Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) will push for a health care plan with a public option that states can opt out of if they choose.

Reid said the compromise will hopefully get support from liberals who want the government to compete with insurers to lower costs and conservatives who do not want the government to provide health care. Their states can opt out.

From CNN.com

The public option is “not a silver bullet” but will ensure healthy competition and a more level playing field for consumers, Reid said on Capitol Hill. Polls show that a wide majority of Americans support a public option, he said.

Reid’s health care bill, which will be given a cost assessment by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, also includes a provision from the Finance Committee bill allowing for the creation of nonprofit health care cooperatives that would negotiate collective insurance coverage for members.

Reid hopes his compromise will appeal both to liberal senators insisting on a public option and to conservatives wary of a government-run plan, several Democratic sources said.

The sources said Reid does not have firm commitments for the compromise from 60 senators, the number required to break a Republican-led filibuster.

According to Politico.com Republican Party Chair Michael Steele does not know his place.

The political website reports a heated meeting took place between Steele and some of the Republican leadership in Congress in which Steele was told to keep his nose out of public policy and focus on fundraising.

To make it plain, he “was placed on a short leash, ” according to a Republican aide who was at the meeting.

Steele, the former Lt. Governor of Maryland is the first African-American to run the Republican National Committee.

Political bloggers at BlackVoices are not surprised at all about the way Republicans treat Steele.

Matter of fact there has been rumbling at the start by some GOP officials that Steele will be removed from office if the GOP does not do well in the 2010 elections.

The FreshXpress blog asks if Steele a classic example of when “keepin’ it token goes wrong,” or is he a competent politician who is simply being undermined by his own party?

Pretty good question to ask.

A videotape of school children singing a song about President Barack Obama is causing an uproar amongst conservatives bloggers and other media outlets.

The tape, which can be seen here is of a Black History Month program featuring author and speaker Charisse Carney-Nunes who visited the B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, New Jersey. Nunes is the author of the highly-successful children book “I Am Barack Obama.”

Someone recently posted the tape online and several well-known conservative bloggers said this is proof of an organized effort to teach school kids to praise and worship Obama.

The Burlington Township School District released a statement stating that the activity was set to “honor the contributions of African Americans to our country.”

Carney-Nunes, a graduate of Lincoln University and law school classmate of Obama, has yet to comment.

Considering Obama is the first African-American President of the United States, is it out of place to mention him during Black History Month?  Would you be angry if your child sang the song, or is this whole thing silly?  Share your thoughts.

 Nationally, the United States is a religious nation, but nobody does church like Black folks, a new study shows. “African-Americans are markedly more religious on a variety of measures than the U.S. population as a whole, including level of affiliation with a religion, attendance at religious services, frequency of prayer and religion’s importance in life,” says the report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.  Read the rest here.