And at the ballgame in today's October @ the White House Slideshow ...

From the White House pool report this evening:

POTUS and FLOTUS greet some of the 2,600 children and adults invited to trick-or-treat at the White House for Halloween. Highlights: FLOTUS as Cat Woman, Gibbs as Darth Vader, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as Goofy.

Wall Street Journal adopts "death taxes" usage in news pages.

The DCCC's statement on what today's developments in the NY-23 mean is self-serving but also happens to be true: "Moderates are not welcome in the Republican Party and differing opinions will not be tolerated."

Andrew Cohen surveys the multiple Halloween Eve '09 revelations.

Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative Doug Hoffman have put out statements reacting to moderate Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava dropping out of the race in NY-23.

The NRCC is going to be officially getting behind Doug Hoffman, now that Scozzafava has been forced from the race.

Dede Scozzafava is suspending her campaign in NY-23.

Just to be clear, in effect, that means she's dropping out. Though her manner of doing it probably has a lot to do with her unhappiness at being forced out.

In her comments to the Watertown Daily Times Scozzafava explicitly referenced this morning's Siena poll as evidence she was likely too far behind to come back.

The San Francisco mayor has withdrawn from the California governor's race.

I'm not sure what to make of this. But, as you know, former NYC Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik is now in jail after his bail was revoked for violating the terms of a protective order (i.e., trying to release sealed trial documents). And at a pre-trial hearing today, Judge Stephen Robinson said Kerik was showing signs of risky behavior that had raised the judge's concerns about Kerik's safety.

Robinson said he'd been in contact with the jail's director of psychiatric services, Dr. Robert Mahler, who described behavior that put Kerik "at risk" and went beyond the normal stresses of incarceration. Said Robinson: "There were things, unexplained, described to me that were either said or done ... that raised the level of concern. I left the conversation with Dr. Mahler feeling this was an issue that cannot be ignored."

The courtroom exchange was very cryptic. And none of the parties would comment on whether Kerik had been relocated to the jail's psychiatric unit or been placed on a suicide watch.

In addition to the White House visitor logs, the looong-awaited FBI notes from its interview of then-Vice President Dick Cheney in the Valerie Plame case have also been released, by coincidence in a case unrelated to the visitor logs.

Just to add to the fun, the SEC a short time ago released the exhibits to the scathing SEC inspector general's report into how the commission missed the Bernie Madoff fraud for so long.

We've got a late Friday afternoon document dump from the White House, releasing months of White House visitor logs. We've got the story here. And if you're in a digging mood we've got an open thread here at TPMMuckraker for digging through and finding the best stuff.

Has the Public Option been made so emasculated and available to so few people that its premiums will actually end up being higher than private insurance premiums. Brian Beutler explains why the Public Option may end up being the insurance companies' best friend.

Christie and Giuliani hit the trail for the final stretch in New Jersey

If you're a longtime regular, you probably already know that we'll be here Tuesday evening bringing you live election results as they come in. And if you're new, well, we'll be here Tuesday evening, bringing you live election results until the last results come in, through the combined brainpower of TPM tech wizard Al Shaw and TPM election results kingpin Eric Kleefeld.

Let's quickly go through the races. We've got governors races in New Jersey (handful of new polls out today) and Virginia, the special election in NY-23rd district, the mayor's race in New York City (if you can call its that) and the marriage equality vote in Maine (i.e., "Question 1"). Those are the ones we'll be following closely.

So who do you think is going to win? Send me your educated guesses. The New York Mayor's race seems to have about the suspense of Newtonian physics. The Virginia governor's race, a bit more tension, but not much. But NY-23, NJ-Gov and Marriage-Maine, these could be late into the evening.

What are you expecting?

Looking for signs that Democrats will do well at the polls on Tuesday? Don't look to the White House, which is working hard to downplay the significance of a bad showing on Election Day.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) was on Fox News this morning when they suddenly started asking him if the "death panels" were still in the new health care bills that have now been unveiled. Cornyn seemed a little caught off guard, so he didn't inhale the bait, he just nibbled around on it, like he'd forgotten his talking points from the hot days of August. I'm confident he'll be more on message next time.

That Nasa scientist charged with passing classified information to a FBI agent posing as a Mossad agent but who, as we've reported, may have really been spying for India, was also passing info to real Israelis, prosecutors now say. Confused yet? Justin Elliott explains.

In a classic segment, Jon Stewart demonstrates how Fox News carefully maintains its well-constructed Chinese wall between news and opinion. Watch.

