Could student loan reform bring down a health care bill? I linked a story yesterday saying that the Senate has been considering adding the president's student loan reform package as a sidecar bill to the current health care package. The reasoning was a rule about reconciliation that somewhat forced their hand.

Now the addition could be a dangerous one. From the New York Times.

Democrats in the Senate, where the private student lending industry has strong allies, predicted on Wednesday night that the education bill would not be part of an expedited budget measure containing the final revisions to the health care legislation."

That may be a good thing as those members the story is talking about might be inclined to vote against the entire bill if there is an education component.

Here is an excellent health care debate from NewsHour.

Does Nancy Pelosi have the votes? Best line, from a NY Rep.: "I will trust the president, but I will not trust the Senate."

A few poll numbers:

• Marco Rubio leads Florida Gov. Charlie Crist huge, by 32, in their senate primary.
• Should he decide to run, Dino Rossi is still leading Patty Murray in a poll in Washington state, by 3. Two qualifiers: it's Rasmussen, generally tilted right and generally 3 points is within the margin. Here is a pretty good breakdown of this poll, along with a bunch of other Washington state numbers.
• Another big one is in Illinois, where Dem Giannoulias leads Mark Kirk by six points in the RCP average.
  

Another political note is that President Barack Obama will meet with members of the Congressional Black Caucus today, many of whom are pretty upset with him. Given the CBC's unrivaled ability to be involved in ethics violations, it is almost hard to believe he isn't granting their every request. I wrote about this last month. These members are apparently going to air out some grievances, as should the president. These claims that Obama is not doing anything for the black community are countered by the fact that some of these members have been in office for decades and spent more on vacation homes and parties than in their home communities. A Michael Jackson song comes into mind Charlie Rangel.

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And one more thing: If you follow my Twitter feed, you may have seen a little rant yesterday about anti-abortion laws in black communities. It was in response to a story that suggested that anti-abortion laws and the removal of organizations like Planned Parenthood would cut the number of abortions in the black community. It estimated that some 18 million have been abortion since Roe v. Wade and made the claim that this is the case because the federal government and these organizations prey on black communities, further "holding them down."

Excuse me from politically correct world for a moment: this is the religious right (and majority white), along with some Republicans, pushing their social agenda on a community in order to use it for political gain. Period. No, I am not shocked. But there hasn't been such a blatant disregard for the real needs of the black community in a long time.

If you pull out organizations that provide abortions, you just have millions of more poor minorities struggling to get out of the hood. Right now, with 1-in-3 black males dead or in prison by 18, this is a real problem. Abortion is not the way to solve it, nor is it even the issue we should be trying to solve.

That would be teen pregnancy. Guess what Planned Parenthood also does: provide free contraception, including birth control. As well as many forms of sexual education. But these religious types and conservatives won't allow real sex education to be taught in schools, because in a community where teen pregnancy is rampant, God forbid we teach safe sex.

Sure, there have been studies that show that abstinence-only education vs. normal sex-ed may not have a huge difference, but for some kid it does. And if one less kid has a baby at 16 only to leave it in a dumpster, we're moving in the right direction. Abortion is a problem. But if a women is not allowed to choose what to do with her own body, I'd propose harsh penalties for any man that has a baby out of wedlock and is not going to be an active father. Child support isn't enough. Not even close.

Or maybe we can realize that people are going to have sex and make mistakes. Maybe we should both help them make less and have programs in their community that will help them minimize those mistakes when they happen. God forbid the problem actually be solved by these godly people.

This is a good portrayal of my stance.