Katie Connolly

Why Joe Lieberman's threats on health-care legislation are not surprising, and may not matter.

D.C. loves nothing more than insider intrigue about closed-door meetings. Exhibit A: TPM's Brian Beutler is stirring the pot with his reporting that last week's White House health-care meeting between the president and Senators Reid and Schumer was more acrimonious than we've been led to believe.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled her long-awaited health-care bill today. There aren't any real surprises. Most of the newsy provisions have been well known for weeks now.

 Michelle Obama can add one more thing to her list of "firsts": next month she will be the first first lady to grace the cover of Glamor magazine. It's part of the fashion mag's annual "Women of the Year" edition, and Obama is being honored for her with a "Special Recognition" award for her work in mentoring younger women.

A few months ago I wrote a short piece about the startling practice of using open-air burn pits to incinerate waste on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If Harry Reid were Jerry Seinfeld, he'd probably be snarling the name "Lieberman" through gritted teeth right now, in true Newman-esque fashion. The Connecticut senator announced this afternoon that he'll join a Republican filibuster of the health-care bill unless the public option provision is changed.

Over at the Plum Line, Greg Sargent notes something I've been thinking, and meaning to blog about for weeks, namely that the Virginia governor's race is not a referendum on the president.

It wasn't long ago when pundits were calling the time of death on the public option. But today, in a move that seemed almost inconceivable back in August, Harry Reid has announced that the bill he plans to take to the Senate floor will contain a public option.

America's conservatives are probably feeling pretty chuffed today after reading Gallup's recent polling on political ideology. The data confirm Gallup's June finding that conservatism is the dominant ideology in the country right now.

Yesterday afternoon, the Senate rejected a cloture motion that would have brought Sen. Debbie Stabenow's Medicare Physician Fairness Act of 2009 to the floor.

Iowa's Chuck Grassley was elected to the Senate back in 1980, and for decades now, his seat has appeared unwinnable to Democrats. Grassley's hold on it seems about as firm as you can get.

Yesterday over at the Washington City Paper, sex and gender blogger Amanda Hess picked up an interesting nugget from Pew's latest research into the state of American marriage.

Last week, Holly wrote about the tough race Harry Reid will face next year in Nevada. Republicans, she wrote, are eager to knock him off, as they did Tom Daschle in 2006.

Olympia Snowe's Tuesday vote in favor of Max Baucus's health-care plan inspired much chatter about her "bucking the party" and whether the GOP will retaliate and strip her of her coveted seniority.

Gallup released new polling data this morning showing that Hillary Clinton has higher favorability ratings (62%) than President Obama (56%). Like Obama, her numbers have declined since January, but in her case it is only by 3 percentage points.

Lindsey Graham's actions on climate change in the last few days have set the greenosphere abuzz. First, he penned an op-ed, with John Kerry, where he committed to work with Democrats to pass a comprehensive climate-change bill.

After the Senate Finance Committee vote on health-care reform today, I'm left wondering, again, why Senate Democrats continue to make life so hard for themselves by refusing to discuss one key compromise.

Democrats on Capitol Hill just collectively exhaled, joyously. Maine Senator Olympia Snowe has told the Senate Finance Committee that she intends to vote yes on Max Baucus's health care reform bill today.

This week in the weekly obsession: former House majority leader Tom DeLay shook his groove thing on Dancing With the Stars so much his feet failed him. As he hung up his Capezios, TV pundits everywhere mourned the loss. The Weekly Obsession is a new video series dissecting the issues that dominate our 24/7 news cycle, by our talented video-ess extraordinaire Sarah Frank.

Twitter has been buzzing about the president's Nobel prize this morning, and it's been enormously entertaining. Here's a sampling of our favorite tweets so far, a tweet-ology if you will. (Blogging about tweeting, alarmingly postmodern I know.) Farhad Manjoo, Slate (@fmanjoo)- Yo Barack, I'm really happy for you and imma let you finish, but Morgan Tsvangirai was one the most peaceful dudes ever.

Obama has won the presidency, a Grammy and now the Nobel Peace Prize. The only award he can't get it seems, is an honorary degree from Arizona State University.

America awoke this morning to the stunning news that President Obama had won one of the world's most coveted distinctions, the Nobel Peace Prize. According to the Nobel committee's citation, it was awarded for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," with particular emphasis on Obama's "vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons." It's a remarkable justification for the award, given he's made so little progress in achieving...

Levi Johnston, the lad most famous for knocking up his high-school sweetheart—who also happened to be Sarah Palin's daughter—is making the most of his fame.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus might be cracking open the champagne tonight, now that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its preliminary analysis* of the health-care bill he slaved over for months.

Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) today introduced a resolution calling for embattled New York Rep. Charlie Rangel to be stripped of his chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

Political foes join together to oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Guest Gaggler Joshua Alston mounts a convincing argument below against the outing of gay politicians. For the most part I agree with him, but I'm feeling a little argumentative and there's a little gap in his argument worth exploring.

In the wake of the president's failed attempt to bring the Olympic Games to his hometown of Chicago, some conservatives are partying like they live in Rio.

Chicago has been eliminated in the first round of IOC voting. Wow—I did not see that coming. The way I figured it, this White House is far too protective of the president's strategically crafted image to allow him to travel thousands of miles only to fail on the world stage.

Will the excitement ever stop? Two of this year's juiciest political sex scandals are becoming full-blown ethics scandals for the GOP. This evening we learned, via The New York Times, that disgraced Sen.