I've never been terribly impressed with Liz Cheney. Her father may have a pact with Satan, despite the records of the negotiations remaining off limits due to executive privilege. But he's a highly accomplished government operative and insider over a period of something like forty years -- with a decent span as a member of the House.

But I'm not sure I remember her fibbing on quite this scale before. But when Liz Cheney attacked President Obama for his visit to Dover Air Force Base to greet and honor the bodies of American servicemen killed in action in Afghanistan, she claimed that President Bush routinely did the same thing -- only without cameras. Yet, there's no evidence Bush ever did this. Not even once. Cameras or no cameras. Reporters who covered Obama and Bush say Obama's the first to have done this.

Curious whether she'll get asked about this. She shows up on Fox pretty often.

Liz Cheney, delightful person.

Liz Cheney says George W. Bush showed more class than Barack Obama when he honored fallen troops -- because Bush didn't bring cameras along with him when he never went to Dover AFB.

As you see, the news today is that Joe Lieberman says he'll campaign for Republicans in 2010. And really, that's not too surprising since he did that in 2008. And it's not like he's come back to the Dems in any real way since then.

What did strike me though is that Lieberman is apparently planning to run for reelection in 2012.

Read more »

Rachel Maddow follows up on the "flash" tea party rally we reported on yesterday, with its meager showing on the Hill for the House reform bill unveiling. Watch.

Hillary is not too happy with Pakistan's counterterrorism efforts, telling Pakistani reporters that it's "hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to." That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Harkin on Lieberman ...

"[Lieberman] still wants to be a part of the Democratic Party although he is a registered independent," Harkin said. "He wants to caucus with us and, of course, he enjoys his chairmanship of the [Homeland Security] committee because of the indulgence of the Democratic Caucus. So, I'm sure all of those things will cross his mind before the final vote."

Asked today how much confidence she had in President Obama's commitment to a public option, Speaker Pelosi said ...

"I guess I'm just so busy with what I'm doing that I'm not worrying about what somebody else is doing, and I have confidence in the President of the United States. He wants the strongest best possible bill that will work for the American people. And we have to convince him that what will pass in the Congress is something similar to what we have in the House."

For all my fellow NJ-Gov fellow obsessives out there a quick update. Yesterday we had the Quinnipiac poll showing Corzine opening a meaningful lead over Christie -- 43% to 38%. Well we've got three new polls out today. And it's remains a mixed picture, with the upshot pointing to a crazily tight race.

Read more »

The three candidates in the NY-23 special election met tonight for the only debate of the campaign with all three candidates in attendance. Eric Kleefeld reports.

With the surge in support for Doug Hoffman in NY-23 and the news that outside groups have dumped $3 million into the race, could it now be that Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava is the spoiler and spoiling it for Dem Bill Owens?

You probably know our reporters better. But behind the scenes Andrew Golis, TPM's Deputy Publisher, has been a big part of TPM's growth and accomplishments over the last three years he's been working at the site. Today's Andrew's last day. He's leaving to take a job at Yahoo! News helping create ... what else, a new news blog. 'Nuff said. We wish him luck and thank him for all his work.

We've just posted photos of Andrew's impromptu going away party a few moment ago in our NY headquarters at our Facebook fan page. (If you stop by, take a moment to become a TPM fan on Facebook.)

Pew survey: Fox News is viewed as the most ideologically oriented of the big three cable news channels.

Arrest warrant issued for Michael Hilton, scammer at the center of the Montana jail/American Police Force debacle.

CBO releases score of House health care bill.

More details shortly.

Orly Taitz

In a real shocker another federal judge has found one of Orly Taitz's birther lawsuits against the President to be without legal basis -- which just goes to show that the entire federal judiciary is engaged in a treasonous conspiracy to protect this impostor of a President.

During a brief press availability this afternoon, President Obama reflected on his overnight visit to Dover AFB. Watch.

Fun People.

Randall Terry and fellow anti-abortion protestors staked out congressional staffers this morning with costumes and street theater dramatizing how said staffers will soon be burning in hellfire along with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for supporting health care reform.

"The fire hurts!!!"

See the video.

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley were reportedly drinking together again last night -- this time in a Cambridge pub.

If you want to know how big corporate astroturfing works, and the many layers of money and subterfuge involved, there's no better case study than the coal industry group that sent forged letters to Congress purportedly from community groups opposing global warming regulation. Zack Roth has been covering today's hearing in the House on this particular fiasco, but like I said, it's a rare window into this whole professional bamboozlement apparatus.

