Ezra Klein reads over 2,000 pages of legislative language so you don’t have to. His conclusion: This bill is a “grand bargain” that achieves impressive levels of coverage while still cutting costs:

According to emerging news reports Rudy Guliani has decided not to run for Governor of New York but will instead run for the US Senate seat formerly held by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Spokespeople for Rudy have neither confirmed or denied these reports, simply saying that he will “inform New Yorkers on his own”.

This is just incredible:

The entire text is online. It’s 2,074 pages. Via Ron Chusid, who has a reading plan:

A new study out from George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services concludes that the Stupak-Pitts Amendment will have an expansive effect on abortion coverage over the entire insurance industry, “eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange.”

From Politico: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health reform bill comes in at $849 billion, and will reduce the federal budget deficit by $127 billion in the first 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office says, according to a senior Democratic aide. More here. I wonder if that’s enough to perusade the Senate 3.

Per a WSJ.com report (registration/subscription may be required) … “We have attacked a ship with an American flag — we tried to throw our ladders for climbing (but) it sped and (has) gone away,” said Abdullahi Nor, who identified himself as a pirate spokesman. So if pirates hire spokespeople, are they really pirates? Maybe I’m stuck in Hollywood/Johnny-Depp mode, but I honestly...

I’m sure we’re all very shocked to hear that the man who subverted and perverted the law to give his masters the pseudo-legal cover to run a torture program against Arab and Muslim detainees doesn’t want the methods used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be revealed in open court.

One of the goals Barack Obama set for his presidency was the elimination of hunger among children by 2015. Whether or not he achieves that goal, Obama is the first American president even to commit to achieving it. Having said that, he has a difficult road ahead of him, because more Americans — including children — are living with hunger at least some of the time:

The murderous Mexican drug cartels are known for their viciousness conducting their illicit trade. U.S. drug manufactures are less sanguine but equally adept at protecting their profits. In anticipation of new health reform legislation that would curb their oligarchy, drug makers have raised their prices about 9% this past year while the Consumer Price Index has fallen by 1.3% during the same period. The widely...

The Space Shuttle Atlantis has just launched for the International Space Station. The launch took place at 2:28pm EST and appears to have been a perfect takeoff. No matter how many times I watch a launch there is always a part of me that wishes I was going along. Details on the mission can be found at the NASA web site.

The right-wing tsk tsk tskers are at it again. This time it is a deep bow of respect President Barack Obama offered when greeting Japanese emperor Akihito this weekend in Tokyo. That bastion of conservatism, The Drudge Report, signaled its disgust by shouting in 42-pt. boldface headlines “How Low Can He Get?” And, get this. Drudge uses as an example of diplomatic decorum none other than former Vice...

Once again, Barack Obama has demonstrated his appalling hatred for America, and his elitism, and his arrogance, and his tearing down and bashing of his country and his predecessor’s foreign policies, by greeting Japan’s prime minister with a deep bow in a culturally appropriate way.

As a little boy, I used to crawl on the floor for hours setting up dozens of dominoes in various patterns, only to topple them down—and doing it over and over again. Well, the Dutch have taken this pastime to new levels. Today, “Domino Day,” they set a new world record—again—for the most consecutive dominoes to fall in succession, using over 4.5 million dominoes in a fantastic...

Remember when conservatives used to say that “enemy combatants” like the guys at Gitmo had no right to basic legal protections because they weren’t U.S. citizens? You know, like in the post I wrote just before this one?

Charlie Savage on the Obama administration’s plans to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four of Mohammed’s alleged accomplices in federal court in New York City — and to use the military tribunal system at Guantanamo to try five other high-profile detainees. This decision is part of a strategy Obama revealed in his National Archives speech last May:

Steve Benen:

Lou Dobbs surprised everyone when he announced that he is leaving CNN effective immediately. Dobbs has been the longest running anchor at the network but his recent shift from a pure financial reporter into an advocate against illegal immigration upset many at the center-left network. Speculation has been he could end up at Fox but for the time being he has not announced any plans.

I’m facing a moral crises over some fundamental issues regarding health reform legislation. First, I believe a woman has the right to choose an abortion, not the government nor any religious organization. At the same time, I would not encourage my wife to abort our child unless it would save her life. Second, as a policy issue, I have no moral grounds to oppose the Hyde Amendment which essentially prohibits...

The officials at the Greenville Correctional Center have just announced the execution of John Muhammed, the DC sniper. He was pronounced dead at 9:11pm EST. During 2002 Muhammed and his teenage accomplice terrorized the Washington DC area and murdered ten people and left the region in chaos as people were afraid to go out and shop or pump gas. According to the briefing he had no last words and did not speak...

Warren Buffet is nobody’s fool when it comes to global business and investing. We should all heed his suggestion to invest in America’s Railroads and private companies designing, building and maintaining key national and regional infrastructure projects around the world. We won’t be able to buy BNSF shares for a short time since Berkshire Hathaway will own 100% of it, but within the next few years, there...

From the very outset of the health reform legislation debate, I had this premonition that when the House and Senate bills reached the conference committee for reconciliation, President Barack Obama would come charging to the rescue like the hero wearing the white hat in those old western movies. He still may do that if the Senate manages to actually pass a bill but he is quickly running out of ammunition. He...

UPDATED: House Democrats are laying down the gauntlet on abortion rights (emphasis in original):

Formerly Democratic, now Independent, Sen. Joseph Lieberman formally and officially confirmed to Chris Wallace this morning that his conscience requires him to vote no on health care reform when a bill reaches the Senate floor kill health care reform by joining a Republican filibuster to prevent the Senate’s health care reform bill from ever getting to the floor for a vote:

Yes, it’s an historic achievement: