Dean says kill the Senate health bill......

WASHINGTON -- deanheated Dean says kill the Senate health bill: reportFollowing the jettisoning of both the public option and the Medicare buy-in provision, one of the nation's leading progressive voices on health care reportedly said Tuesday that the Senate bill is no longer worth supporting. "This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate," former Gov. Howard Dean told political reporter Bob Kinzel of Vermont Public Radio. Kinzel relayed the news to The Plum Line's Greg Sargent, and the full VPR interview will air at 5:50 pm today...Link

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Interest rates near zero.........

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it will shut down some of the emergency triage measures it put in place at the height of the financial crisis but will leave interest rates near zero out of continuing concern about the weak U.S. economy...Link

Iranian-Backed Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones.

WASHINGTON -- Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations. Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter...Link

Paul's Money Bomb Raises Over $240,000...

Capitalizing on small donors, the Rand Paul campaign yesterday received contributions in excess of $240,000, with an average contribution of less than $65. Over 4,000 individuals donated during the 24 hour period. According to Dr. Paul, “We’re ecstatic that our supporters, in these tough economic times, were able to donate so much of their hard earned cash. Meanwhile, my opponent continues to beg and plead with the establishment special interests for PAC money.” Yesterday marked the second highest one day online fundraising effort in the history of Kentucky politics. The original record was set by Dr. Paul’s campaign on August 20th, 2009 when the campaign raised over $440,000 in a single day. The Rand Paul campaign has now collected nearly $1.7 million total and over $575,000 for the quarter...Link

Paul goes from ridicule to respect..............

Ron Paul is a white-haired, soft-voiced, 74-year-old doctor who has twice failed in presidential campaigns and is frequently derided by his Republican colleagues as an ideologue from the party's libertarian fringe. No one would have been surprised if the Lake Jackson congressman had slipped off the political radar after his 2008 quixotic bid for the presidency, his ambitions for higher office thwarted. But Paul has refused to go out to the political pasture to live in comfortable irrelevance. As odd as it may seem, he has become one of the most influential Republicans in a capital city dominated by liberal Democrats...Link

Meet Gary Johnson.....................

Former New Mexico Republican Gov. Gary Johnson is a teetotaling triathlete who looks the part of the laid-back Mountain West politician. But don’t let the jeans and black mock turtleneck he's sporting on his new website fool you: Johnson is starting to sound like a mad-as-hell populist with an eye cast on 2012 and the building fury aimed at Washington. “I’m finding myself really angry over spending and the deficit,” he said in an interview with POLITICO this week. “I’m finding myself really angry over what’s happening in the Middle East, the decision to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely. I’m angry about cap and trade. And I’ve been on record for a long time on the failed war on drugs.”..Link

Lefties Call for Alliance with Paulies.........

Citing Dr. Ron Paul's clear and unambiguous "non-interventionist" platform which condemns US troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, anti-war speakers at a rally headlined "No You Can't" called for an alliance between anti-war left and anti-war right on war and peace issues. Organized by the newly-formed anti-war coalition End US Wars, the rally was held in Lafayette Park in front of the White House last Saturday. The coalition announced a new alliance of national and grass-roots antiwar organizations and more than 100 leading peace activists. It featured a joint appearance of four former presidential candidates, former Democratic Senator Mike Gravel, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, and Ralph Nader...Link