There's a stampede among national Republicans to support Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman in the NY-23rd special election. And there are some signs that Hoffman may be something of a Potemkin candidate. He didn't show up at a radio debate last night. He was on the finance committee of a hospital that successfully lobbied for a federal earmark before becoming an anti-earmark champion. And he got eaten alive by a local paper editorial board last week after he wasn't prepared to answer questions about any of the issues facing the district.

But there's now also increasing evidence that Hoffman has gone ahead of Republican party nominee Dede Scozzafava and is in a dead heat with Democrat Bill Owens. In recent days two polls from highly partisan groups (Club for Growth & Minuteman Pac) backing Hoffman have showed him in first place, though not by much. And now, DK/R2K has a poll out showing close to the same result. Scozzafava in third and Hoffman and Owens tied, a big move for Hoffman who was a relatively distant third in the same poll just last week.

This could be a big story on Tuesday night.

Two shot at North Hollywood synagogue. Both victims apparently in good condition.

"If this is organized, we suck," lamented one tea partier.

Tea Party organizers sent out an alert for a "flash mob" or tea partiers to crash this morning's House health care bill unveiling. Alas, only about ten people showed up.

From a few moments ago, Robert Gibbs describes the scene this morning at Dover. Moving stuff.

Greg Sargent has a good quick piece pointing out the foolery of those who seem to think that MSNBC is the equivalent of Fox.

Nancy Pelosi is debuting the House bill at this moment.

Our reporter on the Hill, Brian Beutler, just spoke with Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) who says the bill will be not increase the deficit in the short or long term. That long-term budget impact is a key point around which a lot of the debate on health reform pivots.

We'll have the CBO numbers soon.

Joe Lieberman is single-handedly bringing together people from the opposite ends of the political spectrum -- like Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart -- in mutual revulsion at his preening, spotlight-hogging ways.

We mentioned this yesterday. Fresh off what can only be called big success going after Acorn, a bunch of folks on the right are figuring, 'Hey, maybe we can do the same thing to AARP because they're not doing our cause any favors either.' There are already a bunch of examples of attacks, not just alleging that AARP is supporting Dems on key health care and social insurance issues, but that it's a corrupt, shady, nefarious organization. These things often start under the radar. So if you see more examples of this, please let us know.

A lot going on today, so here's rundown for you of what we'll be covering:

Nancy Pelosi will be unveiling the House health care bill that she plans to bring to the floor at an event outside the Capitol scheduled for 10:30 ET. Here's what we'll be looking for.

Meanwhile, a "flash" tea party rally is apparently going to take place near the Capitol around the same time.

Just getting underway now are House hearings on those forged letters to Congress from a PR firm for a coal industry group opposed to global warming regulation. We got a sneak peek at the documents obtained by congressional investigators.

And at the White House there's a gaggle shortly that we'll be covering.

So stay tuned.

Scenes from the President's middle-of-the-night trip to welcome home war dead at Dover AFB:

CBS Radio's Mark Knoller, whose specialty is tracking such things, reminds us that this is the first such Dover trip by any President since the Afghanistan war started in 2001.

President Obama asks for a province-by-province analysis of the situation in Afghanistan. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Christina Bellantoni has more details on the President's overnight trip to pay tribute to the fallen as they return home.

The President made an unscheduled, unannounced trip to Dover AFB overnight to witness the return of the bodies of U.S. troops killed in action, Jake Tapper reports:

The president arrived at Dover AFB at 12:34am after 40-minute chopper ride from the White House. ...

At 3:39 am the President walked up the ramp of the C-17 to attend a short prayer given by Major Richard S. Bach, an Air Force chaplain. Obama emerged minutes later, the last in a line of personnel, and stood at attention in the cool night breeze, his hands cupped at his side.

At 3:50 am the flag-draped transfer case--not a coffin or casket--was carried from the plane to a waiting vehicle while all those participating saluted.

The NYT has some photos here. The AP account is here.

Two things you can say about your South Carolina Republicans: they know how to stand up to federal oppression and they know how to party.

Back on Monday, former Republican state representative and now assistant Attorney General Roland Corning was on his lunch break when a police officer found him parked his Ford Explorer at Elmwood Cemetery with an 18 year old stripper from the Platinum Plus Gentlemen's Club, a bag of sex toys and at least one dose of Viagra.

Local police were apparently on the look out because the cemetery had become a local hotspot for trysts and illicit drugs.

Read more »

House leaders will unveil their health care reform bill tomorrow at 10:30 AM in front of the Capitol.

So what happened between the White House and Sens. Reid and Schumer in the week before Reid announced he was backing a public option in the senate bill? Brian Beutler spent the day talking to various players close to the negotiations to try to piece together what each side wanted, what happened at that meeting last Thursday night at the White House and how Reid mad his decision. Here's his report.

