Top Items:


Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care — The president's proposals would give unelected officials life-and-death rationing powers. — Printer — Friendly — Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans “talk with one another …
Discussion:
The Fix, Ben Smith's Blog, Bookworm Room, Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Mudflats, The Hill, Flopping Aces, Mediaite, msnbc.com, Conservatives4Palin.com, Don Surber, NewsBusters.org, Sister Toldjah, theblogprof, Moe Lane, Salon, The Moderate Voice, The New Republic, Front Row Washington, Another Black Conservative, George's Bottom Line, Gawker, No More Mister Nice Blog, DISSENTING JUSTICE, Unreported, Cold Fury, The Reaction, Liberal Values, The Note, marbury, Politics Daily, Confederate Yankee, Wizbang, Pundit & Pundette, Washington Monthly, Polimom, Too and Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog!
RELATED:

Too late for Obama to turn it around? — Plus: The left's visionaries lost their bearings on drugs — but the GOP is led by losers — What a difference a month makes! When my last controversial column posted on Salon in the second week of August, most Democrats seemed frozen in suspended animation …
Discussion:
Top of the Ticket, POWIP, The Politico, Financial Times, CNN, BizzyBlog, Don Surber, Political Byline, Pajamas Media, Pundit & Pundette, Whiskey Fire and The Strata-Sphere

Media Challenge: Will They Take The Palin Bait? — Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, has every right to submit an opinion piece on health care to the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page, and they've got every right to print it. — But Palin's existence …


Obama to Endorse Public Plan in Speech — WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, in a high-stakes speech Wednesday to Congress and the nation, will press for a government-run insurance option in a proposed overhaul of the U.S. health-care system that has divided lawmakers and voters for months.
Discussion:
The Note, Townhall.com, Los Angeles Times, Matthew Yglesias, Firedoglake, Boston Globe, Prescriptions, ABCNEWS, The Hill, QandO, Washington Post, NY Daily News, The Politico, Wonkette, Associated Press, Wake up America, Washington Wire, Commentary, The Caucus, Think Progress, Row 2, Seat 4, Pundit & Pundette and Dennis the Peasant

Why the public option matters — Most arguments against the public option are based either on deliberate misrepresentation of what that option would mean, or on remarkably thorough misunderstanding of the concept, which persists to a frustrating degree: I was really surprised to see Joe Klein worrying …
Discussion:
Lawyers, Guns and Money, Emptywheel, TalkLeft, TPMDC, Swampland, QandO, Left in the West, The League of Ordinary …, Stop The ACLU and The Huffington Post

Our One-Party Democracy — Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.
RELATED:

Tide turns against public option on eve of President Obama's address — Political momentum appeared to swing sharply against the public health insurance option prized by liberals Tuesday, on the eve of President Barack Obama's address to a joint session of Congress.
RELATED:

Obama Pitched Universal Health Care to Students in Meeting Prior …
Discussion:
WhiteHouse.gov Blog

GOP Lawmaker's Graphic Sex-Bragging Caught On Tape — We've all seen those stories where a careless politician gets a little too candid when speaking into a hot mic. But this one's really in a whole different league. — Michael Duvall is a conservative Republican state representative from Orange County, California.
RELATED:


Attacks on Sunstein Frustrate Conservative Fans — On January 8, The Wall Street Journal broke the news that Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein would be nominated to run the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. It was a surprising choice for a job, created in 1980 …


Are the Days of Drudge Over? — Just over a month ago, Linda Douglass, a former ABC News correspondent and current communications director for the Obama administration's Health Reform Office, appeared in a video posted on the White House's official blog titled “Facts Are Stubborn Things.”
RELATED:

Drudge Has Lost His Touch — Technology, the competition, and the times have passed him — A BILLION THANKS FOR MAKING JUNE 2009—TOP JUNE IN DRUDGE REPORT'S 14 YEAR HISTORY!? PAGE HIT 675,406,735 VIEWS FROM 129,922,878 VISITS ... TRAFFIC ROSE 21% FOR MONTH OVER YEAR AGO blared the headline on the right of the home page.


