Top of the morning.
*HEAR THEIR STORIES: I hope y'all will read the feature story in this week's issue that focuses on telling the stories of the working poor that stand to gain coverage under healthcare expansion. For all the numbers, fiscal impacts, and political scuffles, this is about them. This is why it matters. If you're tired of wonky Medicaid posts, read it instead.
*TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE HELL: Monday is the last day to file bills in the Ledge. It's kind of like crowds last-minute shopping the night before Christmas, only instead of giving us presents, we'll get manure. Great place to follow the action on Monday (H/T commenter "radical centrist"). There were 134 bills filed on Friday. Rep. Duncan Baird predicts around 475 on Monday.
*A MAN WHO LOVES TO SEE HIS OWN NAME IN PRINT: This fiddle player that absolutely loves to see his own name in print may not accomplish anti-abortion goals, but he is succeeding in the larger goal of getting attention. Lots of national coverage. Here's a good look at how the law would mostly impact the poor and the young. We will most likely see an injunction.
*BURYING THE LEDE IN NUCLEAR ASH: Conor Friedersdorf reads breitbart.com so you don't have to and happened upon this amazing bit hiding in the third paragraph of a 2011 cookie-cutter story on media bias and evil liberals (delivered straight-faced without attribution):
Journalists on the campaign trail saw [Lyndon] Johnson drunkenly board a plane armed with nuclear weapons and then accidentally drop them on the United States. Luckily, by the grace of God, they did not go off. None of this was reported, while newspapers editors worked in overdrive to portray Goldwater as eager to push the button.
So much comedy here but the most remarkable part is that after dropping this bomb (that didn't go off), the next sentence is a complaint about James Carville and Paul Begalia [sic]! No time to discuss executive overreach via the drunken near-annihilation of Americans — the Democrats are up to dirty campaign tricks. Anyways, Friedersdorf notes that the editorial chops that gave us that quality and careful fact-checking also led to the unconscionable defamation of ACORN worker Juan Carlos Vera, for which Andrew Breitbart never apologized, even when the evidence became crystal clear. To his shame. Vera sued and James O'Keefe recently agreed to give him $100,000 in damages and apologize.