Midday open thread

• You know how Republicans are supposed to be good with money? Well, they're great at stealing it.

  Hundreds of thousands of dollars are missing and presumed stolen from the chief fund-raising arm of House Republicans, according to party officials who described the findings of emergency internal audits.

  Either that, or they're merely incompetent.

  Mr. Reynolds said in a statement that he and the national Republican committee were possible victims of "an elaborate scheme resulting in financial irregularities" by a "long-serving professional staff member," a reference to Mr. Ward. "At no time were there any red flags raised," the lawmaker said.

• Clinton raised $3 million in the 24 hours since her Tuesday victories.
• FactCheck.org "fact checks" the Clinton campaign's manipulation of the Obama ad, and in turn, gets fact checked itself. It's true --Fact Check claims that the ad that aired is much lighter than the one that can be found online.  But all you have to do is look at the text of the supposed "on air" version to see that it has been lightened up. The text is washed out and blury, as TocqueDeville pointed out here.
• This "vetting" of the Clintons, now that they've opened that door, isn't going well for them. So they're overreacting.
• Bush admits to being evil.
• This site has jumped the shark so many times that it's getting a great workout.
• So many people inside the Clinton campaign hate Mark Penn, that it leaves them with one good option, as Yglesias explains.
• DemFromCT has a growing Health Care Discussion Links diary, including today's highly recommended addition by Ezra Klein, entitled Why Health Insurance Doesn't Work (read also jd in nyc's Multipayer Universal Healthcare: Why It Works to see how it might).
• Shadowfax has a concise annotated round-up of these and a few more pieces to read, by Ezra and about The Healthy Americans Act, sponsored by Senators Wyden (D-OR) and Bennett (R-UT). From Ezra:

  One of the themes of today's meeting, reflected in every speech and many of the questions, was that the insurers are fiercely cognizant that their industry is about as popular as a skin lesion, and if the system collapses, it will collapse, first, atop them. People like doctors, they need hospitals, and they depend on pharmaceuticals. They don't need insurers. Blocking reform may be in their power, but if the delay only leads to an eventual catastrophe, it might also seal their eventual demise. So that was point one: Get on-board now, or risk being thrown under the bus later.

  Health care reform is a top three voter interest topic for November 2008.