Several of today's political reports.

• Following Palin's speech in China recently her speakers bureau is find that she is hard to sell. It seems that $100,000 per speech is a bit too high to get someone who might or might not show up and even if she does, is a blithering idiot who "can't even describe what she reads." Unsurprising, really.


• RNC Chairman Michael Steele claims to seriously doubt that Obama is facing racism or that Obama has received 400% more death threats that Bush did. NO surprise, really. Steele has his current job as an African-American public face for a conservative party that would be channeling the KKK if it weren't such a bad brand at the voting booth these days. It's natural that since Steele is employed to pretend the Republican conservatives are not racist that he would refuse to admit that Obama is being threatened by racists.


• Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) is now famous for standing up in Congress and stating that "...the Republican health care plan is 'don’t get sick,' and if you do get sick, 'die quickly.' " He is, of course, basing this statement on the recent study that shows that 44,789 Americans die each year as a direct result of not having health insurance that allows them to get timely access to health care. The Republicans hit the roof in their normal unconstrained manner and demanded an apology. So Grayson did apologize.

  “I would like to apologize,” he said. “I would like to apologize to the dead.”
  [...]
  Then further along in his speech, Grayson apologized one last time
  "I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner,” he said.

  We need more Democrats defending the health care reform. Grayson is completely right and his reply to the right-wing Party of NO! is the correct response.