I don’t know how long Rep. Joe Wilson (R-Teabagland) will be the butt of our jokes, so get Joe Wilson Is Your Preexisting Condition.com while it’s hot.
Among our favorites: Joe Wilson yells Free Bird at concerts…

You can only admire the courage and determination of this woman to get through her statement despite the disgusting, goonish bullying of the mindless idiots in the crowd. I hope her representative got the message.

We can debate grassroots versus astroturf in the health care reform shouting match, but some numbers published recently at Bloomberg should give everyone pause. Including the fact that there six lobbyists for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate.

I knew it! I was saving the latest edition of George LeMieux’s email newsletter, which talked about his readiness to be the next U.S. Senator from Florida, because I had a feeling Gov. Charlie Crist would pick his safe old chum for the job. And he did. Crist’s former chief of staff, campaign manager, and one of the countless people on Karl Rove’s bad list, is in.

If you thought your representatives in Washington were going to spend their summer recess back home, hearing how you feel about the problems with American health care…well, you’re a sucker. In fact, many of them will have been as far from your district as it’s possible to be without space flight. Here’s a rundown of where your senator or congressperson (and their spouses — well, not Lindsey Graham — and staff members) spent summer vacation.

In his Special Comment on MSNBC’s “Countdown” last night, Keith Olbermann called out prominent members of Congress who are working to kill health-care reform, accusing them of prostituting themselves to the health industry lobbies.
“We know what you are, sir, we’re arguing about the price.” – Olbermann addressing Sen. Thune (R-N.D.), who has been paid [...]

“McCain opposes #Sotomayor. Oh. My. God. – he’s gonna run again in 2012.”
— twitter tweet from Progress Florida

Not again.
The Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein has it exactly right about health care. We can’t let things keep going as they are.
Among the range of options for health-care reform, there’s one that is sure to raise your taxes, increase your out-of-pocket medical expenses, swell the federal deficit, leave more Americans without insurance and guarantee that [...]

Ken Rudin is reporting that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee canceled today’s vote on Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Today’s scheduled vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court has been postponed until next Tuesday.
Republican senators on the committee, as is their prerogative, [...]

“It’s the American way that we judge people as individuals, not as groups. And by that standard we can say unequivocally that this particular wise Latina, with the richness of her experiences, would far more often than not reach a better conclusion than the individual white males she faced in that Senate hearing room. Even [...]