AMA walks back it’s opposition to a public health insurance option. Now they say they’d accept one if it’s hobbled enough to make it less attractive, and they just didn’t want to be forced to be treat patients.

The conference committee on the Supplemental today rejected an amendment by Mitch McConnell, which would have added the Graham-Lieberman photo detainee suppression amendment into the bill.

FDL has obtained a letter written President Obama to David Obey and Daniel Inouye opposing the McConnell Amendment (PDF):

Dear Chairman Obey and Chairman Inouye:

Healthcare reform is coming, and the AMA can’t do a damned thing about it. Join me in giving them a collective raspberry.

It was only a matter of time before the American Medical Assocation put its well heeled foot down and put a stop to this nonsense talk about creating a public insurance option to compete against it’s partner in profits, America’s lucrative private insurance system.

The heroes that saved the visitors and employees at the National Holocaust Museum are yet another example of union members performing heroically.

And what can I say. . . I just love Brendan.

Providence, R.I., wants protestors to register in advance. It even has provided a special online registration form and “Public Viewing Guidelines” (h/t to Pat Crowley).

How thoughtful.

Seems the upcoming U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting set for that city has put the spotlight on Providence Mayor David Cicilline’s seven-year long battle against union members.

So, here we are again. The WaPo editorial is right: until just recently, the IMF was effectively without a mission. Most countries in the world ceased doing business with it after the fiasco of the Asian crisis — it was out of Latin America altogether, and most of Asia. Now it is coming back to life in Eastern Europe, somewhat reformed, somewhat better led, but still with much the same wholesale approach to conditionality. The East European governments are taking the deals, because, shockingly, they are somewhat less stringent than the alternative on offer from the European Union. A sad situation, but one in which it may be better to have the IMF than not to have it.

The usual suspects are trying to convince us that there’s absolutely no evidence that James von Brunn, who will be charged with murder, was a right-winger. Here’s what we know so far about him.

I’ve had a couple of really weedy posts examining the CIA’s response to the torture FOIA (Cherry-Pick One, Cherry-Pick Two, FOIA Exemptions). And I wanted to pull back a bit, and explain what I think they might mean.

We’re getting all these documents because the CIA is trying to avoid being held in contempt for not revealing the now-destroyed torture tapes in a response to this FOIA in 2004.