America wants and needs more competition in health coverage, and a public option offers that. But it’s just as important that we offer people not just another choice, but another kind of choice. A lot of people don’t want to be at the mercy of greedy insurance companies that will make money by denying them the care that they need to stay healthy, or to stay alive. We deserve to have a real alternative… The government spent billions of dollars creating a Medicare network of providers that is only open to one-eighth of the population. That’s like saying, ‘Only people 65 and over can use federal highways.’ It is a waste of a very valuable resource and it is not fair. This idea is simple, it makes sense, and it deserves an up-or-down vote.

Grayson has set up a website where voters can support the bill.

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As O’Keefe’s employer, right-wing media man Andrew Breitbart, dismisses the incident as mere clowning, a federal judge ruled today that the move by Republican lawmakers to cut funding from the controversial housing advocacy and voter-registration organization ACORN based on a hidden camera “investigation” produced by O’Keefe last year was illegal, a fact many lawmakers and their advisers knew to be true at the time.

The AP:

Investigative journalist O'Keefe

NEW YORK — The U.S. government’s move this fall to cut off funding to ACORN was unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Friday, handing the embattled group a legal victory.

U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon issued the preliminary injunction against the government, saying it’s in the public’s interest for the organization to continue receiving federal funding.

ACORN claimed in its lawsuit that Congress’ decision to cut off its funding was unconstitutional because it punitively targeted an individual organization.

Gershon said in her ruling that ACORN had raised a “fundamental issue of separation of powers. They have been singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding, in the absence of any judicial, or even administrative, process adjudicating guilt.”

As former prosecutor Florida Rep. Alan Grayson has pointed out time and again, citizens pay more in one day to federal contractor Haliburton than taxpayers have given to ACORN in the last twenty years. Haliburton and many other defense contractors have been convicted of fraud, mostly for overcharging the government but also for gross negligence, as when Haliburton put in faulty showers in Iraq that electrocuted soldiers. ACORN has not been convicted of fraud. Grayson says the bill passed by Republicans to defund ACORN may result in broad “collateral damage” if lawmakers decide to go after contractors like Haliburton the way Republicans went after ACORN.

Grayson on the illegality of defunding ACORN:

Grayson on the ramifications of the bill and its effects on much larger federal contractors.

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Roll Call has the tale of the apology, delivered Wednesday afternoon on the House floor. It’s not exactly what GOP leaders may have been expecting.

After speaking extensively to the press, Grayson came to the floor with an apology, but not for the Republican Party.

“I would like to apologize,” he said. “I would like to apologize to the dead.”

No word yet of the GOP response.

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But it didn’t do that. Instead, it spent not a dollar in simply telling Politico it was going to do that and Politico wrote all about it.

NRCC nasty work done. And dirt cheap, too!

Politico’s Jonathan Martin and Alex Isenstadt, in their double-bylined story, reported that Republicans believed vulnerable Democrats like Markey had cast potentially “career-ending” votes Friday for the Clean Energy Act, and a major NRCC campaign would aim to “seal the fate” of these mostly newbie lawmakers.

Republicans believe a handful of junior House Democrats may have taken a career-ending vote by supporting the controversial energy bill last week and are planning to launch an ad campaign in targeted districts to try to seal their fate.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is planning to air TV and radio commercials and unleash robocalls against Democrats who hail from districts that could be adversely affected by the narrowly passed legislation, are GOP-leaning or both.

Those likely to find themselves with targets on their back after the 219-212 vote: freshman Reps. Harry Teague of New Mexico, Betsy Markey of Colorado, John Boccieri of Ohio, Thomas Perriello of Virginia and Alan Grayson of Florida and second-termer Zack Space of Ohio.

No surprise that the House Republican Conference daily email played the Politico story up high and included the entire lead, which they probably thought they couldn’t have written any better themselves!

What’s up Today….

Politico looks at the House Democrats who “may have taken a career-ending vote” by supporting cap-and-tax.

Republicans believe a handful of junior House Democrats may have taken a career-ending vote by supporting the controversial energy bill last week and are planning to launch an ad campaign in targeted districts to try to seal their fate .

Turns out that there is no expensive campaign. The “seal her fate” NRCC attack on Markey will include a Web ad and robocalls to residents in her district. Not exactly a game-changing strategy. Classic press release journalism? Seems more likely.

That and some flat-out Inside-the-Beltway cluelessness on the goings on in “fly-over country.” Take this bit on Markey, for example:

[R]unning against a weak incumbent, former Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, Markey rode President Barack Obama’s coattails to victory last year.

[...]

Markey didn’t respond to a request for comment about her vote.

In beating Musgrave, Markey ran way ahead of Obama’s numbers in the 4th Congressional District. If anything, it was the other way around, Obama riding the coattails. Markey trounced the unpopular Musgrave, 57 percent to 43 percent of the vote.

What’s more, in response to an attack by state GOP leader Dick Wadhams, Markey put out a press release early this week describing the reasons for her vote. Her defense wasn’t the least bit hedging.

The release is available here.

Hat tip to the Coloradoan’s Bob Moore.