Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) just told reporters as he entered a special meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus that a Medicare buy-in provision is probably out and tellingly praised the merits of the bill even with that provision stripped out, Evan McMorris-Santoro reports.
Brian Beutler caught up with Joe Lieberman outside his office a few minutes ago as Lieberman was headed to the Democratic caucus meeting, and Lieberman explained that the reason he’s opposed to a Medicare buy-in, after favoring it only three months ago, is that the Baucus bill already addressed the problems of the uninsured in the 55-65 age bracket: a buy-in would be redundant.
That’s not exactly true, but regardless, it doesn’t explain why Lieberman would be willing to torpedo the entire health care reform bill with a filibuster over a mere redundancy.
Houston elected the city’s first openly gay mayor over the weekend:
Harry Reid and other leading Senate Democrats emerged from this evening’s special caucus meeting with little to say about what transpired in the closed door session and didn’t take questions from reporters. But as the Senate moves toward a vote on health care reform next week, it’s becoming apparent that even the most pro-reform senators are resigning themselves to a less-than-ideal bill and that the White House is keeping the pressure on to get a bill passed even if that means acceding to the demands of Joe Lieberman.
We’ve been following the transfer of detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay and tonight we learn the administration will be acquiring a correctional center in Illinois to make the transition to closing Gitmo.
An administration official tells TPMDC:
On Tuesday, the administration will announce that the president has directed that the federal government proceed with the acquisition of the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois to house federal inmates and a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Closing the detention center at Guantanamo is essential to protecting our national security and helping our troops by removing a deadly recruiting tool from the hands of al Qaeda. Tuesday’s announcement is an important step forward as we work to achieve our national security objectives.
Gov. Pat Quinn and Sen. Dick Durbin will get a White House briefing Tuesday afternoon on the decision.
The deal announced yesterday to restore 22 million missing emails from the Bush White House doesn’t mean the public will be treated to the contents of those emails anytime soon. Zack Roth explains.
Joe Biden this morning on MSNBC discussing Joe Lieberman’s obstruction of the health care reform bill. Watch.
Cry me a river: Lobbyists complain about this year’s grueling schedule on Capitol Hill. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
ABCNews just announced they’ll be awarding Golden “Bernies” this 
year in four categories to celebrate the worst and most corrupt public figures. Hmmm.
Speaking of which, if you want to participate in the genuine article contest, remember, this year is the 3rd Anniversary of the Golden Duke Awards. And nominations are open now. Tomorrow we’ll be announcing this year’s judges and the deadline for nominations is this Friday. So be sure to get your nominations in asap to be eligible to win utterly cool Golden Dukes prizes.
We’ll be bringing you some reader nominations today to get your Golden Dukes juices flowing.
It seems like only yesterday good folks from around the USA were showing up at health care townhalls packing heat, biting each others fingers off, claiming to be stalked by Democratic staffer ninjas and faking injuries of various sorts. Well, where are they now? What became of the all-stars of the Summer of Crazy? Rachel Slajda has an update on what they’re doing now and whether they got their fingers reattached.