Leading Democrats on Sunday said they expect Congress to pass a major healthcare reform backed by President Barack Obama, but supporters may have to accept legislation that falls short on some issues.
The U.S. Senate on Monday is set to begin debate on the sweeping overhaul of the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system amid growing concerns about the cost of the legislation that aims to provide medical coverage for millions of the uninsured.
“We want to cover the uninsured, yes, but we don’t want to do …

Randall Terry is giving a tour of his office, a small room on the ground floor of the $1.3 million home he rents in northern Virginia. The room is packed. Every inch of wall space is taken up by books or personal treasures–stones “liberated from places where Muslim armies destroyed Christian churches,” the complete works of Winston Churchill, the complete works of Theodore Roosevelt, small metal busts of the men themselves. Terry reaches to a top shelf and grabs one volume of Muhammad al-Tabari’s …

No Wonder He’s Hispanic’s Favorite Pundit

After years of slamming anyone who proposed any sort of “amnesty” for “illegal aliens,” former CNN host Lou Dobbs has apparently changed his tune. On Friday, he told the Spanish-language TV station: “We need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions.”
Dobbs recently left CNN, reportedly with an $8 million payoff, after Latino and immigrants’ advocates campaigned the network to oust him for vilifying Latino immigrants on his nightly news show. In announcing his departure, Dobbs promised to …

Sarah Palin appeared at Fort Bragg today, promoting her book, “Going Rogue” to the military. Palin had promised to limit herself to signing books, no politicizing her visit, amidst general concerns that her signing would violate Federal Law (Titles 10, 2, and 18, United States Code), Department of Defense (DOD) Directives, and specific military regulations strictly limit a military active duty person’s participation in partisan political activities.

A U.S. Census worker found dead in a secluded Clay County cemetery killed himself but tried to make the death look like a homicide, authorities have concluded.
Bill Sparkman, 51, of London Kentucky, might have tried to cover the manner of his death to preserve payments under life-insurance polices that he had taken out. The policies wouldn’t pay off if Sparkman committed suicide, state police Capt. Lisa Rudzinski said.
“We believe it was an intentional act on his part to take his own life,” said …

Who? Me!

Republican South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, a conservative seen as a presidential contender before a sex scandal wrecked his reputation, faces 37 possible ethics violations, the state ethics commission said on Monday.
The commission said it had determined there was probable cause to support allegations that Sanford used taxpayer money to fly business class when he should have been in coach, used state planes for personal travel and campaign funds for personal expenses.
A committee of South Carolina lawmakers was expected to begin formal …

Liberalism is ultimately about choice. The choice to embrace liberty. And that is what the American experiment was about in 1776: the embrace of liberty. And not the false liberty of the right, which seeks to embrace a narrow set of rights while abrogating all others, imposing enslaving rather than freeing.

Yesterday’s announcement that the Obama administration will try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 suspects in federal court has been hailed as everything from “an important step forward for justice” by Human Rights Watch) to “a step backwards for the security of our country [that] puts Americans unnecessarily at risk” by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Glenn Greenwald has pointed out the irony of Republicans now raising fears of another terror attack simply because the president has decided to prosecute terror suspects in …

By Sam Gustin
The single House Republican who voted for the Democrats’ health-care legislation is a first-term congressman from a strongly Democratic — and very poor — district comprising most of New Orleans. Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao’s vote is significant, not because it was politically motivated — and it was — but because it highlights the disparity between lower- and middle-class people throughout the country and many of their representatives in Washington, D.C.
Among the 535 elected representatives deciding the future shape of the American health …

By Geoffrey Dunn
Excerpts from Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue have been released by several news agencies and other sources who have received advanced copies. Here are the first ten lies from Palin’s memoirs:
1. The Cover Byline: Palin didn’t write the book by herself. Most books with known ghostwriters list their co-author’s name on the cover. In this case it was Lynn Vincent. Going Rogue does not.
2. The Subtitle: An American Life. Aside from her infancy, Palin has really spent very little time outside of Alaska, …