FRIDAY’S MINI-REPORT…. Today’s edition of quick hits:
* In case you hadn’t heard, Rio will host the 2016 Olympics.
* On an internal House whip count finds, at this point, 170 “firm” votes for a robust public option. It’ll take 218 to pass.
* 3,000 still missing after Indonesian earthquakes.
* Sen. John Ensign’s (R-Nev.) fate may be in the hands of the Senate Ethics Committee, the Justice Department, or both.
* Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.) has decided he doesn’t want to talk about John Ensign. Imagine that.
* Dems taunt GOP: “Where’s your health plan?”
* All the Senate Finance Committee has to do now is pass the health care reform bill.
* MM even has a copy of the guy’s driver’s license: “Media Matters confirms student at center of Fox fueled Jennings controversy was of legal age.”
* Michigan’s government shutdown, thankfully, did not last very long.
* Yes, lenders, you do receive government subsidies.
* Fox News is a hopeless embarrassment, but I wouldn’t laugh at it quite so much if it hired literate people to write its chyron copy.
* Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was asked yesterday to comment on Glenn Beck’s success as a media personality. Graham replied, “Only in America can you make that much money crying.” The senator went on to argue that Beck is “not aligned with any party as far as I can tell. He’s aligned with cynicism. And there’s always been a market for cynicism.”
* Thank you, John Cole, for these words of sanity about the Olympic decision: “This is the kind of mind-numbingly stupid wankery that we get when people have nothing to say but feel the need to say something anyway. The President went, like every other head of state, to try to get the Olympics for his country. It was awarded to Rio. Nothing else happened, and anyone who states otherwise is simply sniffing glue. And no matter what happened, the Republicans would be claiming that it is bad for Obama.”
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