Sen. Bayh: I may filibuster health care bill too if it's not "fiscally responsible." The public option itself, however, doesn't seem to be a sticking point for him.

Chris Collins, GOP county executive in Erie County, New York, was exploring a run for governor. But it looks like his prospects have dimmed significantly since he compared Jewish state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to Hitler and suggesting he might be the anti-Christ a recent GOP county dinner.

It's not a good sign when your campaign holds a conference call with reporters less than a week before election day to address the question, "How do you expect to win at this point?" But if you're Creigh Deeds and running for governor of Virginia, there hasn't been much good news in a long time.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT)

Reformers are all up in arms over Joe Lieberman's new effort to scuttle health care reform, for good reason. What got far less attention was that between yesterday and today Joe completely changed his rationale for why he thinks the public option is a bad idea. Indeed, explanation two contradicts explanation one. And number two is so nonsensical as to suggest he's making up the reasons for his opposition as he goes along.

Read more »

Republicans are so pumped with how the Acorn takedown went that they've decided to try the same thing with AARP. Not sure they're going to come up with the same kind of material to work with but they're giving it a try.

TPMDC's Evan McMorris-Santoro talks to Ned Lamont about how well that Joe Lieberman as a solid Dem on everything but Iraq thing worked out.

Bill Clinton headed to New Jersey last night to do two rallies for Jon Corzine. And he managed to come up with some pretty creative metaphors to describe Corzine's battle against Chris Christie.

Let's start with the one about Corzine vs. the "300-pound behemoth."

I'm sure CNN delighted in asking Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett if Fox News is biased: "Well of course they're biased. Of course they are." Watch (and note that Jarrett tries to walk it back a bit).

Lieberman: Public option is "new entitlement" and will drive up costs of private health care insurance.

More shortly.

Some of you missed it. But last night I did a lengthy post trying to take stock of what happened yesterday with Lieberman and other conservative senate Dems saying they might not be on board with Reid's bill and what it means.

George W. Bush's "Get Motivated!" speech got Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart all fired up.

A scene from today's slideshow on anti-American riots in Kabul ...

VIDEO: From last night on Fox, Lieberman says the public option would have to seek a government 'bailout' if it hit 'hard times.'

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden will attend tonight's opening game of the World Series, in order to promote support for military families. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

New poll of New Jersey governor's race: Corzine 43%, Christie 38%.

You can see in Pollster.com's trendline chart that Corzine has now edged ahead of Christie for the first time since last November. Also note the yellow-green line toward the bottom. That's third party candidate Chris Daggett. You can see pretty clearly how Corzine's support has been a relatively flat line all along, but there's a direct correlation between the substantial drop in Christie support and the mini-surge for Daggett: (click on image for larger version):

Late Update: I wanted to add a quick detail to this post. There have been a slew of polls out on this race over the last couple days and I expect several more before election day. But Quinnipiac, the pollster behind today's poll, is one of the gold standard polls for New Jersey. So this is good news for Corzine, though the softness of support for Daggett and the possibility that a substantial number of his voters might switch to one of the party candidates at the last minute, makes this race very volatile and hard to predict. -- jmm

The US Chamber of Commerce is suing the "Yes Men" for "identity theft" over their hoax and fake press conference last week.

Late Update: As Marco tweets, aren't these the goofs against frivolous lawsuits?

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT)

We're getting into the thick of battle over health care reform, with a flurry of new developments and statements coming each day. So today, and perhaps other days going forward, I want to step back and try to take stock of what happened and where we are.

The big news today was that a series of moderate and conservative Democrats stepped forward with statements ranging from skepticism of Reid's bill to more or less open threats to filibuster it. The furthest out there was Joe Lieberman, who seemed to suggest that he'd allow some debate on the bill but later join a Republican filibuster to prevent the bill from actually coming to a vote so long as it remained in its current form. He hinted that remaining in its current form meant preserving the public option. Sens. Lincoln (D-AR) and Bayh (D-IN) also hinted that they weren't necessarily on board but were more noncommittal about just how they'd vote.

Read more »

Video: Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first and now one of two Muslims in Congress, broke his silence over Republican calls for an investigation of alleged Muslim intern "spies" by reading the statement issued by the Congressional Tri-Caucus on the House floor.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

House Democrats have been loud and proud on how robust a public option they were going to pass, but in the last few days, starting with reports in The Hill and Politico last week, there have been rumblings that Nancy Pelosi doesn't have the votes she thought she had, or at least projected herself as having.

