Top Items:
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Robert Gibbs: Public Option Via Reconciliation Can't Pass Congress — Hmm. At the press briefing just now, Robert Gibbs made the White House's most expansive comments yet about the push for a reconciliation vote on the public option — and, to put it mildly, supporters won't find them encouraging.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Ezra Klein, TPM LiveWire, CentristNet, SpeakEasy, The Page and Daily Kos
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David Brooks / New York Times:
Into the Mire — Barack Obama came to Washington with the nation's hope for change riding on his shoulders. He promised to reform the health care system. He hired many of the country's top experts who had written brilliantly about how to do reform. — He immediately moved away from some of their ideas.
Ezra Klein:
Jay Rockefeller's inconvenient honesty on the public option — Sen. Jay Rockefeller did something very strange last night: He was honest. He said, publicly, that he does not support adding the public option to the reconciliation bill. And he's going to pay for it today.
Discussion:
TPMDC, The New Republic, Matthew Yglesias, The Hill, The Huffington Post, Swampland and Mother Jones
Ezra Klein:
A failure of White House leadership — One other point on the public option: This has been a complete and utter failure of White House leadership. They need to give this effort their support, or they need to kill it by publicly stating their opposition. But they can't simply wait …
Erica Werner / Associated Press:
Hoyer: Comprehensive health bill may be no go — WASHINGTON - Democratic congressional leaders confronted the reality Tuesday that they may not be able to pass the comprehensive health care overhaul sought by President Barack Obama. Republican leaders prepared to do everything in their power to make sure they can't.
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Dennis the Peasant, NO QUARTER, Hot Air, Pundit & Pundette, Commentary, The Hill, Washington Post and msnbc.com
Dan Pfeiffer / White House.gov Blog Feed:
Will the Republicans Post Their Health Plan... and When? — The President believes strongly that Thursday's bipartisan meeting on health insurance reform will be most productive if both sides come to the table with a unified plan to start discussion - and if the public has the opportunity …
Discussion:
The Corner on National …, ABCNEWS, USA Today, Boston Globe, New York Times, Bloomberg, The Save Jersey Blog, Another Black Conservative, CBS News, The Hill, The Note, The Lonely Conservative, Gateway Pundit, The Plum Line, NOW! Blog, Michelle Malkin, Wonk Room, New York Magazine, Wake up America, Outside The Beltway, The Hill, Sister Toldjah, Swampland, Washington Monthly, Riehl World View, NewsBusters.org, The Swamp, GINA COBB, The Page, DISSENTING JUSTICE, Jules Crittenden, CentristNet, Stop The ACLU, snooperreport.com, Fausta's Blog and Commentary
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Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Stupak: ‘Unacceptable’ — This statement from Bart Stupak is conciliatory in tone, but not in substance, and it isn't going to make things easy in the House: — I was pleased to see that President Obama's health care proposal did not include several of the sweetheart deals provided to select states in the Senate bill.
Wall Street Journal:
ObamaCare at Ramming Speed — The White House shows it has no interest in compromise. — A mere three days before President Obama's supposedly bipartisan health-care summit, the White House yesterday released a new blueprint that Democrats say they will ram through Congress with or without Republican support.
kff.org:
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — February 2010
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — February 2010
Discussion:
Ezra Klein, The New Republic, Daily Kos, Behind the Numbers, ProfessorBainbridge.com, Planet Washington and Politics Daily
Mike Allen / The Politico:
GOP plans dozens or hundreds of health-care amendments …
GOP plans dozens or hundreds of health-care amendments …
Discussion:
Christian Science Monitor, msnbc.com, Washington Post, CNN, Hot Air, CBS News and The Note
Rachel Slajda / TPMDC:
Boehner: Obama's Health Care Proposal Is Too Short
Boehner: Obama's Health Care Proposal Is Too Short
Discussion:
Think Progress, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Open Congress, Firedoglake and Washington Monthly
Brian Montopoli / CBS News:
Harry Reid Says GOP Should “Stop Crying” About Reconciliation — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters Tuesday that Republicans “should stop crying” about the possible use of the parliamentary procedure known as budget reconciliation to pass a health care reform bill.
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J. Taylor Rushing / The Hill:
Senate sitting on 290 bills already passed by House; tension mounts — Exasperated House Democratic leaders have compiled a list showing that they have passed 290 bills that have stalled in the Senate. — The list is the latest sign that Democrats in the lower chamber are frustrated with their Senate counterparts.
Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Reid: GOP should ‘stop crying’ about majority-vote move on healthcare — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told Republicans to “stop crying” about the potential use of a legislative tactic to finish healthcare legislation with a majority vote. — Reid lashed out at the minority Republicans …
Scott Whitlock / NewsBusters.org:
MSNBC Regular Donny Deutsch Slams Marco Rubio With Racially Charged Attack: He's a ‘Coconut’ — MSNBC and CNBC contributor — and professed Charlie Crist admirer — Donny Deutsch used racially charged language on Monday night, smearing Republican senatorial candidate Marco Rubio as a “coconut.”
