Good morning.
The pressure is building as the vote gets closer in the House on the health care bill. The House Budget Committee got the process rolling last night by passing a reconciliation bill. Obama appears to be fully engaged now. He was in Ohio yesterday giving a barn burner of a speech, invoking "courage." (Where's that guy been for the past year?)
This afternoon, the President is meeting with Secretary Gates. Perhaps they can finally decide on a strategy for repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. As Barney Frank made abundantly clear yesterday (several times), there is no White House plan to repeal despite what we've been led to believe. In Barney's words, the Obama administration has been "ambiguous." That's not helpful. Barney has now called on the White House to publicly state that they want DADT repealed this year. It's been a day. No word from the President.
I think Atrios made an important point yesterday on Twitter:
senator ensign is still in office. just a reminder.Yeah. How is that? The FBI is investigating Ensign's shenanigans, which started with an affair with a staffer and payoffs to her family. It's spiraled downward from there. Yet, every day, he's part of the cabal that blocks progress. We need to keep reminding people about Ensign.
And, we need to get threading the news...
