The Baucus Bill: The Worst Policy in the Bill, and Possibly in the World  —  Baucus's bill retains the noxious “free rider” provision on employers.  Rather than a simple employer mandate that forces every employer over a certain size to provide health-care insurance or pay a small fee …

U.S. Shelves Nuclear-Missile Shield  —  Czech Interim Prime Minister Gets Midnight Call  —  WASHINGTON — The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.

New ACORN video: The San Diego sting  —  I've been waiting 45 minutes for Big Government to post the new clip but it looks like this is the best we'll do for now.  Fifty-eight seconds long and it looks like we've got (a) a conspiracy to smuggle underaged sex slaves across the border and (b) a kinda sorta proposition to Hannah Giles.

Sword-wielding Hopkins student kills intruder  —  Intruder was repeat offender, released from prison Saturday  —  Hours earlier, someone had broken into John Pontolillo's house and taken two laptops and a video-game console.  Now it was past midnight, and he heard noises coming from the garage out back.

Obama and Acorn  —  Is there a case for a special prosecutor?  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  The Acorn scandal continues to mushroom.  Yesterday BigGovernment.com published videos from a fourth Acorn office visit by freelance investigators James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles.

Reality Check: The Truth About “Czars”  —  Last week, when the President addressed the Joint Session of Congress in a speech on health reform, he referred to some of the untruths - okay, lies - that have been spread about the plan and sent a clear message to those who seek to undermine …

Birther Orly Taitz Compares Self To Mandela, Wants Judge Tried For Treason  —  In an interview with TPM just now, Birther evangelist Orly Taitz fired back at Clay Land, the U.S. district court judge who tore apart Birtherism and threatened Taitz with sanctions in an order today, saying that …

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary Dies at 72  —  Mary Travers, whose ringing, earnest vocals with the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary made songs like “Blowin' in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” enduring anthems of the 1960s protest movement, died on Wednesday at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut.

Van Jones Breaks Silence On Resignation: ‘Nothing But Love For Obama’  —  On September 15th, Van Jones addressed his friends and supporters about his recent resignation with the following e-mail message.  —  Dear Friends:  —  My family and I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love …

Blowback  —  One of my themes lately has been that the Democrats' strategy of trying to demonize opponents of socialized medicine rather than honestly debate the merits of their proposal—whatever it is—is a political mistake.  People care about health care, they don't want their insurance taken away …

Andrew Jackson's mother advises this response to Charles Johnson's lies … Charles Johnson's gutless passive-aggressive act — outrageously libeling me, trying to prevent me from reporting on the 9/12 March on DC, and then falsely claiming that I am attacking him — has been permitted to continue too long.

Jon Stewart to media on ACORN: “Where the hell were you?”  —  Kudos to Jon Stewart, who doesn't sugar-coat the embarrassment at all — to the apparent delight of his audience, who get kudos of their own.  How can the national news media ignore the many allegations of corruption at ACORN …

Obama Used Faulty Anecdote  —  WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, seeking to make a case for health-insurance regulation, told a poignant story to a joint session of Congress last week.  An Illinois man getting chemotherapy was dropped from his insurance plan when his insurer discovered …

The Audacity of Hos  —  To view this movie you need the Adobe Flash Player plugin.  You also need JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sotomayor Challenges Corporate Law  —  WASHINGTON — In her maiden Supreme Court appearance last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a provocative comment that probed the foundations of corporate law.  —  During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court's majority conservatives seemed persuaded …

Duo who turned this trick  —  The two conservative activists who captured ACORN employ ees giving advice on the sex trade and money-laundering only play a pimp and prostitute on video.  —  In real life, Hannah Giles, 20, isn't a lady of the night.  She's a minister's daughter studying jour nalism at Florida International Uni versity.

iOTW Sneak Peek  —  Mr.Pinko has obtained an exclusive from the Photographer Michael A. Beck and FreedomWorks.org.  Pinko sat on this image for days before just now getting the green light to publish.  —  This is a RARE photo of the 9/12 Rally taken in extreme High Resolution from atop the Capitol Building.

The Baucus Bill: The Neutered Co-Ops  —  The co-ops have never been a satisfying alternative to the public option.  But the version in Baucus's bill isn't even a satisfying alternative to the co-op option.  It's a neutered version of the co-op idea, which was in turn a neutered version of the public option.