Greg Sargent asks — is the White House bracing for and Arlen Specter loss?  Is that why Joe Biden won’t do last-minute events with Specter? Bob Schiefer said so on the CBS Philadelphia affiliate station (video): SCHIEFER: I’ll tell you in all candor, I have been told on background and so forth that the White [...]

Even as the oil-spill disaster plays out in the Gulf of Mexico, Americans still have a more positive view of British Petroleum than they do of Goldman Sachs, according to the new NBC/WSJ poll. While Americans see neither company in a shining light, they do see the financial firm as a worse villain. This could [...]

Global Green has a video of the fishermen of Shell Beach, Louisiana, who know that the BP oil spill will probably soon put them out of business: Anthony Greco III: I’ve been fishing all my life. Robert Campo: I don’t have Type A blood, I’ve got type saltwater.  My family’s been at this four generations. [...]

The health insurance industry makes a substantial part of its profits by hanging on to premium dollars as long as possible — premiums which are established after assessing anticipated risk and expected claims. But if all claims are paid, there’s no need for managing risk by reserving premium dollars, and no need to hold reserves for investment. Getting insurers and Wall Street to give up the reserves is going to be a challenge.

The Congressional Budget Office just revised upwards the projected cost (PDF) of the new health care law by $115 billion. The increase is due mainly to the fact that the original CBO score of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act did not factor in the cost of actually having the government implement the reform [...]

FDL produced this video mashup of the two known clips of underwater footage of the remnants of the Deepwater Horizon gushing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Our video combines today’s video release of the largest leak still releasing oil with footage from last week’s successful capping of another leaking pipe. There is still a third pipe, not shown, leaking oil.

Google apparently must not be working today. Either that, or Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher has yet to master this useful internet tool: Hamsher, meanwhile, drew the ire of many progressives when she led a last-minute assault on the health care reform bill. In trashing the bill, she invoked the $80 billion PhRMA deal, with which she [...]

Yesterday Barack Obama’s Office of National Drug Control Policy released its National Strategy for Drug Control. While the strategy was spun by Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske as one focusing on prevention and treatment over enforcement and criminal prosecutions, the amount of money spent proportionally is the same as during the Bush Administration.

Subbing for Rachel Maddow Tuesday night, Chris Hayes on the passage of Audit the Fed: CHRIS HAYES:  Something truly remarkable happened in Washington today.  The United States Senate passed something, by the way of a 96 to 0 vote — 96 in favor, 0 against.  Which means Democrats and Republicans voted together, for the same [...]

As oil continues to gush in the Gulf of Mexico, 55 percent of Americans think it is a major disaster and 37 percent believe it is a serious problem but not a disaster, according to a new Pew poll. Only four percent believe it is not serious. It is safe to assume as events unfold [...]