Lieberman: Doing nothing on healthcare better than government-run option

By Mike Soraghan

Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday it's worth defeating a healthcare overhaul in order to prevent the creation of a government-run health insurance program. (Read More)

Lest We Forget

Republicans Oppose Franken on Rape Legislation

by: Mary Susan Littlepage

After Minnesota Sen. Al Franken's amendment to the 2010 defense appropriations bill passed by a 68-30 vote, rape victim Jamie Leigh Jones thanked Franken and said, "It means the world to me." That's because the amendment calls for withholding defense contracts from companies like KBR (a former Halliburton subsidiary) if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court. (read more)

Trading in 'cap and trade'

By Tim Flannery
The international climate negotiations that have been grinding on for years may have crossed a Rubicon of sorts. That's because a new model of engagement for some nations is receiving wide attention. It's shorthanded as "national schedules," and it could get incorporated into the next world climate treaty -- the one that replaces the Kyoto Protocol -- to be signed in Copenhagen in December. (read more)

Carbon Forests Still Taking Up Carbon

by Lisa Moore
Old-growth forests hold vast amounts of carbon from centuries of growth, and this carbon would be released into the atmosphere if the trees were cut down. (read more)

War looms as Taliban surge rocks Pakistan

ISLAMABAD–Pakistan is moving ever closer to a bloody confrontation with the Taliban, which is teaming up with ethnic rivals in a bold series of attacks in the country's crowded cities.

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China commits to carbon cuts

UNITED NATIONS–America talked. Canada watched. But it was China that led yesterday in an unprecedented global gathering to meet the challenge of climate change.
In a vivid example of eastern leadership, President Hu Jintao told a United Nations summit of nearly 100 world leaders that China would voluntarily deliver a four-part package of near-term carbon-cutting commitments, including the planting of nearly 40 million hectares of emissions-absorbing forest.


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SCOTUS campaign case could boost GOP

Politico

Imagine power companies spending millions of dollars on ads in the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections accusing congressmen who supported climate change legislation of trying to increase electric rates and urging votes against them, or unions buying airtime to support primary challenges to conservative Democratic senators who opposed the labor-backed Employee Free Choice Act. Or even healthcare companies saturating the airwaves with messages urging voters to deny President Obama a second term.

All those ads would be illegal under current election law. But the Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case that challenges decades of restrictions on corporations and unions spending unlimited cash on just those sorts of ads. (read more)

Actually, the Senate Is Far Less Nepotistic Today

by Tom Schaller

The hiring of Jenna Bush Hager by NBC's "Today" show to be an education correspondent smacks of non-meritocratic promotion, and has Salon's Glenn Greenwald suitably fired up. Tongue planted firmly in cheek, Greenwald imagines this scenario:

They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it's really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from. There's a virtually endless list of politically well-placed guests equally qualified to talk on such matters.

I can't speak to the state of nepotism in the media; so far as I know, beyond anecdotal evidence, no statistics have ever been compiled to track this phenomenon. But when Greenwald cites U.S. senators--and as he wrote in a related, earlier post that, "Family succession is hardly unheard of in U.S. political history, but what was once quite rare has now become pervasive"--he's simply not right, or at least as concerns the U.S. Senate. The fact is that nepotism in the Senate is today at historical lows in American history.

In His Own Words: Senator Kennedy

By The New York Times

In two recent speeches over the last year or so, Senator Edward M. Kennedy celebrated Democratic victories, borrowing the words of his brothers and civil rights activists as he heralded a new era in which he hoped for significant legislative achievements on health care and other issues.

After undergoing brain surgery in June, Senator Kennedy appeared to a hearty welcome at the Democratic National Convention last August in Denver. Mr. Kennedy remarked that he was thrilled to be a part of the gathering. And he vowed in his speech before a cheering crowd, that “this November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans, so with Barack Obama, for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew, the hope rises again and the dream lives on.” (read the rest... videos)