I grew up in one of those Irish Catholic families where the Clancy Brothers music was always playing and everybody dropped everything if the Chieftans came to town. There was the brief flirtation with step dancing (Riverdancing to the rest of you) and the dreadful sounds my sister Kathleen and I made during our brief and painful (for those within earshot) period of bagpipe lessons. I am so nostalgic today, because HuffPo is reporting that an icon of being Irish in NY may be leaving us.

As for a public option, Ross said the Blue Dogs want to “take on the insurance companies” by threatening them with a public option if they cross certain “triggers,” such as continuing to exclude or penalize Americans with pre-existing conditions.

The Politico broke, as an exclusive, the story of a conservative group’s pay-for-play scandal that makes the Washington Post’s efforts to sell alleged access to the Obama White House and Capitol Hill look pretty minimal in comparison. But don’t expect it to get anywhere near as much coverage: the ACU’s reach is too great, and anyway such things are only scandalous if they involve Democrats.

Wow. Here’s the weekly address from President Obama at the White House, which was released early. In the weekly address, President Obama set out the parameters of the health care debate, explained what the opponents of health care reform were doing, and drew a line in the sand around the essential elements of health care reform.

With a month and a little more of summer to go — we live by the school calendar on that these days — I’ve been thinking about ways to get out and enjoy nature, and still make certain we get healthy meals.
But doing that and coming up with ways not to bust my budget can be tricky.

Rock into your weekend with new videos from Hundreds and Thousands and Ida Maria.

I could go on (at length) about what a bunch of freaking racists Sessions, Graham, Kyl, Cornyn, and Coburn are—this is Elephants on Parade, after all—but I think we all can see that the Party of No is pretty set on branding itself the Party of Ivory Snow (Michael Steele’s happy meal not withstanding). Instead, let me take just a moment to echo Dahlia’s admonition to the Majority Party.

Believe it or not, the real comedian of the Minnesota delegation to the United States Senate isn’t the guy from St. Louis Park. Our junior senator is in fact the serious-minded Talmudic scholar of the pair, whereas Amy Klobuchar, daughter of noted StarTribune sportswriter Jim Klobuchar, is the true cut-up here.

With his passing, a gold standard for integrity in journalism has been lost. So many of us grew up with his face in our living room.

So many of us learned of the big traumas in our nation’s history–Jack, Martin, Bobby, My Lai– from him, he delivered the bad news directly to us, in our own homes, it was an intimate act.

He was giant, an icon.

Last week, Assistant Attorney General David Kris and Dept. of Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to talk about Military Commissions.

They stood up for the notion of returning to the rule of law and open, fair trials. I’m glad they did it, but sad that it even needed to be done.