Read more »

Yesterday we heard about a gonzo story out of Clifton, New Jersey. According to a local paper (which has now scrubbed its article), employees of the PAC of Hoffman-La Roche pharmaceuticals were passing out pamphlets calling President Obama a fascist and showing pictures of him with a Hitler mustache.

One health care reform supporter got so incensed that she came back with a bag of purple paint and splashed it on the women and their offending signs.

When I heard about this, I thought, 'Wow, Hitler/Obama comparisons are sort of a dime a dozen these days. But that's pretty out there for a major pharmaceutical company.'

Well, turns out the police had the details a bit wrong. They weren't with La Roche, which has its headquarters in Clifton. It was LaRouche, as in the Lyndon LaRouche crazies who've been stalking health care events around the country and managing to outcrazy the GOP activists, which these days is saying somethin'.

A rep from La Roche (the real La Roche) was more than happy to explain the confusion to our Rachel Slajda.

The spokesman for the Pakistan embassy in Washington tells TPMmuckraker that the embassy is watching with interest the developing Israel India spy case that nabbed a former NASA scientist.

That's a question a lot of readers have been asking, so Christina Bellantoni sketches out the winding road ahead for health care reform legislation now that Harry Reid has decided on a bill to bring to the floor.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

Aboard Air Force One on the way to an Obama campaign appearance for Creigh Deeds in Virginia, Robert Gibbs hadn't seen Joe Lieberman's filibuster threat, but had this to say in response: "I think Democrats and Republicans alike will be held accountable by their constituents who want to see health care reform enacted this year."

From an observer on the Hill ...

Note that [Lieberman] says he would vote to proceed to the bill -- just not to move to final passage. There will be several turning points:

Read more »

Referring to himself in the gangsta/Bob Dole third person, Harry Reid downplays Joe Lieberman's filibuster threat: "Joe Lieberman is the least of Harry Reid's problems."

You may remember, about a month and a half ago, another incident emerged in Chris Christie's troubled history driving cars. Back in 2002, on the way to an event, Christie turned the wrong way onto a one-way street and struck a motorcyclist head on, seriously injuring the guy on the motorcycle. There were all sorts of questions about just how that happened and whether Christie got off easier than your average Joe might have. There was also the small matter of Christie saying he'd never been sued over the incident, despite evidence emerging later that a suit had been filed and then dropped, apparently after an out of court settlement. But there never seemed to be any dispute that Christie ... well, hit a guy on a motorcycle while driving the wrong way on a one way street.

But on Fox & Friends this morning, when asked about the incident, Christie denied it ever happened. "I was not driving the wrong way down a one way street and the Governor knows it," Christie said. "I didn't hit someone, they hit me."

Lieberman: Sure, I'll filibuster a health care reform bill I don't agree with. And I don't agree with it as it is now.

In other news, Sen. Blanche Lincoln today spoke out against the public option and the bill Sen. Reid (D-NV) announced yesterday. But revealingly, she did not say one way or another how she would vote on cloture (where the Dems need 60 votes), which is the key question.

I'd say it's assumed that, if the Dems are going to win this, several of the centrist and conservative Dems will vote no on the bill itself (where they only need 50) but yes on cloture (the key vote where they need 60).

And in yet more news, asked whether he thinks it's possible that Reid's bill could fall apart before coming to the floor, Sen. Bayh said: "Yeah, I think that's possible."

Justice Scalia says that had he been on the Supreme Court in the 1950s, following his originalist philosophy he probably would have dissented from Brown v. Board of Education. [Late Update: Jack Balkin at Balkinization has reviewed the video of Scalia's appearance and finds that the local newspaper misquoted Scalia, who actually said he would have joined Justice Harlan in dissenting in Plessy v. Ferguson, not in Brown.]

Quoting the local newspaper report ...

Read more »

Fmr. President Bush at motivational speech: If I can pick up my dog's poop, you can get motivated and succeed!

House Republicans introduce resolution commemorating the 9/12 Tea Party march in DC.

In a nice touch, the resolution includes the wildly exaggerated crowd estimates were the object of such ridicule at the time. At least "hundreds of thousands" and possibly as many as "1,700,000 marchers."

White House to Harry Reid (according to Chuck Todd): "You're the vote counter, but don't come crying to us when you need that last vote."

Late Update: Chuck Todd clarifies that he was characterizing the White House line, not offering a direct quote from the White House.

The former President made his motivational speaking debut last night in Forth Worth. What more do you need to say?

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters this morning that the House might unveil its health care reform bill by the end of this week -- and said that a less robust form of public option would get more votes in the House than one tied to Medicare rates.

