In an interview with Salon, Sen. Harkin (D-IA) pretty much said the Public Option just ain’t going to be in this bill. Not exactly closing the door or saying it can’t happen. But he clearly doesn’t think it’s likely and expects it will have to wait for a subsequent piece of legislation.
Frank Gaffney has never been a stranger to the crazy. I remember the first time I saw him was on a panel about ten years ago talking about Chinese plans to take over the Panama Canal. But this one really breaks new ground. Frank has discovered that Obama has used the Pentagon’s new logo for national missile defense to send a secret coded message about his plans to submit America to Islam and the rule of Sharia law. To quote the man: “Team Obama’s anti-anti-missile initiatives are not simply acts of unilateral disarmament of the sort to be expected from an Alinsky acolyte. They seem to fit an increasingly obvious and worrying pattern of official U.S. submission to Islam and the theo-political-legal program the latter’s authorities call Shariah.”
Former Rep. Harold Ford (who voted for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in 2004) went to face the New York City chapter of the Stonewall Democrats tonight at the LGBT Community Services Center in Greenwich Village. And our Rachel Slajda and Jillian Rayfield were there.
“I freely admit there are issues I’ve evolved on,” Ford told the sometimes boisterous crowd.
Here’s their report.
Bush and Cheney meet today in person for the first time since leaving office. That and the days other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
We’re following every wrinkle of the health care summit over the next six — count ’em, 6! — hours in our Health Care Summit Wire.
Jon Stewart previews the health care summit. Watch.
Sen. Alexander (R-TN) is laying out the Republican line right now, insisting that for today’s Health Care Summit to be a real exercise, President Obama has to agree not to pass any bill in the Senate with a majority vote. A lot of this is just nonsense about the filibuster. But there’s a key issue here that the Senate Republicans are simply being dishonest about. And I fear most of the reporters down in on the scene are going to fall for it. The argument Alexander is making is that the Democrats back in 2005 stood against what the Democrats are trying to do now to pass Health Care Reform. This is simply false. And he knows it. Read More
Is Sen. Conrad (D-ND) calling game over on Health Care Reform?
For some bizarre reason, during his initial presentation, Sen. Reid said that “no one has talked about reconciliation,” the issue that quickly came to the fore as soon as the Health Care Reform summit got started.
But that’s obviously not true. Everybody’s talking about it. And a lot of Dems would be pretty upset if they weren’t talking about it.
But in any case, what was that about? That’s obviously not true.