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Election 2010: Pennsylvania Senate Election — Pennsylvania 2010 Senate Match-ups: Specter, Sestak Top Toomey — Uncomfortable town hall meetings are just the tip of the iceberg for Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter. He now trails Republican Pat Toomey by double digits in his bid …
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The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Scorecard's Blog, Power Line, MyDD, Don Surber, Right Pundits, Open Left, Outside The Beltway, Hot Air, The Fix, Senate Guru, Lone Star Times, Conservatives4Palin.com, Say Anything, Real Clear Politics, TPMDC, AmSpecBlog, Weekly Standard, The Washington Independent, National Review Online, Below The Beltway, Swing State Project and Weasel Zippers
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Trust on Issues — Voters Give GOP First-Time Lead on Health Care — For the first time in over two years of polling, voters trust Republicans slightly more than Democrats on the handling of the issue of health care. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that voters favor the GOP on the issue 44% to 41%.

Rasmussen: GOP now more trusted on health care than Democrats
Discussion:
Telegraph


Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush — ‘Statute of Limitations Has Expired’ on Many Secrets, Former Vice President Says — In his first few months after leaving office, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the “far left” agenda of the new commander in chief.
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Outside The Beltway, The Atlantic Politics Channel, Los Angeles Times, Riehl World View, Atlas Shrugs, The Reaction, Guardian, New York Times, The Swamp, Jay Bookman, Gawker, The New Republic, No More Mister Nice Blog, The World Newser, CBS News, Below The Beltway, Newsweek Blogs, Politics Daily, Front Row Washington, KansasCity.com Prime Buzz, New York Magazine, On Deadline, THE WEEK News & Opinion, Think Progress, TBogg, The Awl, Connecting.the.Dots, The Poor Man Institute, Townhall.com, AMERICAblog News, MoJo Blog Posts, Salon and The Page


Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma — A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.
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Roxana Mayer: I'm Not a Doctor But I Play One at Town Hall Meetings — [This post follows up on a previous post in which I questioned the credentials of a woman at a Texas town hall meeting who claimed to be a doctor, but turned out to be anything but. She is a graduate student in social work — oh, and an Obama delegate.
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Lone Star Times, theblogprof, Moonbattery, Fox News, National Review Online, Weekly Standard, Michelle Malkin, The Foundry, Gateway Pundit, Wake up America, Macsmind, Moe Lane, JammieWearingFool, The Politico, Say Anything, Redhot, Right Wing News, The Swamp, American Power and Atlas Shrugs
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Obama camp plants fake doc, Che fan at Jackson Lee forum — I was reading the Chron's piece about Sheila Jackson Lee's town hall, when something caught my eye: … In this video, Mayer claims to be a general practitioner, eliciting applause and even a hug from Queen Sheila:
Discussion:
Townhall.com, Black & Right, American Power, Blue Crab Boulevard, Patterico's Pontifications and Gateway Pundit

Reid: Protesters are ‘evil-mongers’ — Town hall protesters are “evil-mongers,” says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) — Reid coined the term in a speech to an energy conference in Las Vegas this week and repeated it in an interview with Politics Daily.
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Nineteen Minutes In a Car With Harry Reid — LAS VEGAS - Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, was having second thoughts - or was he? - about the way he had characterized people who are disrupting town halls with “lies, innuendo and rumor,” and not letting others speak. They are, he said, “evil-mongers.”

Heller acknowledges the John Ensign effect
Discussion:
The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Swing State Project, Scorecard's Blog, TPMMuckraker and TPMDC

Palin Is Not Wrong — As virtually everybody in America now knows, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin posted the following on her FaceBook page: … Naturally, she was roundly reviled for these comments. One person quoted by the New York Times replied, “One problem …
Discussion:
24Ahead
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Palin doubles down on ‘death panels’
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Think Progress, Salon, CBS News, TalkLeft, Associated Press, Iowa Independent, PERRspectives and Preemptive Karma

Finance Committee to drop end-of-life provision — The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday. — The committee, which has worked on putting together …
Discussion:
Atlas Shrugs, Hot Air, Little Green Footballs, The Political Carnival, Michelle Malkin and Below The Beltway
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End-of-Life Provision Loses Favor — The cost of caring for patients who are near death accounts for a big piece of the government's medical spending. But a furor over a provision for government-paid counseling to plan for end-of-life care is steering lawmakers away from the issue.