Lobbying may be the second oldest profession. But Alan Grayson may have gotten himself in a bit of hot water calling female lobbyist Linda Robertson a "K Street whore."

Chris Christie

All the news for weeks has been bad for Chris Christie. And the number differences here are small. But two polls are out today showing a 4 point spread for Christie -- one from Rasmussen and one from PPP.

These are all margin of error differences. And yesterday we had a poll showing Corzine up by 9 points. But perhaps it's the start of a late move.

For those keeping score at home, here's the chart of all the polls of this race going back to last year.

Not to be overdramatic, but there have been times in the last few months that the health care negotiations, as important as they are, have seemed like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic considering the looming threat of climate change. Today Senate hearings begin on Sen. Barbara Boxer's major climate change legislation, and to coincide with that, the White House has scheduled green events for the President and Vice President. No final action is expected on climate change this year, and regrettably the United States will arrive at the Copenhagen talks in December empty-handed. But today is an important marker nonetheless.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), on his Democratic colleague from Florida, Alan Grayson: "Is this news to you that this guy's one fry short of a Happy Meal?"

New CNN poll: 60% of Americans support cap-and-trade and only 37% oppose it. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

It wasn't but a few weeks ago that folks from the progressive community and people like Max Baucus were all deeply skeptical of an opt-out public option. It's a sign of, among other things, how quickly support coalesced around this compromise that almost all of those original naysayers have now come out in support of Harry Reid's proposed bill.

Fred Thompson cuts a TV ad for right-wing dream candidate Doug Hoffman in NY-23 special election.

"America is in trouble. When your grandchildren ask you why you didn't do something [to save America], be able to tell them you voted for Doug Hoffman."

No, no idea.

So what went down at the end of last week between the White House and senate Dems?

The crux of the matter was that Reid et al. were confident they could get the 60 votes to put a real public option in the bill and believed it was worth trying. The White House wasn't so sure and wanted to pursue the legislatively safer trigger path with Sen. Snowe (R-ME).

So how did we get from the Thursday meeting to today's announcement? Tonight, in an exclusive interview, Sen. Schumer explains what happened.

From an observer up on the Hill ...

Put-up or shut-up time for Senate moderates, who were still trying to find a compromise when Reid announced his presser.

No votes today and most senators are out of town, so watch what people say coming out of tomorrow's Democratic Caucus lunch. That's when Reid will make his pitch, and most members will keep their powder dry until then.

It's that time of year.

TPM brings on a new class of interns each season. And we're now taking applications for our Winter 2009 cycle. TPM interns are probably as intimately and rapidly involved in the preparation and production of news coverage as interns at any other news organization. And that ranges from work on the news section of the front page to research for our news blogs to video editing to bylined articles.

About half our current staff started as interns and we have a very solid record placing interns at media jobs at other great publications. Needless to say, this fall is going to have no shortage of political news. The application deadline is November 6th. To find out details for how to apply, click here.

Third party NJ governor candidate Chris Daggett is saying Chris Christie can't win. It's Daggett or Corzine, he says.

That's quite a statement given that Daggett's never gotten over 20% in the polls and is usually in the very low double-digits. But the race certainly is in a volatile place.

Sen. Snowe (R-ME) says she's "deeply disappointed" in Sen. Reid's (D-NV) announcement, that triggers "could have been the road" to bipartisanship.

Sen. Reid's announcement today is just one more increment in the progress of health care reform. But it is worth stepping back to note the importance that an outside-the-box idea can have in significantly changing the terms of a major policy debate. It's generally agreed that the public option, which seemed close to dead 2 to 4 weeks ago, enjoyed a substantial comeback over the course of October. Many factors played a role. But a very significant one was the political jujitsu of the so-called "opt-out" Public Option compromise, which flipped the onus of the public option debate back onto the Republicans.

So I wanted to go back and take stock of just what this compromise is.

Read more »

Robert Gibbs just issued a statement on behalf of President Obama congratulating Harry Reid for settling on a Senate bill -- and notably expressing his pleasure that a public option was included: The President is "pleased that the Senate has decided to include a public option for health coverage, in this case with an allowance for states to opt out."

A number of reports late last week, including our own, had the White House pushing back hard on Reid and Senate Democrats for wanting to include an "opt-out" public option, with the White House preferring a triggered public option. The White House denied those reports generally, but stopped short of announcing its support for an opt out provision.

So for now at least, the White House seems to be on board with Reid's plan, as Reid himself suggested in his press conference: "As we've gone through this process, I've concluded, with the support of the White House and Senators. Dodd and Baucus, that the best way to move forward is to include a public option with an opt out provision for states."

