Katie Connolly

On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart, at his sharp, inimitable best, ripped into congressional Democrats for failing to get a public option included in the health-care bill before the Senate Finance Committee, despite having a supermajority.

Looks like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has finally bitten the bullet and has submitted papers to register a PAC—usually the first step in any presidential bid—thus ending the most predictable speculation in the 2012 race so far.

After weeks of railing against the price tag of health-care reform, Senate Republicans managed to bond over pumping up the budget for one aspect of health-care reform yesterday: abstinence-only education.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has today released the results of its latest poll tracking public opinion on health-care reform. Similar to the polls I wrote about last week, Kaiser has found an uptick in support since a low point in August.

Five Senate Democrats sounded the death knell for Jay Rockefeller's public-option amendment in the Finance Committee today. Rockefeller's amendment was voted down 15-8.

Over at The Washington Post this morning, Ezra Klein offered some thoughts on a recent Monkey Cage post by Gregory Koger, a congressional expert at the University of Miami, regarding the importance of the filibuster.

The White House announced today that President Obama was dispatching the nation's most powerful messenger to make the final pitch for Chicago's 2016 Olympics bid: himself.

I have a story out today about the arduous battle that Barbara Boxer and John Kerry will face when they drop their climate-change bill in the Senate, which is likely to be any day now.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick announced this morning that he's appointing former DNC chair Paul G. Kirk Jr., 71, to replace Ted Kennedy until a special election can be held.

Climate-change legislation might get bogged down in the Senate.

Since Susan Page's exclusive preview of Taylor Branch's upcoming book about Bill Clinton appeared on the front page of on Monday, we've been treated to all sorts of juicy tales from the Clinton years.

Sarah Palin 2.0 was unveiled last night at a speech to Asian bankers and investors in Hong Kong. The event was closed to the media, which is perhaps unsurprising.

The Massachusetts legislature today passed a bill that would allow Governor Deval Patrick to appoint an interim senator to the late Ted Kennedy's vacant seat, bringing it in line with the 45 other states that grant that power to their governors.

It's no secret that August was a bad month for the President. Health care reform stalled, his approval ratings slid and the faces of angry voters castigating their representatives were plastered all over the media.

Liberals were disappointed when Max Baucus's long awaited health-care bill was unveiled last week without a public option. Baucus had instead included not-for-profit co-ops as his preferred mechanism for providing affordable coverage to the uninsured.

Kevin Drum, over at Mother Jones magazine, made a compelling case earlier this week for the merits of true bipartisanship. He writes: Bipartisanship is in bad odor these days because it's associated with a knee-jerk, David Broderish tendency to assume that the answer to any policy dilemma is automatically halfway between the liberal position and the conservative position. But that sells bipartisanship short. Where it shines is its ability to allow politicians to make tough decisions.

Edmund Burke famously once said that manners were more important than laws: "Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in".

Sen. Max Baucus's health-care reform proposal, released yesterday, will likely dominate the reform conversation for the next few days. At 220 pages, the chairman's mark, as it is called, is an easier read than H.R. 3200, the House bill.

Anyone who watches cable news surely knows that conservatives are getting themselves all hot and bothered over the Obama administration's appointment of so-called czars.

Senate Finance chair Max Baucus finally unveiled his health-care bill today. Baucus is the last committee chairman to weigh in on reform, largely because he has spent months wrangling with Republicans for their support.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) today introduced a bill seeking to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which was first passed in 1996. Nadler's bill has 91 cosponsors.

Crossposted from The Gaggle Most of the attention on the Massachusetts Senate race so far has focused on the growing pool of Democratic candidates, which makes sense given that Democrats virtually own the seat.

Most of the attention on the Massachusetts Senate race so far has focused on the growing pool of Democratic candidates, which makes sense given that Democrats virtually own the seat.

Earlier today, NEWSWEEK's Howard Fineman reported that Justice John Paul Stevens has not appointed a full contingent of clerks for next year, prompting his prediction that the longest-serving current Supreme Court justice (and the oldest) will retire next spring.

Ben Smith at Politico has got his paws on an interesting memo from David Binder, one of the guys who ran President Obama's polling and focus groups for his campaign.

NEWSWEEK's economics guru Daniel Gross has a fascinating column out today about whether, health-care reform notwithstanding, we are entering an era in which only a minority of Americans have access to employer-based coverage.

In last night's speech to the joint session of Congress, the president was pretty tough on his opponents, pounding them on "scare tactics" and accusing them of trying to score short-term political points at the expense of the nation's well-being.

It's been more than six months since I last sat in the chamber of the House of Representatives to watch President Obama address a joint session of Congress.

After the resignation of Van Jones last weekend, pundits declared a victory for Fox News host Glenn Beck, who'd been whipping up his audience into a frenzy about Jones for weeks.

Last night The Washington Post reported Sen. Chris Dodd's decision to decline the chairmanship of the powerful Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP), previously chaired by Ted Kennedy.