The broad anti-abortion measure would restrict federally-assisted abortion coverage to cases of "forcible rape," excluding in that definition instances where women are drugged and raped, where women say "no" but do not physically fight off the perpetrator, and various cases of date rape. It also excludes instances of statutory rape in which minors are impregnated by adults. The victim in all cases would be denied abortion coverage under Medicaid and forbidden from seeking health care tax benefits.

[snip]

The measure would also raise costs for businesses who want to offer employees insurance plans with abortion coverage, by eliminating health care tax deductions and benefits that have long been a part of federal law.

The bill has 10 Democratic co-sponsors.

I guess they're afraid that all those despicable, lazy women who are already living on the government's dime will otherwise just claim "rape" to get their convenience abortions...

Congresswomen bring back more money to their legislative districts on average and attract more co-sponsors to their legislation than their male colleagues, a recent study found.

The study from political scientists at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy found that women in Congress tend to bring, on average, 9 percent more money in federal projects to their districts than men. The difference equals $49 million in extra funding for federal discretionary programs, the study found.

Researchers also reported that female members of Congress sponsor or co-sponsor more legislation than their male counterparts and that their bills usually attract more co-sponsors.

In his last speech where he said he would not run in September he also said he did not want to be exiled and that he wanted to die in his country.

I don't know how to get the screenshot, but the picture shows Obama with a halo effect and a sort of sorrowful expression.

Next year is when you can judge Muschamp on recruiting.

Vulnerable Democratic senators have raised far less money than their predecessors did two years ago, a sign that their party could struggle to keep its majority.

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) barely raised any money in the final quarter of the year, pulling in just $12,000 and reporting $444,000 on hand. Webb is considered vulnerable, and might face a formidable candidate and fundraiser in former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.).

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) raised just over $80,000 during the final three months of 2010, more than half of it from political action committees, and reported $1.4 million cash on hand.

Several other Democrats, including Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.), posted solid numbers, but none has more than $1.5 million cash on hand.

The early numbers don't measure up to those that several of their Senate colleagues posted ahead of the past cycle. At the start of 2009, Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) all had more than $2.5 million cash on hand.

Feingold began the 2010 cycle with $2.5 million, Boxer with $4.1 million, Reid with $3.3 million and Murray with $2.5 million.

The fast start didn't save Feingold, who lost his reelection bid, but it helped the other three senators win in a tough year for Democrats.

Republicans need to pick up three or four seats in 2012 (depending on President Obama's reelection contest) to win back the majority in the upper chamber; the party has 23 Democratic targets to choose from. The GOP's chances also got a lift last month when Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) announced he would not run for reelection in a deep-red state.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Tuesday introduced legislation meant to cap Washington spending that she said could lead to her defeat in 2012.

McCaskill, a freshman senator who faces a tough reelection, is co-sponsoring legislation with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) that would force the government to hold spending at 20.6 percent of the nation's GDP.

That would mean huge, and likely unpopular, budget cuts, as current federal spending stands at 24.7 percent of GDP. But McCaskill said she's willing to lose her election if it means the legislation will be approved.

"If this bill is distorted and twisted, it could cost me my Senate seat, but it's a price I am willing to pay," McCaskill said in a floor speech supporting the bill on Tuesday.

"It is a price I am willing to pay for my country, and more importantly, it is a price I am willing to pay for my grandchildren."

Voters unhappy with the economy and federal spending handed the House to Republicans last fall, and lawmakers in both parties are determined to cut the budget. The Congressional Budget Office last week projected a $1.5 trillion deficit for the current fiscal year.

Still, getting the federal budget under control is likely to mean steep cuts in spending and changes to Medicare and Social Security, which could put lawmakers in danger of losing their seats.

I am quite sure that the health care mandate is constitutional. ... My authorities are not recent. They go back to John Marshall, who sat in the Virginia legislature at the time they ratified the Constitution, and who, in 1824, in Gibbons v. Ogden, said, regarding Congress' Commerce power, "what is this power? It is the power to regulate. That is--to proscribe the rule by which commerce is governed." To my mind, that is the end of the story of the constitutional basis for the mandate.

The mandate is a rule--more accurately, "part of a system of rules by which commerce is to be governed," to quote Chief Justice Marshall. And if that weren't enough for you--though it is enough for me--you go back to Marshall in 1819, in McCulloch v. Maryland, where he said "the powers given to the government imply the ordinary means of execution. The government which has the right to do an act"--surely, to regulate health insurance--"and has imposed on it the duty of performing that act, must, according to the dictates of reason, be allowed to select the means." And that is the Necessary and Proper Clause. [...]

I think that one thing about Judge Vinson's opinion, where he said that if we strike down the mandate everything else goes, shows as well as anything could that the mandate is necessary to the accomplishment of the regulation of health insurance.

While we wait for Egypt to finish cooking, there's some great footage to watch. It may not be warfare as practiced by Lee and Grant, but it's weirdly close to what urban combat must have been like before firearms. If you watch this clip from Al Jazeera--and let me say now, thank God, Allah or Odin, whoever, for Al Jazeera. Best network around, actual reporters on the ground in places other networks are too cheap or chicken to go.

What you'll see in this clip is the quick transition from "peaceful demonstration" to urban warfare in Tahrir Square, the big zocalo in Cairo. Of course these transitions from "peaceful" to violence aren't all that clear down at street level. Even before rocks start flying, you've got a huge crowd of young males screaming as loud as they can, pushing each other to do something. And in a place like Egypt, just standing out in the street facing the cops is doing something in a big way. You can die that way, like one demonstrator did in another video from Egypt. It's a classic video. What it shows you is the answer to the question, "Who'd be the first to die of all the guys you know?" And the answer, unfortunately, is, "The bravest one, the one who really believes in what he's doing." That's what you see here: this guy doesn't notice that all his friends have slunk off, and he keeps flinging rocks at the cops. Then there's one shot. He falls down with a bullet in his head. It's funny, you know: you could make an argument against war from that, you could say that the first thing war does is weed all the bravest guys out of the gene pool. It would explain a lot, actually, like what happened to the Italians. Maybe the Romans just used up the brave ones.