***Call the White House to let them know how you feel about health care reform… 202-456-1111

***Call Congress and let them know how you feel about health care reform.  (202)224-3121

• The Rude Pundit (Lee Papa) calls in at 6:30am Pacific to talk about the madness behind the health care reform town halls.

• President Obama’s administration signaled yesterday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system. They left open the chance for a compromise with the GOP that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan.

• This weekend in Colorado, President Obama invoked his own anguish over the death his grandmother as he challenged the notion that Dem efforts to overhaul the nation’s health care system would include “death panels” that decided who would get care and who wouldn’t.

• Thousands of people, including many Special Olympians, lined the street Friday outside a Cape Cod church where a private funeral Mass was being held for presidential sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Her only living brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy, who has been battling brain cancer, was not planning to attend his sister’s funeral.

• Hurricane Bill became the first hurricane of the 2009 Atlantic season as it continued to gain strength but remained far from shore this morning. Claudette, on the other hand, became the first tropical storm to hit the U.S. mainland this year when it made landfall in the Florida Panhandle around 1:00 this morning.

• Eunice Kennedy Shriver, former President John F. Kennedy’s sister and founder of The Special Olympics, has died. The 88-year-old Shriver had been hospitalized in Massachusetts since last week. Members of her extended family had gathered at her bedside at Cape Cod Hospital in Barnstable.

• President Obama said yesterday that the United States remains Mexico’s partner in the fight against drug cartels, despite some calls in the U.S. to delay counter-narcotics aid because of alleged human rights violations by Mexican soldiers. Mexican President Felipe Calderon reaffirmed his commitment to transparency and human rights in his offensive against the cartels.

• President Obama yesterday praised the spirited debate over his health care plan and predicted “sensible and reasoned arguments” would ultimately prevail in Congress. Obama faces a potentially boisterous health care reform town hall in New Hampshire today.

• South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) broke state law when he charged taxpayers for more expensive business and first-class flights, according to the chairman of the legislative committee investigating Sanford’s international travel. State Sen. David Thomas (R) said that is an impeachable offense.