On Morning Edition today, Michael Steele gets tied in knots trying to explain how the GOP (or maybe just Steele himself?) wants to preserve Medicare against cuts, while also cutting Medicare and opposing government-run health care programs in general. It’s an impossible dance for anyone, but Steele is burdened with two left feet.
Hard to believe this guy really is the head of a major American political party.
The brief post I did yesterday on Ted Kennedy’s April 7, 1968 speech to the Alaska state Democratic convention didn’t really do it justice. It’s a grainy black-and-white film but the audio of Kennedy’s lilting Boston accent is clear, and the speech Kennedy delivers, which I was not familiar with until yesterday, stands even 40 years later as a close-to-perfect expression of modern American liberalism. Read More
The public mourning for Ted Kennedy begins today at the JFK Library in Boston, where his body will lie in repose. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
I’ve been poking around. And I’ve heard of several major national corporations planning to dramatically scale back the health care coverage they offer employees starting this fall. Mainly in the amount they subsidize, but in other cases the level of care they offer access to. I figure there must be a number of middle management and HR folks out there reading. So if you’ve heard of similar stuff where you work, drop me a line. Anonymity guaranteed.
For the fourth time recently, Sarah Palin is a no-show at an event where the organizers say she was scheduled to speak but where Palin says she was never even invited.
In an interview with the Economist magazine recently, former House Majority Leader and current FreedomWorks Capo Dick Armey said that something like a Public Option would be great. But the issue comes down to choice.
“If you in fact freely choose to enroll in Medicare that’s a wonderful gift,” said Armey, “it’s a charity, it’s something I applaud. But when they force you in, that’s tyranny.”
Needless to say, Armey, albeit a native English speaker, has not apparently focused in on the ‘option’ part of ‘public option’ since obviously, in the reality-based world, this is the whole point. It’s an option if you either cannot get or do not want insurance from a private company. Read More
We rundown the 13 Democratic senators who can’t quite make up their minds whether they are for or against a public option provision in the health care reform bill.
Slideshow: Reader photos of the life of Ted Kennedy.
Thanks to all the readers who submitted. And don’t worry if you haven’t gotten to it yet. We’ll add new photos as readers send them in.
Remember the guy who brought the assault rifle to the Obama event down in Arizona? Turns out that the day before the event he attended a fiery anti-Obama sermon by his radical pastor in which his pastor said he was going to “pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell.”
Justin Elliott has the story.
Also, in case you’re concerned, the gun-toter’s pastor, Steven Anderson, made clear to Justin in an interview that he’d actually prefer Obama to die in some way other than assassination. “No where in the sermon did I advocate vigilantism. It’s a spiritual battle. I’d rather have him die of natural causes anyway, that way he’s not some martyr. I’m praying for him to die just so he gets what he deserves.”