Politico's idea of news: John McCain, Twitter genius. Because it's pure genius to tweet stuff like this:

But they don't stop there.

But it’s not just McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, who’s the GOP standard-bearer for social media. In a social media game mastered by the campaign of Barack Obama, the study found Republicans have “struck back,” with GOP senators averaging more than 5.5 IQ points higher than their Democratic counterparts.

Of the seven senators who scored “genius” social media rankings, four were Republicans: McCain — the top tweeter, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Scott Brown of Massachusetts and John Cornyn of Texas.

DeMint is a tea party force, and Brown rode significant grass-roots tea party support to upset Martha Coakley for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat last winter. Cornyn is the head of the Senate GOP campaign organization.

Wow. A Tea Party force. And a Twitter genius. Evidently the authors of the official academic study of Senators' Twitter use didn't take the gaming aspect into account when they came up with this study. Nor did they particularly care what the content was.

But hey -- props to the staffer behind the McCain account, who at least knows enough about trolling to get Politico's attention, eh? They don't really think John McCain tweets from his iPhone do they? He barely understands his Blackberry.

So according to the Times, the pharmaceutical companies are jacking up their prices high enough to cancel out the savings they promised Obama for the health care bill. Why am I not surprised?

What does it take for Democrats to understand how this works, anyway?

And in other healthcare reform news, the Washington Post reports what the usual suspects are up to:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of national business groups opposed to President Obama's health-care reform effort are collecting money to finance an economic study that could be used to portray the legislation as a job killer and threat to the nation's economy, according to an e-mail solicitation from a top Chamber official.

The e-mail, written by the Chamber's senior health policy manager and obtained by The Washington Post, proposes spending $50,000 to hire a "respected economist" to study the impact of health-care legislation, which is expected to come to the Senate floor this week, would have on jobs and the economy.

Step two, according to the e-mail, appears to assume the outcome of the economic review: "The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document."

Well, of course it's assuming the outcome! They're paying someone good cash money to produce the outcome they want!

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(h/t Heather.)

I, for one, am thrilled that Dr. Dean is outside the White House, agitating for real healthcare reform. He's much more effective out here than on the inside, being back-stabbed by Rahm:

Howard Dean has emerged as President Barack Obama’s chief antagonist from the left on healthcare reform, raising questions over whether Obama made a mistake by snubbing Dean for a position in his administration.

Dean’s strong advocacy for creating a broad government-run health insurance program, known as the public option, has become a headache for Obama while at the same time giving liberals a powerful spokesman with national credibility.

Dean, who once declared himself a representative of the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,” has been traveling the nation this summer offering his own views on Obama’s healthcare proposal. His uncompromising stance is reminiscent of his 2004 presidential campaign that took many Democrats by surprise, and has begun to symbolize a rift between the president and those activists who played a major role in electing him.

Oh, yeah. Yoo hoo, over here! Remember us?

“Howard Dean has been the bully pulpit for the grass roots, expressing what the majority of Americans across the country are feeling but using his profile to make it newsworthy,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a liberal activist group that supports the public option.

“It might have been a blessing in disguise that Howard Dean was not brought into the admin because it has allowed him to be bully pulpit for the overwhelming majority of American people who support the public option.”

Soon after Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a television interview that the public option is “not the essential element” of healthcare reform, Dean took a strong opposing stance.

“You can't really do health reform without it," Dean said of the public option in a television interview Monday, calling a major government role “the entirety of healthcare reform.” His comment spearheaded a week of liberal criticism of the administration’s mixed messages on healthcare reform. (Obama insisted on Thursday that his position on the public option has not changed and described it as “a good idea” but “not the only aspect.”)

His potential to torpedo the administration’s signature domestic proposal is somewhat ironic given Obama’s efforts to enlist potential adversaries in his administration rather than face their wrath.

Dean was once considered a candidate for secretary of Health and Human Services. Obama passed him over while appointing former rivals and potential adversaries to Cabinet posts. He named his primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State and asked Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), a longtime critic of Democratic fiscal policy, to serve as secretary of Commerce.

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I am thoroughly disgusted by Obama's lack of effective leadership on this - and Congress's willingness to lard the bill for their contributors at our expense. It's very important that we keep the pressure on, because if we don't, we're going to be saddled with a very expensive dog of a health care "reform" bill.

I suggest you send this story to your congress creature and ask what they intend to do to protect our interests:

Reporting from Washington - Lashed by liberals and threatened with more government regulation, the insurance industry nevertheless rallied its lobbying and grass-roots resources so successfully in the early stages of the healthcare overhaul deliberations that it is poised to reap a financial windfall.

