” asked Sen. Jay Rockefeller. “Yeah.
Brian Beutler / TPMDC:
Rahm To Reid: Give Lieberman What He Wants — Obama administration officials were not pleased when word leaked out earlier today that the White House was leaning on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to cut a deal with Joe Lieberman on a public option alternative—and they gave their counterparts …
Ezra Klein:
Is the Senate health-care reform bill still worth passing? — “Insurance companies win,” Markos Moulitsas tweeted last night. “Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate.” — This was, for progressives, a frustrating vote. But the flip side of it being morally unconscionable …
The Politico:
Obama: ‘Last chance’ for health reform — In a provocative argument designed to rescue his foundering health-care plan, President Barack Obama will warn Senate Democrats in a White House meeting Tuesday that this is the “last chance” to pass comprehensive reform.
Jonathan Cohn / The New Republic:
What Public Option Supporters Won — The public option is dead this morning. And this time, it isn't coming back to life. The Senate isn't going to include any version of the idea in its bill. And while the House can still demand a public option in conference, nobody I know expects the House to prevail.
The Hill:
Sen. Reid bows to centrists, will drop Medicare buy-in provision to pass bill
Sen. Reid bows to centrists, will drop Medicare buy-in provision to pass bill
Discussion:
The Hill, The New Ledger, The Huffington Post, Wake up America, Wonk Room, TPMDC and Washington Monthly
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
VIDEO: Watch Lieberman Endorse Medicare Buy-In Three Months Ago
VIDEO: Watch Lieberman Endorse Medicare Buy-In Three Months Ago
Discussion:
Washington Post, Washington Monthly, Think Progress, Crooks and Liars, Emptywheel, The Daily Beast, FiveThirtyEight, The Moderate Voice, TPMDC, msnbc.com, The Washington Independent, The Takeaway, Jack & Jill Politics, Spiritual Politics, YID With LID, The Reaction, Politics Daily, Philly.com, Open Left, Lynn Sweet, The Hill, PostPartisan, Ezra Klein, The Political Carnival, Talking Points Memo, AMERICAblog News, The Huffington Post, Matthew Yglesias, Daily Kos, Hullabaloo, TPM LiveWire, Wonkette, Lawyers, Guns and Money and The Corner on National …
Dominic Lawson / Times of London:
Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don't add up — Hannah Devlin, Ben Webster, Philippe Naughton in Copenhagen — There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday. — The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead …
Meredith Fuchs / The George Washington University:
National Security Archive and White House Reach Agreement for Restoration of Missing Bush White House E-mails — For more information contact: — The National Security Archive (the Archive), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the White House and the National Archives …
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Andrew Ross Sorkin / New York Times:
Putting Obama on Hold, in a Hint of Who's Boss — President Obama didn't exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street's top brass on Monday.
Discussion:
The Washington Independent, naked capitalism, AMERICAblog News, Townhall.com and Prairie Weather
Charlie Savage / New York Times:
U.S. Said to Pick Illinois Prison to House Detainees — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is expected to announce on Tuesday that it has selected a prison in northwestern Illinois to house terrorism suspects now being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in a major step toward shutting down that military detention facility.
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Kenneth P. Vogel / The Politico:
Conservatives grab for tea party cash — “It's time for the tea party movement to start flexing its muscle in the electoral process,” Odom said in announcing the launch of Liberty First, which he said collected $11,500 in its first week of fundraising, and has accepted pledges for another $98,000.
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Anthony Watts / Watts Up With That?:
DOE sends a “litigation hold notice” regarding CRU to employees - asking to “preserve documents” — It appears bigger things are brewing related to CRU's Climategate. — WUWT commenter J.C. writes in comments: — I work at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.
Big Hollywood:
Hollywood Producer Urges Celebs to Target Joe Lieberman's Wife — What's the Difference Between the Mafia and a Hollywood Leftist? ...the Mafia doesn't go after your family. — It shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that Jane Hamsher, the founder and publisher of the website targeting Joe Lieberman's wife …
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Gerry Tuoti / The Taunton Gazette News RSS:
Taunton second-grader suspended over drawing of Jesus — A Taunton father is outraged after his 8-year-old son was sent home from school and required to undergo a psychological evaluation after drawing a stick-figure picture of Jesus Christ on the cross. — The father said he got …
James Taranto / Wall Street Journal:
A Courage of Failure — ObamaCare backer: Defying public, wrecking health care would be “a significant political achievement.” — Printer — Friendly — There's trouble in paradise, or rather there would be if the U.S. Senate's Democratic Caucus were paradise.
Washington Post:
House Democrats lose fourth member to retirement — Caucus privately expresses concern about implications — House Democrats got a jolt Monday when a fourth lawmaker in a matter of weeks announced his retirement, leaving party officials and strategists fearful that they represent …
Catalina Camia / USA Today:
Poll: Obama approval rating positive, but just barely — There's a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll out today and Washington bureau chief Susan Page has the latest on President Obama's numbers: — When he was inaugurated in January, Obama scored a job rating of 64% approve-25% disapprove …
Susan Stabley / bizjournals:
Report: John Edwards bought Charlotte home for former mistress Rielle Hunter — Rumors have been circulating for several days through Charlotte's Eastover neighborhood that former U.S. Sen. John Edwards bought a home here for his admitted former mistress, Rielle Hunter.
Anne Applebaum / Washington Post:
Anne Applebaum on devaluing humanity and hope in Copenhagen — There is no nihilism like the nihilism of a 9-year-old. “Why should I bother,” one of them recently demanded of me, when he was presented with the usual arguments in favor of doing homework: “By the time I'm grown up …
Manu Raju / The Politico:
Franken feuds with GOP's No. 4 — Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) sparred sharply on the Senate floor Monday evening, a departure from the usually dormant speeches in the august chamber. — Franken said he was struck by a speech in which he said Thune had refused …
Dalton Conley / American Prospect:
Don't Blame the Billionaires — Who cares about the excesses of the rich? It's the fate of the poor that matters. — When I was growing up, my mother used to sing me the old adage, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” before hastening to add, “And it's all Ronald Reagan's fault.”
Discussion:
Capital Gains and Games blogs
Journalism.org:
ECONOMY AND HEALTH LEAD BUT CLIMATE CHANGE GAINS ATTENTION — In a week when retail sales rose, banks began paying off their government loans, and a compromise appeared to be struck in the Senate over the controversial public option, the economy and health care competed for the top of the news agenda.
Discussion:
Michael Calderone's Blog
Ezra Klein:
The unintended consequences of reconciliation — Joe Lieberman's compromise, it seems, is no compromise. And he's infuriated so many Senate and House Democrats, not to mention so many in the Democratic base, that his bitter reversal might have made the prospects of any compromise a lot more remote.
David Brooks / New York Times:
Obama's Christian Realism — If you were graduating from Princeton in the first part of the 20th century, you probably heard the university president, John Hibben, deliver one of his commencement addresses. Hibben's running theme, which was common at that time, was that each person is part angel, part devil.