Traditionally hawkish Congresswoman Jane Harman surprised many at a Brookings Institution event yesterday by coming out against escalation in Afghanistan. Harman, a longtime Intelligence Committee member, told a Brookings Institution gathering today that any further increases “wouldn’t be well received” on Capitol Hill. Harman’s view is that the Obama administration

The President’s weekly message this week has generated more attention than a lot of the others, because it features him taking his hardest edge yet against the health insurance industry – the kind of message that progressives have wanted him to deliver for some time now. This is the unsustainable

I’ll probably have some items to populate the news desk over the weekend, FYI. Here’s a link-fest: QUICK UPDATE: In something of a Friday news dump, Creigh Deeds’ campaign confirmed via email that Barack Obama would campaign with the VA gubernatorial candidate on October 27. Deeds has Bill Clinton coming

(Note: I am a blogger fellow for Brave New Films and their Sick For Profit campaign, detailing the practices of the insurance industry) The Senate HELP Committee held a very interesting hearing on health insurance gender discrimination. It has not been a subject that has come up much in the

White House special master for compensation Kenneth Feinberg brought the hammer down on exiting Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis today, clawing back his salary and bonus for 2009. He still is on track to collect a $53.2 million dollar pension when he leaves the CEO position, so he’s not

Ezra Klein writes today that the blending of the two health care bills into one for the Senate floor will be a true blend – those issues where both the HELP Committee and the Finance Committee weighed in will result in one compromise or other, and other issues where only