It’s been lost to the mists of time and the dominating effect of the health care reform debate, but way back on December 11, the House passed its own financial reform bill, on a strict party line vote. So when — if — the Senate finishes its version of the bill, there’s still the House to contend with. Brian Beutler surveys the bill’s prospects there.

Way back when, before the Lowden Chicken story really got off the ground, that first post I did on the subject said I’d bid three chickens for an MRI. (“I Bid Three Chickens for that MRI!“) This was back when everyone thought she was joking.

But I just saw this new site that has a converter for chicken denominated fees for major medical procedures. And I think the radiologist would have laughed me out of the examination room. Because it turns out that an MRI would go for 462 chickens. At least that’s the sticker price. So even with some hard bargaining it sounds like I was still an order of magnitude or two off in what would have been a reasonable offer.

The site’s converter feature has quotes for everything from flu shots to colon cancer.

The ad agency for the fake-liberal astroturf group “Stop Too Big Too Fail” is the same one used by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth back in its 2004 disinformation heyday.

How many former George W. Bush ambassadors have gone on to record their own rock videos?

Meet Thomas Schweich, who’s running for state auditor in Missouri, but who used to have what sounds like a pretty important job at the end of the last Bush administration: coordinator for counternarcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan.

Now he’s letting his hair down for a conservative-themed rock song that he penned the lyrics for (there’s some dispute over whether he lifted the song from another what you might call real rock act, but let’s not let that distract from the fun) and a companion music video. Read More

From TPM Reader LM:

I just went to my doctor’s office for a sinus/ear infection. I had never seen this particular physician before and certainly didn’t bring up politics with him, but as I was about to pay my bill, he volunteered, “We take cash, check, credit or debit card. No chickens.” I’m in Indiana, mind you. I think Sue Lowden is in real trouble if even random doctors in Indiana are mocking her to near-total strangers.

When your mettle is truly tested, you don’t get any do-overs. In her declining years, will Gov. Janice Brewer (R-AZ) look back on today with pride? Or will she feel the pangs of conscience that Earl Warren later expressed over his role in the internment of Japanese-Americans?

I find this completely bewildering. The Republican Governors Association is embracing the mantle of a 17th century radical who tried but failed to pull off a mass casualty terrorist attack to kill the King of England and all of Parliament. Only now Obama plays the role of James I. Guy Fawkes is their new hero?

Nothing shocks me anymore. But this shocks me.

For your weekend enjoyment, take a look inside the battle against forced-microchip implantation in state legislatures around the country.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says he’s pulling his support for a bipartisan climate bill — seemingly killing its chances in this Congress — because, he says, President Obama has abandoned climate legislation in favor of immigration reform.

It’s down to the wire on financial reform and we’ll be covering all the latest developments all day today in our news section. Check out the very latest developments all day in our auto-updating Financial Reform Wire.