Another candid moment from this morning’s White House bill signing ceremony, this time from Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY).
this.Right after Joe Biden introduced Barack Obama this morning for the bill signing, and just as Obama was stepping toward the microphone, the two men embraced, and it sounded like Biden said, “This is a big f—ing deal.” He’s right, it is. Watch.
Do all these attorneys general suing to block health care reform on constitutional grounds have a leg to stand on? Twenty years ago the answer would have been a flat, no. Today there’s a thread of jurisprudence that gives them a colorable argument, but most of the conservative legal scholars whom we have spoken with say it’s still very unlikely that the health insurance mandate in the new law will be deemed unconstitutional.
Michael Steele on passage of Health Care Reform: “There is no downside for Republicans. Only for Americans.”
Other quotes that capture the moment? Send them in.
It’s a real party going on in the East Room of the White House as President Obama prepares to sign the health care reform bill into law. You can watch the festivities here.
Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to lead a probe into whether laws were broken after photos of undercover CIA agents were found in the cell of an alleged 9/11 conspirator at Guantanamo.
The ACLU, which is involved in the defense of this particular detainee and others, hired private investigators to track down the CIA officers as part of its case, but denies breaking the law or providing the identities of the officers to detainees.
“How many former Bush speechwriters does one newspaper need?”
–Former Postie Tom Ricks, on the Washington Post‘s hiring of Marc Thiessen for its op-ed page.
Former GE CEO Jack Welch said this morning that Republicans expecting big gains in the midterm elections will “get a large shock.” Watch.
The politics of abortion has a lot more to do with the heated reactions to the health care reform bill coming from both sides of the issue than does the language of the bill itself.