And the triggered public option, for the moment, appears to be off the table since Reid didn't even submit that provision to CBO to be scored.

Sen. Baucus responds to Reid's announcement ...

"It is time to make our system work better for patients and providers, for small business owners and for our economy. It is time for health care reform. For more than a year, we've been working to meet the goals of reducing the growth of health care costs, improving quality and efficiency and expanding coverage. There are a tremendous number of complicated issues that go into reform and the public option is certainly one of them. I included a public option in the health reform blueprint I released nearly one year ago, and continue to support any provision, including a public option, that will ensure choice and competition and get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate. Success should be our threshold and I am going to fight hard for the 60 votes we need to meet that goal this year."

The opening statement by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) at this afternoon press conference where he announced the broad outlines of the bill the Senate will take up. Watch.

In a statement just released, public option champion Chuck Schumer praises Reid's decision on a merged bill: "Leader Reid has always been a strong supporter of a public option that could help keep the insurers honest, and today he showed just how deep his commitment is."

Harry Reid is holding a presser now announcing his decision on how to merge the two Senate bills. The main news is that it will include a public option with an opt out provision.

There's still a lot to be sorted through here. Reid has apparently sent a number of alternative provisions to the Congressional Budget Office to be "scored," i.e. the cost of the provision calculated. It suggests at a minimum that Reid is giving himself back up plans if he doesn't get the votes on a public option. But interestingly, a public option with a "trigger" -- supported by Olympia Snowe and reportedly by the President, too -- was not sent to CBO for scoring.

Senate Democratic leadership staff will brief Senate aides soon after Harry Reid's 3:15 ET presser to tell them what's actually in the merged bill Reid has put together.

Cantor: Let's compromise on a Republican health care bill.

Doug Hoffman, the Conservative party candidate in the NY-23 special election, has become the toast of prestige right-wing Republicans across the USA. Some are even saying that the heart and soul of the party is on the line in next week's election. But the Hoffman train hit a bump in the road last week when Hoffman stopped by to speak to the editorial board of the Watertown Daily Times and it turned out that Hoffman wasn't really familiar with the local issues facing the 23rd district. Can't say I would be either. But then again, I'm not running to represent them in Congress.

Along with Hoffman, though, was former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who was squiring Hoffman around the district last week. Hoffman, according to the paper, was "flustered and ill-at-ease" and said "he should have been provided a list of questions" in advance. But Armey cut to the chase and hopped to Hoffman's defense, objecting to the ed. board's focus on "parochial" questions as opposed to, presumably, the hot button national questions like socialism, death panels and the rest of the issues that are getting right-wingers around the country flocking to Hoffman's mantle.

Working at the office today I overheard this report on CNN in which the network's correspondent in Pakistan made an argument that I think goes to the heart of our policy in the region. He was talking about a rally yesterday in Islamabad, filled with anti-American rhetoric, in which one of the main grievances of the protestors was the argument that Pakistan wasn't overrun by suicide bombings before the US and NATO got involved in Afghanistan.

US officials, the reporter said, disagree. But, he said, that's what the Pakistanis believe.

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Sen. Reid (D-NV) is slated to make a health care reform announcement at 3:15 PM this afternoon.

Republicans can't seem to decide whether to attack the Census and encourage citizens to boycott it or create RNC mailers that pretend to be Census mailers so people will open them and feel obligated to fill them out.

In a new direct mail campaign, Blue Cross/Blue Shield is pressuring Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) to oppose a public option because "it's a slippery slope to a single payer system." You can read the mailer here.

Sen. Reid (D-NV) is sending his bill to CBO today for scoring and will apparently unveil it publicly a short time later. It will apparently include the 'opt-out' public option, notwithstanding the White House's skepticism, though that may be one of a menu of options. Details are still developing. And we'll bring you more soon.

Unlike the posts over the weekend, this is one is just for tech geeks. It's about usage statistics at TPM for different kinds of mobile devices. If you're really a stats and tech geek, join me after the jump.

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Dem challenger, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA) says "we can only guess" David Vitter's reasons for opposing the anti-rape amendment.

In fairness, Vitter's thing seems to be paying for sex rather than forcing sex. But, well ...

And remember, Obama's DOD opposed it too.

Chris Christie

Suffolk University has a new poll out today with Corzine at 42% and Christie at 33%. This is Suffolk's first entry into this race. And that's a dramatic departure from other recent polls. So it's important to take this one with a grain of salt or probably several. But it does mesh with what recent polls have been telling us -- that Corzine remains deeply unpopular, but that Christie appears to have succeeded in lapping him in the unpopularity derby.