The half-dozen leading overhaul proposals circulating in Congress would require all citizens to have health insurance, which would guarantee insurers tens of millions of new customers -- many of whom would get government subsidies to help pay the companies' premiums.

"It's a bonanza," said Robert Laszewski, a health insurance executive for 20 years who now tracks reform legislation as president of the consulting firm Health Policy and Strategy Associates Inc.

Some insurance company leaders continue to profess concern about the unpredictable course of President Obama's massive healthcare initiative, and they vigorously oppose elements of his agenda. But Laszewski said the industry's reaction to early negotiations boiled down to a single word: "Hallelujah!"

The insurers' success so far can be explained in part by their lobbying efforts in the nation's capital and the districts of key lawmakers.

The bills vary in the degree to which they would empower government to be a competitor and a regulator of private insurance. But analysts said that based on the way things stand now, insurers would come out ahead.

"The insurers are going to do quite well," said Linda Blumberg, a health policy analyst at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, a Washington think tank. "They are going to have this very stable pool, they're going to have people getting subsidies to help them buy coverage and . . . they will be paid the full costs of the benefits that they provide -- plus their administrative costs."

One of the Democratic proposals that most concerns insurers is the creation of a "public option" insurance plan. The industry launched a campaign on Capitol Hill against it, grounded in a study published by the Lewin Group, a health policy consulting firm that is owned by UnitedHealth Group. The lobbyists contended that a government-run plan, which would have favorable tax and regulatory treatment, would undermine private insurers.

More Kabuki. After reading Taibbi's article, It's clear the public option is already gutted and not worth fighting for in its present form.

[...] Undermining support for the public option wasn't the only gain scored by insurance lobbyists.

In May, the Senate Finance Committee discussed requiring that insurers reimburse at least 76% of policyholders' medical costs under their most affordable plans. Now the committee is considering setting that rate as low as 65%, meaning insurers would be required to cover just about two-thirds of patients' healthcare bills. According to a committee aide, the change was being considered so that companies could hold down premiums for the policies.

Most group health plans cover 80% to 90% or more of a policyholder's medical bills, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. Industry officials urged that the government set the floor lower so insurers could provide flexible, more affordable plans.

[...] Consumer advocates argue that a lower government minimum might quickly become the industry standard, placing a greater financial burden on patients and their families.

"These are a bad deal for consumers," said J. Robert Hunter, a former Texas insurance commissioner who works with the Consumer Federation of America.

Meanwhile, companies would probably see a benefit by providing less insurance "per premium dollar," Hunter said.

"It would be quite a windfall," said Wendell Potter, a former executive at Cigna insurance company who has become an industry whistle-blower.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders' appearance on the Rachel Maddow show last week really stuck in Bill O'Reilly's craw like a chicken bone, so he tried to spit it out by naming Sanders a "Pinhead" on The O'Reilly Factor last night.

Here's what Sanders said:

Sanders: We need to do grass roots organizing. I'll tell you what else we need to do. We need to understand that it is very, very hard for the president or anybody else to take on, not just the Republican Party - that's the easy part - to take on all of right-wing talk radio which covers 90 percent of talk show hosts, a whole FOX Network which is nothing more than an arm of the Republican Party.

O'Reilly's response: To make fun of Sanders' thick New England accent and insist that Sanders' charge was "false" -- though of course he had no way of proving otherwise. Especially since Sanders is saying something every sane person who watches Fox (admittedly, those numbers are shrinking) can see for themselves.

Though to be more precise, Fox actually is an arm of movement conservatism, and the GOP is the movement's political home. So they are both components of the same ideological movement, which means that Fox isn't really an arm of the GOP, but rather its ideological partner and cohort. The difference, though, is purely a matter of nuance, since the result and effect are exactly the same.

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Good God. They really are wishing and hoping for a terrorist attack.

Michael Scheuer, on Glenn Beck's show last night:

Scheuer: The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it's going to take a grass-roots, bottom-up pressure. Because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again. Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.

Beck: Which is why, I was thinking this weekend, if I were him, that would be the last thing I would do right now.

I guess the wingnuts have given up the pretense of decency and normalcy. Now they're rooting for another terrorist attack, so that we stoopid Americans will finally WAKE UP! to the nature of the evil that conspires against us ...

Actually, we're becoming quite awake indeed. And it isn't bin Laden who scares us right now. More like Glenn Beck and his guests.

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While the GOP struggles to find someone -- anyone -- to be the leader who'll get them out of the political wilderness, their current leader, and the man who did more to lead them into that wilderness, is starting to make it clear he's chosen the figurehead to replace George W. Bush:

Sarah Palin.

