Hold Fast

Steve Benen, writing on the Republican strategy to slow health care reform legislation through amendments, notes: Ordinarily, amendments are proposed to improve the bill. It’s what makes the Republican amendments pointless — even if their measures pass, they’ll still oppose reform. But the GOP caucus is nevertheless lining up hundreds of possible proposals. They’re also [...]

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Saturday’s New York Times had a must-read article on Chinese artist and political dissident, Ai Weiwei. Ai was the primary architect of China’s Olympic Birds Nest stadium, yet became an outspoken critic of the Chinese government leading up to the Olympics in response to the government’s repression of petitioners and rights advocates. Ai has faced [...]

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Matt Taibbi, writing at True/Slant, has a must-read analysis of the mainstream media Village culture, as it pertains to Sarah Palin. Or, more specifically, how groupthink by Beltway journalists regarding when to promote a politician and when to aim for their head has coalesced behind further marginalizing Palin and by extension her Teabag supporters. While [...]

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Blue Dog Democrat Dennis Moore (KS-03) is retiring. Naturally, Chuck Todd thinks this is apocalyptic for Democrats: The Moore retirement is one that should have some House Dem leaders nervous (as well as the WH), the party can’t afford more like Moore. Twitter One reason why 2010 doesn’t look like 1994 is that Dems haven’t [...]

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Carl Hulse of the New York Times, reporting on Democratic efforts to get moderate Republicans to support health care reform, writes: While the two women are the main focus of Democrats at the moment, officials said they would seek opportunities to appeal to others. They also hope any final joint House-Senate proposal could attract at [...]

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I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that, on first blush, the Senate health care reform bill isn’t as good as the House health care reform bill. That said, I think the bill — again, on first blush — is far better than what I had expected from Senator Reid. There is an opt-out [...]

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Josh Schrei has written an open letter to President Obama following his trip to China. It’s powerful, honest and true. Here’s a passage: As a lifelong Tibet supporter, I have endured 15 years of meetings with Senators, Representatives, and Chiefs of Staff and have been told roughly the same thing in every single meeting. We [...]

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There was a great deal of hoopla last month when President Obama broke with tradition and declined to meet with the Dalai Lama when he was in Washington, DC. While no American president has had a formal state visit with the Dalai Lama in the Oval Office, presidents of both parties have made it tradition [...]

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Dear Jim Wallis, The Stupak Amendment does not achieve “neutrality” by the government when it comes to funding abortion coverage. It makes it impossible for a woman to buy insurance that covers abortions, which are, by the way, legal procedures in America. By creating a two-tiered health care system where wealthy women can have abortion [...]

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The Times Online: China rounds up dissidents as President Obama touches down in Beijing Chinese officials have rounded up dozens of Beijings’s tiny coterie of activists and petitioners in case any dissident tries to approach President Obama, who arrived in the city today. The arrests continued to gather momentum even as Mr Obama told an [...]

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