WEINER: The President does seem like he’s moving away from the public plan, and if he does, he’s not going to pass a bill. Because there are just too many people in Washington who believe that the public plan was the only way that you effectively bring some downward pressure on prices, and if he says well we’re not going to have that, then I’m not really quite sure what we’re dong here.

The headline in The Hill says it loud and clear:  Obama picks public option fight with liberals Many people are rightly upset that the White House is sending stronger and stronger signals that they are willing to jettison a public option.  What was once the defining feature of the Obama health care plan has now [...]

Lanny is a partner in Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and was a registered lobbyist for Whole Foods in the first quarter of 2009 for the low low price of $40,000. Orrick filed a “termination report” on March 1 (PDF), but somehow Lanny was still trying to put together an anti-Employee Free Choice effort on behalf of Whole Foods and Starbucks in late March. Lanny wanted to see if he could bring everyone together and get them to agree to EFCA just without card check or binding arbitration or anything included in the original bill, which lasted about 48 hours until the Chamber landed on his head and Lanny bailed.

To which Grassley replied “U aint nothin ima f#!k u up.” Nah just kidding. But it’s easy to foresee an era where political figures enter Twitter fame wars just to beef up their subscriber numbers. Specter got good play off of that one — tweaked the birthers and pandered to the Dems at the same time.

"Seems like old times."

Earlier, I posted about how Senator Conrad told his constituents that he would vote against the public option in health care reform in an article that appeared in the Jamestown newspaper. That news spread over to Talking Points Memo, and over to DailyKos.   And Alex Koppelman at Salon.com says that Senator Conrad’s communications director denied the story, saying the characterization [...]

Does anyone think Bill Clinton had any intention of addressing Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act during his keynote speech in Pittsburgh at Netroots Nation 2009? I don’t. Congratulations to non-heckler progressive gay activist and blogger Lane Hudson, who put the former President on the spot — and then got blamed for not having gotten enough support in Congress for lifting the gay ban.

In a town hall meeting with his constituents, Senator Conrad pushed his co-operative plan, and said that he would vote against the public option in any Senate health care package.  CARRINGTON, N.D. — Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. presented his cooperative health care proposal here Thursday and told an audience of 100 that he would not vote for [...]

Lane Hudson (screaming from the audience): Mr. President, will you call for a repeal of DOMA and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell right now? Please.

Bill Clinton: … You want to talk about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, I’ll tell you exactly what happened. You couldn’t deliver me any support in the Congress and they voted by a veto-proof majority in both houses against my attempt to let gays serve in the military, and the media supported them. They raised all kinds of devilment. And all most of you did was to attack me instead of getting me some support in the Congress. Now that’s the truth.

How is your Netroots Nation experience?