A viral video brought to you by MoveOn.org, and that guy from Blades of Glory. . . more about “Protect Insurance Companies PSA from …“
Given the usual slash and trash propaganda emanating from the right–and we can’t forget those black helicopters–it’s interesting to note during this United Nations General Assembly session that the U.N. is actually very popular among Americans, according to the latest polling from Pew.
Add another feather in the veritable bird’s nest that is Gingrich Inc. The former Speaker of the House, and all-around conservative idea-smith, has launched a news website for Hispanic Americans, the rapidly growing segment of swing voters. It’s called The Americano, and it is the bilingual brainchild of Sylvia Garcia, a longtime employee of Gingrich [...]
Opening statements took up the entire first half of the day. And more to come – Senators Jay Rockefeller and Pat Roberts will give their statements after the committee returns at 2:45 p.m. A few more highlights since my last post:
Les Gelb has an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, highlighting the President’s recent wobblies on Afghanistan and suggesting a middle path forward. Gelb has been a leading Afghanistan skeptic, so it’s news that he’s now in favor of adding two more brigades (about 10,000 troops) to the fight, as well as another 5-10,000 [...]
One provision in Chairman Max Baucus’s original Chairman’s Mark is a new tax on so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans. The original Baucus mark calls for insurers to pay a 35% tax on plans that cost more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families. The logic here is that very expensive plans that require little or [...]
Chairman Max Baucus just warned the committee that he is prepared to work all night. I would take this more seriously if it hadn’t been for the fact that he made this announcement to four Democrats, five Republicans … and 10 empty chairs. UPDATE: Commenter Rustyreturns asks: Who are the “missing” Senators, Karen?
Hi Swamplanders. I’m staff writer Kate Pickert and I’ve been covering the health care reform debate for Time.com. I’m joining the Swampland crew for a few days this week to help Jay Newton-Small and Karen Tumulty cover the Senate Finance Committee markup of Chairman Max Baucus’s health reform bill. Here in the Hart Senate Office [...]
A few minutes after the scheduled 9 a.m. start, and Max Baucus has launched into his opening statement, declaring, “This is a balanced package.” At each place on the press tables is a stack of papers several inches deep. I got here about a half-hour early and was not surprised to see what looked to [...]
Okay, I’ll come clean: I voted for him. In fact, I didn’t even wait for him to dance before I voted for him. And I would done it more than once, if only I could have figured out how to work the texting function on my BlackBerry by myself. (Instead, I had to turn to [...]
