The news are flying fast and furious over the public option in health care reform, and let us remember, the devil is always in the details when it comes to the public option. Let me give you an example of this from the Blue Dog Democrats in the House of Representatives in their paper which they released, and for starters, they're opposed to a Medicare-like public option, which is what we've been fighting for all month long.

President Obama, in a pivot from some of his harshest campaign rhetoric, told Democratic senators yesterday that he is willing to consider taxing employer-sponsored health benefits to help pay for a broad expansion of coverage.

A lot has been written about the yield curve lately. Some are saying Treasuries are dropping only because of the increase in federal spending while others are saying we're simply going through a standard correction. In fact, both are correct as the undercurrents of both issues are present in the Treasury marker's recent action. But what has also been missed is the possibility that the Treasury market could also be signaling an economic recovery.

We heard Bill O'Reilly is having trouble finding American-made T-shirts to sell in his Patriot Store. We know he's heartbroken because, after all, what good is a Patriot Store if its products are made in El Salvador or Haiti? (Especially if you're selling red, white and blue "American Patriot" T-shirts.)

Was Eric Holder appointed attorney general for the sole purpose of letting Republican scoundrels off the hook? It's starting to look that way after news came yesterday that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking that two former Alaska state legislators be released from prison because of prosecutorial misconduct in their cases.

Michelangelo Signorile reports today that he has a named source, Aaron Belkin of the University of California, Santa Barbara's Palm Center, claiming that "national gay rights organizations" have not only colluded with the White House to delay addressing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which was reported by the Daily Beast yesterday, but have actually campaigned against Congressional efforts to lift the ban.

I really respect Chris Mooney, as he's done a really good job of cataloguing the various assaults on science that we've witnessed for the past eight years. But his recent blog post calling out the so-called "New Atheists" is pretty disappointing and significantly diminishes the respect I have for him.

Ken Cuccinelli appears to be one of those who are afraid of black helicopters, and afraid of social security numbers. He's a sitting state senator in Virginia, and is running for Attorney General. It's funny except that this guy could actually be the Commonwealth's chief law enforcement official!

U.S. policy in the broader Middle East over the next four years will be judged in the region according to whether the pledges that President Obama made in Cairo today are kept. So it's important for Americans to know what those pledges were.

President Obama hit a number of extremely important points today in his speech to the Muslim world, but the most salient was one phrase toward the end that I'd like to draw your attention to. The following quote is a powerful rebuke to neoconservative ideology, one that will, more than anything else that Obama said today, help to forge a new path in middle east foreign policy: "I know there are many, Muslim and non-Muslim, who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division and stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isnt worth the effort; that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash ... But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward."

Read Older Articles