The debate over health care just added a new wrinkle. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), a key ally of Barack Obama’s from Illinois, said today that he would find it “extremely difficult if not impossible” to vote for a health care bill that included the restrictive and discriminatory measure on undocumented immigrants that appears in the [...]

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops released an “Ethical and Religious Directive” this month that would ban any Catholic hospital, nursing home or hospice program from removing feeding tubes or ending palliative procedures of any kind, even when the individual has an advance directive to guide their end-of-life care. The Bishops’ directive even notes that patient suffering is redemptive and brings the individual closer to Christ.

The Church has staked out a radical position on end-of-life care, without patients of the 565 Catholic hospitals and other Catholic care facilities even knowing about it. As Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion and Choices, an advocacy group, put it, “When a patient goes to one of these facilities, they don’t know that they’re choosing Catholic dogma. The bishops see the hospitals as an extension of their ministry.”

The CIA requested to destroy the torture tapes in email on November 8, 2005. They confirmed the destruction on November 9. Not surprisingly, after Leonie Brinkema had asked about videotapes. But also right in the middle of debates about McCain’s Detainee Treatment Act. And note that briefing for Crazy Pete Hoekstra–but not the other Dems in Intelligence Committee leadership–on the same day that CIA started asking to destroy the torture tapes.

We decided to show this contrast in the most clear way possible: a video pitting Blanche Lincoln’s floor speech with the videos of sick Arkansans taken at the free health clinic.

It doesn’t stop there though: FDL Action PAC is going to run online ads in Arkansas and DC, drawing a sharp divide between Blanche Lincoln and her sick constituents.

Please help us run these online ads and show the message to Arkansans. Donate to FDL Action PAC today.

This Thanksgiving, Dennis Prager’s just not as psyched about that fourth helping of turducken. …it is with a heavy heart that I write that my mood on this Thanksgiving will not be the same as on any other I have ever experienced. My gratitude will be marred by a dark cloud. “Dark cloud.” One might [...]

I suspect if PhRMA were 100% confident Joe Lieberman could successfully remove the public option and still ensure the rest of the bill would pass intact, they would be supporting his efforts. The fact that PhRMA is asking Lieberman not to fight indicates to me that they actually fear the possibility that the progressive block might kill the current bill because if it lacks a public option.

After being ridiculed from the left and right for dodging a question, McMahon’s campaign issued a clarifying response, in which she equated her opposition to terror trials to her opposition to “card check,” among other issues.

President Obama held a final war council meeting before the holidays last night, and it looked from the timing that it could be decisive. After the meeting, Robert Gibbs released a statement saying “After completing a rigorous final meeting, President Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days.”

That decision? Most accounts see an increase of 34,000 troops in the near term.

Ruthless Unreformer

Howard Dean is right; Arianna is right; Jane is right. The public option is essential to reform. It must be retained, protected and strengthened. Without it, health insurance reform will be just a very bad, very foolish, and very expensive experiment.