Taylor Jones, Politicalcartoons.com This cartoon is copyrighted and authorized to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

WASHINGTON — For some years, Democrats have denounced parodies casting their party as utterly closed to the views of those who oppose abortion. Last weekend, Democrats proved conclusively that they are, indeed, a big tent — and many in the ranks are furious. From the outraged comments of the abortion rights movement, you’d think that Rep. Bart Stupak’s amendment to the House version...

Digby is fed up with paying for Viagra:

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...

This GUEST VOICE piece is by Rafael Jesús González from California, on Veterans’ Day 2009. It is a perspective on ‘supporting the troops’ …or not. I brought it here to give a small x-ray into how one family’s three generations of soldiers is evolving nearly ninety years after what was supposed to have been ‘the war to end all wars, World War One’ …GUEST VOICE...

In his excellent post honoring our veterans, Jazz Shaw mentioned that “The debt we owe to our returning heroes runs much deeper than a free pass to Disneyland.” While we have come a long way in how we treat our veterans and in improving the benefits and services our veterans receive, especially under the leadership of Gen. Eric Shinseki, we still have a long way to go. In particular, as mentioned...

Anti-abortion and pro-life advocates successfully added an Amendment to the House Health Reform Bill that prohibited any Federal Funds from subsidizing private insurance purchases by individuals and families on public exchanges that would cover abortions. Pro-abortion and pro-choice advocates cried foul and the amendment constituted an impermissible limit on a woman’s right to choose. The President also...

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...

In the battle over health care, the Republican Right, after months of saying no to every Obama initiative from stimulus to bailouts, has gone on the offensive to slice and dice Americans into warring factions–young-old, men-women, rich-poor, anywhere fear and hatred can be stirred up. Sarah Palin, bless her feisty heart, started it all with “death panels,” but naysayers are now working the...

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on compromise in the health care legislative process: I’m sure there are a lot of people sitting in the shade at the Aspen Institute — my brother being one of them — who will tell you what the ideal plan is. Great, fascinating. You have the art of the possible measured against the ideal. H/t Eric Zimmermann.

Fourteen were killed at Fort Hood, not thirteen as reported all week long. Which official is correcting the death toll? I am. On the authority of being a mother who is multi-paragravida, meaning one who has given birth more than once, and on the authority of being a grandmother of five souls, I can, I think, count straight about this particular tragedy. Francheska Velez was a 21-year-old woman, shot to death...

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Matthew Yglesias wrote this a few days ago, but I didn’t blog about it then, and right now at the present moment there are a bunch of people who need to be told this. Not that it will make any difference of course, but here it is anyway.

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

Love her or not — and I’m in the “not” category, most of the time — Speaker Pelosi’s legislative maneuvering on the House health care bill was impressive. See the second item at First Read, h/t Ben Smith.

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:

When Arizona Republican John Shadegg used a seven-month-old baby as a prop during yesterday’s debate on health care, his symbolism was more apt than intended. What the House passed last night was a bowel movement of a bill diapered by competitive political posturing to cover a messy pile of mandates, entitlements, wishful savings and iffy tax changes. To call the legislative process that produced this...

Religious zealots succeed in making low-income women the sacrificial lamb for health care reform:

You can listen to the speech here. The Roanoke Times covers it here. It will be televised by C-SPAN. I am persuaded my hope has been realized; this was not the typical celebrity journalist comeback it might have been. Instead, it sounds like Blair was a wise choice for the Journalism Ethics Institute keynote lecture. +++++++++++++++ Jayson Blair, who resigned from the New York Times in 2003 after he was caught...

Watch the debate in the House and the vote live below: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

President Barack Obama met with House Democrats to make a final appeal today — a day when the epic health care reform battle is expected to come to a House vote. It’s a vote that promises to be historic in terms of social programs — and how it defines both parties. One one side, the Democrats, whose votes could determine how members do when they’re up for re-election in 2010. On the...

Mike Keefe, Keefe, The Denver Post This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Miss Kimberly Munley, the mother of a three-year-old daughter, and a civie policewoman, is in stable condition, with injuries to the upper leg and thigh. General Cone said her fearless response to gunman at Fort Hood, had saved countless lives. Trained in active-response tactics, she rushed into the building where Major Nidal Malik Hasan began firing on comrades as they prepared to deploy to Afghanistan and...

Nancy Pelosi has assured us that there will be. Of course, the job of House Speaker is much like being a bookie for organized crime… you never take a bet when you don’t know how the game will end. Byron York explains how this is putting a lot of Democrats under the gun. The House is in the final rush toward passage of a national health care bill, and there’s one thing Speaker Nancy Pelosi absolutely,...