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Frank Bruni / New York Times:
Where Scott Brown Is Coming From — In just 48 hours, Scott Brown would be sworn in as the newest member of the United States Senate, stepping into the shoes (and office suite) of Edward M. Kennedy and the world of woe on Capitol Hill. But as he zipped down a Massachusetts highway …
Discussion:
Marbury, HillBuzz, The Swamp, The Page, American Power, The Washington Independent and Commentary
RELATED:
Matt Pressman / Vanity Fair:
Hate Sells: Why Liberal Magazines Are Suffering Under Obama — The George W. Bush years were good for more than just oilfield-services companies and waterboard manufacturers. They were also a boon for liberal political magazines, whose circulation soared on the wings of the Bush hatred that swept much of the country.
Douglas Elmendorf / Director's Blog:
Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output — Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the economic stimulus package, certain recipients of funds appropriated in ARRA (most grant and loan recipients …
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Michael Barbaro / City Room:
Ford Polls New Yorkers on Himself and Gillibrand — Former Representative Harold E. Ford Jr. of Tennessee has dug into his own pocket to pay for a detailed poll, conducted over the last few days, intended to test the viability of a Senate run in New York, according to people briefed on the matter.
The Conference Board:
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® Declines Sharply — The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®, which had increased in January, declined sharply in February. The Index now stands at 46.0 (1985=100), down from 56.5 in January. The Present Situation Index decreased to 19.4 from 25.2.
Discussion:
Financial Times, Associated Press, Clusterstock, The Atlantic Business Channel and FT Alphaville
Matea Gold / Company Town:
ABC News prepares major restructuring; between 300 and 400 staffers could be cut [updated] — ABC News is poised to make a major round of cuts that will reduce the size of the news division by as much as 20% and radically reorder the network's traditional approach to news gathering.
Discussion:
The Impolitic, Media Decoder, Vanity Fair, Mediaite, New York Magazine and Silicon Alley Insider
RushLimbaugh.com:
What I Would've Said at CPAC — BEGIN TRANSCRIPT — RUSH: No, Snerdley. Look, I'm going to get to it. I got an e-mail just in time ago, “Would you stop being mean to Snerdley?” Hey, e-mailer! Snerdley should stop interrupting me. He's not the host. I am.
Discussion:
Washington Times, Vox Popoli, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Corner on National …, Hit & Run and Think Progress
Tara Brautigam / Canadian Press:
‘My heart, my choice,’ Williams says, defending decision for U.S. heart surgery — An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.
Steven Erlanger / New York Times:
French Ad Shocks, but Will It Stop Young Smokers? — PARIS — A new French anti-smoking ad aimed at the young that plays off a pornographic stereotype has gotten more attention than even its creators intended, with critics suggesting that it offends common decency and creates a false analogy between oral sex and smoking.
Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
Jimmy Carter Objects To Article Comparing His Foreign Policy To Obama's — In last month's issue of Foreign Policy magazine, leading analyst and Iraq War supporter Walter Russell Mead opined that President Obama's foreign policy agenda was turning into a duplicate of Jimmy Carter's.
Discussion:
Foreign Policy, democracyarsenal.org, The Jawa Report, Walter Russell Mead's Blog and Say Anything
Bruce Carroll / Big Journalism:
The HomoCon Tipping Point: Why CPAC Was a Milestone Weekend for Gays — **Post UPDATED at bottom. — In the weeks leading up to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week, there was a sidebar skirmish involving two of the CPAC sponsors.
Binyamin Appelbaum / Washington Post:
Bank lending plummets in 2009 — Lending by the banking industry fell by $587 billion, or 7.5 percent, in 2009, the largest annual decline since the 1940s, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported Tuesday. — FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said that some small banks have dialed back on lending …
Jenna Wortham / New York Times:
Apple Bans Some Apps for Sex-Tinged Content — Apple has started banning many applications for its iPhone that feature sexually suggestive material, including photos of women in bikinis and lingerie, a move that came as an abrupt surprise to developers who had been profiting from such programs.
CNN:
Traficant will launch independent congressional bid — (CNN) - Former Democratic Rep. James Traficant, who in September was released from a federal prison after serving seven years on a bribery and racketeering conviction, told CNN Tuesday he will launch an independent bid to return to Congress.
CNN:
Cheney suffered mild heart attack, office says — Former Vice President Dick Cheney suffered a mild heart attack Monday. — Washington (CNN) - Former Vice President Dick Cheney suffered a mild heart attack Monday when he complained of chest pains and was hospitalized, his office said Tuesday.