Times Reporter Is Freed in Afghan Raid That Kills Aide — Stephen Farrell, a New York Times reporter held captive by militants in northern Afghanistan, was freed in a military commando raid early Wednesday, but his Afghan interpreter was killed during the rescue effort.
RELATED:

‘E&P’ Asked Not to Report on ‘NYT’ …
Discussion:
Michael Calderone's Blog


GOP Picks One-Time “Birther” To Rebut Obama's Health Care Speech [UPDATED] — UPDATE: An eagle-eyed reader points out that Boustany, after espousing his “Birther” views on camera, below, caved and retracted his statement on a Louisiana KPEL radio show. — Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany …
RELATED:


'We're pinned down:' 4 U.S. Marines die in Afghan ambush — Smoke billows up Tuesday after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the military entrance to Kabul's airport, killing at least three. Read the story. (Photo by Hal Bernton of the Seattle Times.)

With one simple sentence, ABC News confirms the death of Beltway journalism — It's from an online report about the Obama school “controversy,” and it's written by Dan Harris. In his piece, Harris notes that conservatives pre-emptively blasted Obama's stay-in-school speech even though conservatives …

Election 2010: Massachusetts Democratic Senate Primary — Coakley Takes Early Lead In Race To Fill Kennedy's Senate Seat — State Attorney General Martha Coakley is the early leader in the Democratic race to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of longtime Massachusetts Senator Edward M.

Boehner: GOP leaders haven't met Obama for health talks since April — The ball is in President Obama's court to reach out to Republicans if he wants a bipartisan bill on healthcare reform, House GOP Leader John Boehner (Ohio) said Monday morning. — Boehner told reporters that the president …


After Thesis Uproar, McDonnell's Strongly Worded Comments on Gays Resurface — ‘Homosexual Conduct’ Comments ‘Irrelevant’ to Campaign, He Says — In January 2003, then-Del. Robert F. McDonnell helped gavel in one of the most extraordinary judicial reappointment hearings in Virginia history …


Baucus moves forward with bill — Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Wednesday that he will push ahead with a comprehensive health care reform bill with — or without — Republican support and start a committee markup the week of Sept. 21.


‘Doctors told me it was against the rules to save my premature baby’ — Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early. — They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines …

The GOP vs Fiscal Conservatism — Charlie Cook and others are predicting a sea-change in public mood, with support for the GOP rising because of deficits. This strikes me as an amazing thing. It makes Charlie Brown, the football and Lucy look like the model of intelligent interaction.

Less Spocky, More Rocky — As soon as I started covering Barack Obama, I knew he was going to be trouble. — Not Global Trouble, like W. and Dick Cheney. Or Hanky-Panky Trouble, like Bill Clinton and John Edwards. Or Tedious Trouble, like John Kerry and Michael Dukakis.


Overspending on Debit Cards Is a Boon for Banks — When Peter Means returned to graduate school after a career as a civil servant, he turned to a debit card to help him spend his money more carefully. — So he was stunned when his bank charged him seven $34 fees to cover seven purchases …

Mouth of the Potomac — For fallen White House aides, the rallying cry apparently is John Podesta to the rescue! The Obama administration's former green jobs czar Van Jones is headed back to Podesta's Center for American Progress after stepping down from his White House post four days ago amid controversy …

The Murtha Method … For months, a cloud has swirled around Congressman John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, and the relationship that Murtha and other subcommittee members had with the PMA Group, a lobbying firm filled with former subcommittee aides.

As an Exotic Mortgage Resets, Payments Skyrocket — Edward and Maria Moller are worried about losing their house — not now, but in 2013. — That is when the suburban San Diego schoolteachers will see their mortgage payments jump, most likely beyond their ability to pay.

Time for Obama to Stand Tall — In his speech to Congress on Wednesday night, President Obama will try to regain control over a national conversation on health care that has been hijacked by ranters and ravers of all stripes and members of Congress who don't know their own minds and cower before their own constituents.