If there was an award for Best Use Of A Blog To Demonstrate The Political Mess Of Health Care Reform With Crafty Gen X Childhood Story Book Device, it would go to Marc Ambinder for this post here.
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Iran Wants to Talk
News this morning from the always excellent Laura Rozen of Foreign Policy magazine that Iran has announced that it’s willing to open discussions on its nuclear program without preconditions. This may be good news, or maybe not. Rozen quotes Trita Parsi about the prospects:
Parsi said while the Iranian response is in some ways
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1,000,000 Words
We love to give the High Sheriffs grief around here. (Speaking of which — hey, what happened to the paragraph breaks in the comments section?) But they do create some wonderful things for all of us. The latest is a player and archive that compiles the work of our talented video team, Craig Duff, Vannessa Kaneshiro and Natasha Del Toro, …
Jenny Sanford In Vogue, Her Husband An Addict?
Jenny Sanford has opted to explain herself, her husband’s affair and her plans for the future to Vogue, the women’s fashion magazine, for which she poses in a cottony white one-piece, with a matching skinny belt and dangling straw hat. So what say she of her husband’s drifting?
The only explanation that makes sense to her is that her
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The Secret Life of Tom Daschle, Moonlighting For The Insurance Industry
This is how Washington really works: Even a top liberal advocate for taking a strong stand against the insurance industry takes money behind the scenes from the insurance industry.
On Sunday, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who was once a nominee to be President Obama’s Secretary of Health And Human Services, appeared on …
Afghan Election This Week
I’m beginning to hope that Hamid Karzai pulls a Ahmadi-Khamenei and steals the thing. Yes, he is corrupt and incompetent. Yes, democracy is a wonderful thing. But too much democracy, too soon, in a country that is barely governed–see under Palestine, 2005–can be a toxic disaster. The problem in Afghanistan is, as the NY Times
Kay Enters The Fray
It’s been a while since we had a good campaign ad on Swampland. You remember the type–macho comforting voice over, soaring music, stock footage of the national character, looking up with big eyes or flapping in the wind. So here goes, the kickoff online spot for Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who announced today her …
The Wonders Of American Democracy
Tom DeLay, who just five years ago was still hailed as one of the most powerful people in America, has agreed to be a contestant on Dancing With The Stars, along with a guy named Ashley Hamilton, who is both the ex-husband of Shannen Doherty (195 days!) and a member of the supporting cast from 1993’s Beethoven’s 2nd, which starred a …
Public Droption
The news that the Obama Administration seems to be abandoning the so-called Public Option should come as no surprise to anyone who was following this issue. My assumption always was that the public option–which was never really defined (there were several versions)–was a bargaining chip to be cashed late in the game in return to for …
Grassley Responds, Sort Of
Charles Grassley responds to the idea that his 2003 vote for the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA)–which, again, included funding for end-of-life counseling–in any way makes his stringent opposition to end-of-life counseling in current health reform legislation somewhat questionable:
The MMA offers terminally ill patients a pain and
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Paranoia Strikes Deep in the Heartland
Apparently, Obama not only wants to kill your grandma, he also wants to invade your home and take your kids. Is it September yet?
And In Other News
In case your week has been all-death-panels all-the-time, here’s Paul Slansky’s News Index of what else happened this week. It includes the totally shocking news that Jenny Sanford is moving out of the governor’s mansion and back to the family’s Charleston home. No word on whether she’s changing the locks as well.
Threading the Abortion Needle
It’s gotten pushed to the background this last week in all of the uproar about town hall protests and death panels, but the question of whether a public option would include abortion coverage remains controversial for a fair number of Catholics and evangelicals who are otherwise supportive of health reform.
Before Congress broke for …