On Monday's Rush broadcast, he dissed the GOP's current "reconnect" efforts, and said they were all missing the boat -- because Palin wasn't there:

If Jeb wants to run around and say that they've got something and we don't have anything -- I mean, the Democrats got something. We have to admit it. If we don't have something, it's the fault of the people that Jeb is meeting with in Arlington, Virginia, not conservatives and not conservatism and not the grass roots!

Ah, the -- what's -- I have to laugh. Specter and all these people talk about how far right the party's moving? It's the exact opposite. This party has muddled its identity to the point that they have to do this tour to come up with a new brand, that they're rebrand the Republican -- why? Because in many places, you can't distinguish it from the Democratic Party.

Something else you have to understand. These people hate Palin, too. They despise Sarah Palin. They fear Sarah Palin. They don't like her, either. She's -- according to them, she's embarrassing. A lot of this is aimed at Sarah Palin. When you -- when you -- when you strip all the talk that the Reagan era is over and we got to stop all this nostalgia and stuff, clearly, in last year's campaign, the most prominent, articulate voice for standard run-of-the-mill good old-fashioned American conservatism was Sarah Palin.

Now, everybody on this "speak to America" tour has presidential perspirations. Mitt Romney's out there. He wants to be president again. Jeb may some day. Eric Cantor, some of the others, McCain -- I don't think he does, but you never know. So this is -- this is -- this is an early campaign event, 2012 presidential campaign, primary campaign, with everybody there but Sarah Palin.

And then, yesterday, he was even more explicit:

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Mr. Brady was on the Majority Report last night.

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Someone must have told Jim that Hugh Hewitt wasn't the greatest choice for him to commiserate with since Hewitt wants to wipe out "traditional media" altogether. The topic of the comments never came up and focused on her lack of reporting.

Seder: It is a little scary when the person who is supposed to be the watch dog of this stuff actually is reporting stuff that's not true.

Brady: Yea, I mean I would not want to speak for her because I've never been an Ombudsman anywhere...

A question for Brady. Weren't you speaking for her all along and especially when Hewitt slimed Atrios and Kos?

Link:

Brady: It looked like it was in a bunch of different blogs. I mean, it certainly was getting a lot of attention on Atrios and Daily Kos, and some other places. So I mean there did seem to be...you know, it wasn't a campaign in the sense of a really organized campaign, but it was kind of a grass roots campaign to...

Hewitt: Well, you've just named the two central islands in the fever swamps. So I'm not surprised.

He'll turn on Brady in a heartbeat. It was quite apparent that he used Brady just to bash the left so "I'm not surprised." Sam Seder did a nice job and Brady answered some questions about the story itself.

From what I hear, despite Arlen's efforts to reassure state Dems, Sestak is running anyway. Should be interesting!

A few days after he switched parties, Sen. Arlen Specter went on Meet the Press and hotly denied reports he had promised President Obama he would be a "loyal Democrat."

In dozens of conference calls and meetings since then, Specter has been trying to reassure Democratic elected officials, county chairs, and party activists around Pennsylvania of the opposite proposition: that he can be counted upon to support the president.

Participants in these efforts say that Specter has been relaxed and direct as he lays out his case, dwelling on instances in which he bucked his former Republican Party during a 29-year Senate career. Specter has been received well, they say, though some skeptics are eager for a Democrat with a more liberal record to challenge him in the 2010 primary.

"I've read about his diligence before, but I've been really impressed to see how they're reaching down to the very base of the grass roots," said Jack Hanna of Indiana County, chairman of the state party's Southwest caucus, who was on two conference calls with Specter. "The guy's on top of it."

This weekend, Specter faces the biggest public test so far of his appeal to party regulars, appearing at the Democratic State Committee spring meeting in Pittsburgh. He is scheduled to host a dessert reception after a fund-raising dinner tonight and to make a major speech tomorrow.

U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak of Delaware County, who has said he intends to run against Specter for the Democratic nomination, also plans to attend.

On Monday, Specter had a breakfast meeting with Democratic leaders in Montgomery County, moved on to Delaware County for lunch, and met with Chester County leaders in the evening.

At the Montgomery gathering, held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fort Washington, Specter faced a couple of challenging questions about his support for key elements of former President George W. Bush's agenda, including the tax cuts for the wealthy and the Iraq war.

"He was one of the enablers in the Senate because, as a moderate with a lot of seniority, he was in a position to stand up to Bush," said Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel. "I have a hard time getting past that."