Jeff Merkeley — WTF?

Mike confronts Baron Hill, one of the Blue Dogs on the Energy & Commerce Committee who has joined with Mike Ross to threaten to keep a health care bill from passing.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi just flip-flopped on her insistence about having Congress stay in to work on health care reform before the August recess. Here’s what she said below: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that the House can go home for its August recess without passing a massive overhaul. Pelosi dismissed concerns expressed by many Democrats [...]

According to sources familiar with negotiations on the Senate Finance committee, there is a “bipartisan” deal in the works between Baucus, Enzi and Snowe that will not include a public plan, which could pass in the next couple days.  It will include John Kerry’s plan to tax insurance companies on their most expensive plans (those valued at over $25,000 a year). 

In case you missed it…..president Obama held a little press conference last night. 11 down…29 to go. Took the Pledge Only With "Robust" PP Weasel Words "Open to Anything" Emanuel Cleaver II Lloyd Doggett Donna Edwards Keith Ellison Raul Grijalva Phil Hare Rush Holt Jerrold Nadler Lynn Woolsey Robert Wexler Maxine Waters Jane Harman Chelle [...]

cartoon by John Pierce

Here’s a round-up of the latest news out of Capitol Hill on health care reform. Apparently, Orrin Hatch walked out on the "bipartisan" talks on health care reform in the Senate Finance Committee. Here’s a quote from Senator Hatch: “Right now, with some of the provisions in there, I just can’t do it,” Hatch told reporters in [...]

Click here to sign the petition and ask the House to stay in session to pass health care instead of going on vacation.

When Barack Obama says that the health care debate isn’t about him, it’s about the American people, he’s also cleverly letting the Blue Dogs who might join up with the GOP to “break” him know that there’s a cost to them of a Democratic Presidency broken on the shoals of health care reform: their seats, and maybe even their majority in 2010.

Of the nearly 65 videos we’ve done so far, Kendrick Meek takes the crown: King of the Weasel Words.