Your Breakfast Read, Lazy Saturday Edition

Sorry Conflucians, I’m completely exhausted and I have been unable to put up the news. Nevertheless, below are a couple of stories that caught my attention. I’m still working on a couple of items.

As always, you are invited to share what you are reading

Health Care Clusterf*@k

If you’re not confused by now, you are not paying attention.
Harkin: Final health care bill will have public option

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, the Democrat who chairs one of the Senate committees tasked with developing health care legislation, promised Friday that a health care bill will be on President Obama’s desk before Christmas and will include a so-called “public option.”

“I believe we are in an irrevocable position,” Harkin said on a conference call organized by the health care reform group Families USA. “The momentum is there. We will not get stopped by the obstructionists. We will have the votes.”

Wow! Obama is shaking his fists.
Obama Threatens Insurers’ Anti-Trust Exemption

President Obama mounted a frontal assault on the insurance industry on Saturday, accusing it of airing “deceptive and dishonest ads” to derail his health care legislation and threatening to strip the industry of its longstanding exemption from federal anti-trust laws.

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National Affairs

Democrats’ ethics problems spark GOP election hopes

Rangel, the powerful chairman of the tax-writing House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee, is feeling the heat from Republican efforts to make him a symbol of Democratic Party ethical wrongdoing, an issue that the GOP hopes will help it regain a sizeable number of seats in next year’s mid-terms elections.

I’ve always been bothered by Obama’s lack of compassion but I thought I was alone. This is coming from Eugene Robinson, yes you read it right.
The Biggest Disappointment of the Obama Presidency

[I]t was strange and disheartening that Obama would wait nine months to make his first visit to New Orleans as president. It was stunning that he would spend only a few hours on the ground and that he wouldn’t set foot in Mississippi or Alabama at all. But worst of all was the way he seemed to dismiss the idea that his administration could and should be doing much more.

Republicans seem to be doing rather well in fundraising these days. This is not surprising because the Democratic White House, Senate and House have successfully deflated their own base. Brilliant! Just Brilliant!
Cha-ching! Campaign cash tops and flops

In politics, money chases momentum. So the latest fundraising figures reported by congressional candidates provide a good measure of the progress of House and Senate campaigns across the nation.

Money isn’t the only thing that matters, of course, but the third quarter Federal Election Commission reports go a long way toward signaling which campaigns are going to be contenders in 2010—and which ones are likely to be pretenders

I don’t think this is what you call a “fundraising juggernaut”
Ensign pulls in less than $33K

The sex scandal surrounding Sen. John Ensign has had a devastating effect on his once-mighty fundraising machine.

According to newly filed campaign finance reports, Ensign pulled in just under $33,000 between July and September; that’s down from the $301,792 he raised in the previous quarter. He spent more than he raised last quarter, shelling out $46,000 on legal fees, meetings, political consultants and administrative expenses.

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Around The Nation

What is it? Abuse? Love? Something in between?
A Mother, a Sick Son and His Father, the Priest

With three small children and her marriage in trouble, Pat Bond attended a spirituality retreat for Roman Catholic women in Illinois 26 years ago in hopes of finding support and comfort.

What Ms. Bond found was a priest — a dynamic, handsome Franciscan friar in a brown robe — who was serving as the spiritual director for the retreat and agreed to begin counseling her on her marriage. One day, she said, as she was leaving the priest’s parlor, he pulled her aside for a passionate kiss

I’ll leave this to our crime and conspiracy experts.
C.I.A. Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery

Is the Central Intelligence Agency covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy?
Probably not. But you would not know it from the C.I.A.’s behavior.

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Economy Watch

Give me a bunch of billion for free and I would look like Einstein
Bailout Helps Fuel a New Era of Wall Street Wealth

It may come as a surprise that one of the most powerful forces driving the resurgence on Wall Street is not the banks but Washington. Many of the steps that policy makers took last year to stabilize the financial system — reducing interest rates to near zero, bolstering big banks with taxpayer money, guaranteeing billions of dollars of financial institutions’ debts — helped set the stage for this new era of Wall Street wealth

This certainly doesn’t help.
$1.4 Trillion Deficit Complicates Stimulus Plans

The Obama administration said Friday that the federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before and the largest shortfall relative to the size of the economy since 1945.

The number, while lower than forecast a few months ago, underscored the challenges ahead in shrinking the deficit even as the White House and Congress are considering more steps to stimulate an economy that is making a slow recovery. The political hurdles to finding a solution were evident on Friday as each political party immediately blamed the other for the growth of the deficit.

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Around The World

Leaving the insane asylum.
“I Cannot Go Back to Iran”: Daughter Of Ahmadinejad Adviser Seeks Asylum In Germany

Young Iranian filmmaker Narges Kalhor is seeking political asylum in Germany after showing a film critical of the Tehran regime at a film festival. Kalhor, whose father is one of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s top advisers, says she will be seized by the secret police if she returns home.

Investigating drug related crimes in Mexico ain’t child play.
In Mexican Drug War, Investigators Are Fearful

Mexico has never been particularly adept at bringing criminals to justice, and the drug war has made things worse. Investigators are now swamped with homicides and other drug crimes, most of which they will never crack. On top of the standard obstacles — too little expertise, too much corruption — is one that seems to grow by the day: outright fear of becoming the next body in the street.

What took them so long?
Pakistan begins Taliban assault

Fierce fighting has broken out as Pakistan’s army launched an air and ground offensive against Taliban militants in the South Waziristan area.

Could a speech at the Brandenburger Tor make him change his mind?
Barack is Too Busy: Obama Cancels Plans to Attend Berlin Wall Anniversary

US President Barack Obama has shelved his plans to attend festivities marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will reportedly take his place at the Nov. 9 celebrations.

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Odds & Ends

Rethinking the Older Woman-Younger Man Relationship

There is a new book out, and this one distinguishes the real cougar, a confident, strong, single woman over 40, from the comically desperate predator-seductress depicted in television shows like “Cougar Town,” one of the latest products of Hollywood’s obsession with the older woman.

Having fun, doing business during the recession and protecting the environment.
Sex discount for cyclists at Berlin brothel

A Berlin brothel is claiming the title of Germany’s first “green” sex establishment after offering clients eco-discounts if they can prove they arrived by bicycle or public transport.

I know many of you have seen this by now but what the hell… The whole thing is just so bizarre it’s good.

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