Wanted: Obama healthcare reform volunteers willing to be paid $15 an hour — It seems that, despite all the media attention lavished on e-mail appeals to his supporters, not everyone pushing for President Obama's embattled healthcare reform plan these warm August days is an idealistic volunteer …

Massive campaign for Obama hits air — A new coalition on Thursday launched $12 million in television ads to support President Barack Obama's health reform plan, in the opening wave of a planned tens of millions of dollars this fall. — The new group, funded largely by the pharmaceutical industry …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Firedoglake, The Page and The Atlantic Politics Channel
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Strange bedfellows coalition begins massive ad campaign
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias


It's Hip to Be Round — THIS summer the unvarying male uniform in the precincts of Brooklyn cool has been a pair of shorts cut at knickers length, a V-neck Hanes T-shirt, a pair of generic slip-on sneakers and a straw fedora. Add a leather cuff bracelet if the coolster is gay.
Discussion:
The New Republic

The Return of the Viral Email — Read an email out this morning from Senior Advisor David Axelrod and watch a new “Reality Check” video from Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle below. Both respond to the malicious chain emails that have been circulating on health insurance reform:
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, Hot Air, Boston Globe, The Swamp, erica's Blog, USA Today, Big Brass Blog, Gawker and msnbc.com


JOHN EDWARDS SECRET DNA TEST PROVES HE'S THE DADDY! — BOMBSHELL WORLD EXCLUSIVE! John Edwards has secretly undergone a DNA test - and it proves he's the father of his mistress' love child, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively. — Multiple sources confirm the bombshell development …
Discussion:
Politics Daily, Fox News, Gawker, Swampland, Scared Monkeys, MomLogic, Liberal Values and Stop The ACLU

Corzine and Christie In Tight Race for New Jersey Governor — A new survey conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Stan Greenberg and James Carville's organization Democracy Corps puts Governor Corzine within striking distance of Republican Chris Christie.
Discussion:
Taegan Goddard's …

Bachmann: 'Don't let them Palinize me!' — Michele Bachmann is tossing around a new verb: “Palinize.” — In the subject line of a fundraising pitch, Bachmann sends out a plea for money saying, “Don't let them Palinize me!” — Bachmann goes on to explain that Sarah Palin has been demonized by the left …
Discussion:
GOP 12

Limbaugh, Rove to guest on ‘Family Guy’ — Talk show host Rush Limbaugh, former Bush strategist Karl Rove and other famous Republicans will play themselves on Fox's left-leaning “Family Guy” next season. — In an episode being produced for next season, the Griffins' liberal dog, Brian …


Paul Krugman Gets a New Place to Hang His Hat and Nobel — The Times columnist, Princeton professor, recent Nobel winner, and all-around ceaselessly smart economist Paul Krugman has a nice new co-op. According to a deed filed in city records today, Mr. Krugman and his wife …

The reckless Right courts violence — Hysterical talk from TV and radio hosts may be a cynical marketing exercise. But it's getting too dangerous to ignore. — A man bearing a sidearm appears outside President Obama's Aug. 11 town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., under a sign proclaiming …

Hillary Fights a Tide of Trivialization — This was supposed to be the trip that would show exactly how Hillary Rodham Clinton would make good on her pledge, at her confirmation hearing for secretary of state, to make women's issues “central” to U.S. foreign policy, not “adjunct or auxiliary or in any way lesser.”
Discussion:
The New Republic, TalkLeft, Outside The Beltway, New York Times, DailyHowler.com and ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Will You/Won't You Be on My “Death Panel”? — My friend Bob Wright posts a persuasive “partial list” of the “false and misleading things” he argues a recent New Republic book review said about The Evolution of God. … The disputes are grouped into six substantive issues.

Video: Olbermann names Ed Morrissey best person in the world — Savor it, if only because this is closer to the truth than Olby's been in a long, long time. I'm so relieved it's Ed, too: Someone on Twitter told me he had named me best person for yesterday's post about the Paulnut with the gun outside Obama's town hall.