Happy Birthday!

One of the best parts about Thanksgiving is that I usually get to see my brother on or around his birthday. I love you, Dan. xo

Smart

I had coffee with a reporter this morning who asked me why we're positioning to fight the insurance industry seeing as how they appear to be willing to compromise this time around. Jason says it best. From our blog and cross-posted on kos:

As this debate moves forward, keep a close eye on who's making arguments. If it's the insurance or pharmaceutical industry, you can bet their argument helps or protects their bottom line. If it's conservatives, you can bet it helps their political viability. Don't ever assume these groups have the public's interest at heart.

Read the whole thing. Jason never ceases to impress.

Sorry Charlie

Color me shocked they're going through with it.

A little history to put the matrimony into perspective.

For the record, I'd much prefer he were out and proud.

A Battering Rahm

Via HuffPo, an unaired SNL skit that totally should have made the show:

Post Mortem

What an oddly appropriate poem of the week considering yesterday was the first weekday without a new post here in a very long time.

Day two of our retreat was just as intense as the first, but I feel like the whole exercise was effective and energizing, and I'm truly excited to see what we can do in the next 10 months.

We're going to need help to make this happen. We going to need people to believe it can be done. But I have confidence if we do this right, we can win and win big.

Meanwhile, I've got some housecleaning to do and chores to run. I'll check back in if something strikes my fancy. Otherwise, remember to check out John's column here tomorrow. I've been told it'll be therapeutic.

Have a good one.

Go Retreat No Surrender

So in case you hadn't noticed, I've been totally MIA but with good reason.

I've been shuttled to an undisclosed location for a corporate retreat. It's my first ever, and I've been informed I failed to pack appropriately. However, considering as of yesterday I didn't even know I was expected to stay the night, the fact I actually packed a bag at all should be considered progress.

Anyway, the day has been productive and exhausting (which is how I have come to the conclusion it's been productive).

And I can report with confidence we have excellent people committed to winning health care reform in 2009.

Run Like The Wind

My friend was nominated for some bizarre "only in DC" award for the top communicators in town. But even stranger than the pseudo-honor itself was the fact that she lost her category to T. Boone Pickens!

Not his communications guy.

T. Boone Pickens himself.

She's totally putting that on her resume.