I'll be very curious to see if other polls this week at all reflect this trend.

It's news to no one that physical, print newspapers are in the throes of a historic decline. But the numbers themselves really take your breath away when you see them. According to the Audit Bureau, daily circulation fell 10.6% year over year in the period between April to September.

Ad revenues are one thing; and they're likely enough to be fatal to newspapers as the dominant mode of news distribution in the country. But that figures in economic trends of various sorts. But readership, while obviously intimately related, is a different sort of metric. I have many thoughts on this. But at the moment I'm not sure what to say other than those numbers take my breath away. A ten percent decline year over year is the rate of a mode of distribution going out of existence.

Late Update: Look at this graphical representation of the circulation declines of several major metro dailies. Scroll down -- at first you'll only see the line for the WSJ. But look particularly at the decline of the LAT. It takes your breath away.

Former Fox News commentator Jane Hall tells CNN that one reason she decided to leave the network was because Glenn Beck is "way over the top" and "scary." Watch.

Joe Lieberman, on his concerns about health care reform: I'm worried about the deficit -- not Connecticut's insurance companies. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Here's another installment in this weekend's on-going conversation with TPM Readers about how you use mobile devices (iPhones, Blackberrys, Palm Pres, etc.) and how you'd most like to read TPM on those gizmos. We've now gotten around 600 responses and counting. So please keep them coming. So far I've read every one. (To find out what we're discussing and why we want your feedback, please see this post from Friday evening and this summary of initial responses from Saturday.)

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Our report last week that the White House was trying to put the brakes on Sen. Reid's efforts to put together 60 votes behind an "opt-out" Public Option generated an intense response from readers. And now at The New Republic, Jon Cohn has a late update, out just a few minutes ago, on what's happening and what's happened since our original report.

The White House has reacted strenuously, though not very specifically, to our report. They've even put up a post pushing back again Sunday evening on their blog. And Cohn digs into the backstory about what's going on.

The White House still appears wedded to the belief that the Snowe/trigger path is the surest one to getting a bill to the president's desk (though perhaps there've been some small signs of loosening over the last 48 hours). And they're worried and/or skeptical that Reid's plan, while perhaps better legislation in the abstract, will crash and burn before final passage. Whether that analysis makes sense or not, it's the clearest explanation of all the facts. And a "senior administration official" told Cohn on Sunday that they'll be with Reid "100 percent behind whichever direction [he] decides to go."

Cohn's piece is very good. Give it a read.

Michael Smerconish, the Philly-based radio talk show host, has a column in the Inquirer today arguing that the GOP needs to seriously restructure its primary system in order to have any hope of nominating a potentially winning candidate in 2012 as opposed to one that will appeal to the party's base and ideological purists. His suggestions include regional primaries, moving up the dates of some high-population swing states, giving more of a stay to New England or key Western states, even giving more power to party bosses who have an institutional/professional interest in winning in addition to ideological aspirations.

On its face, it all makes a decent amount of sense if your angle is getting more electable Republicans. What struck me more though is how the arguments could have been lifted almost verbatim from the same conversation going on among Democrats through the 1970s and 1980s. Almost word for word, with the exception of the West and Northeast possibly playing the role of the South for the Dems in decades past. That strikes me as the most revealing thing about it.

Okay, I've now officially read all 500 or so of your emails on mobile devices following up on Friday evenings request for your thoughts and comments. The results still track pretty closely with the summary I posted last night. But I really cannot tell you how helpful these emails are. I'm always surprised -- perhaps more overwhelmed than surprised, but it's a powerful feeling -- when I dig in with readers to get leads and responses to a question like this. So, many thanks.

Before I go any further, if you haven't sent us your thoughts already, we really, really want to hear from you about this. Here's the post describing what we want to know. If you haven't already please give it a look.

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Schumer: We're "very close" to 60 votes on a compromise public option.

Surprisingly enough, it seems like Fox may again be playing fast and loose with the truth. At least that's what the White House is suggesting. Did Gibbs apologize? Absolutely not, says the White House; and the only source for the claim appears to be Fox VP Michael Clemente. Christina Bellantoni reports.

As you know, I'm a big fan of the Kindle, despite being frequently disappointed by Amazon's Orwellian practices. But it's probably more accurate to say I've become a big fan of the e-book, something I never would have thought I'd say. And it just happens that the Kindle is the one I got.

Like me, you may have heard over the last few days that Barnes & Noble is introducing their own Gizmo called Nook. And taking my first look at the tech specs and comparison with Kindle, it looks pretty cool.

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