Top Items:
Satyam / Think Progress:
Maverick Fails The Test: McCain Votes Against Waterboarding Ban — Today, the Senate brought the Intelligence Authorization Bill to the floor, containing a provision from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that establishes one interrogation standard, requiring the intelligence community to abide …
Discussion:
The Gate, AMERICAblog, Eschaton, Hot Air, Comments from Left Field, Firedoglake, Stop The ACLU, Slog, Democrats.senate.gov and Hold Fast
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David M. Herszenhorn / New York Times:
Senate Passes Interrogation Ban — WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 51 to 45 on Wednesday afternoon to ban waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods used by the Central Intelligence Agency against high-level terrorism suspects. — Senate Republicans generally opposed the bill …
Discussion:
michellemalkin.com, Think Progress, Political Machine, The Heretik, The Carpetbagger Report and AMERICAblog
Pamela Hess / Associated Press:
Senate Votes to Ban Waterboarding — WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate voted Wednesdy to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects despite President Bush's threat to veto any measure that limits the agency's interrogation techniques.
Klaus Marre / The Hill:
Bush plays hardball on FISA legislation
Bush plays hardball on FISA legislation
Discussion:
White House, Stop The ACLU, ACLU, The Crypt's Blogs, Wake up America, michellemalkin.com and American Street
Ron Fournier / Associated Press:
ON DEADLINE: Chickens Come Home to Roost — For years, Bill and Hillary Clinton treated the Democratic National Committee and party activists as extensions of their White House ambitions, pawns in a game of success and survival. She may pay a high price for their selfishness soon.
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, wtopnews.com, Balloon Juice, Blue Crab Boulevard, The New Republic, MSNBC, Betsy's Page, Talking Points Memo, The Field and Hot Air
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Jim Tankersley / Baltimore Sun:
Bill Clinton's '92 campaign manager backs Obama — David Wilhelm, who managed Bill Clinton's winning 1992 presidential campaign and went on to be the youngest Democratic National Committee chairman in history, is set to endorse Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) this afternoon.
Jennifer Parker / Political Radar:
Clinton Hears Voices from Beyond: ‘Keep Going’ — ABC News' Eloise Harper and Kate Snow Report: In McAllen, Texas this morning Senator Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said she wasn't giving up on her race for the White House. — Speaking about her work in South Texas as an organizer …
Jennifer Parker / Political Radar:
Obama ‘Takes It Down a Notch’ — ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: After touring a General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, Sen. Barack Obama delivered a speech on the economy that he said is on the “brink of a recession.” — The senator told GM workers to bear with him as he gave a more policy oriented speech.
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Paul Kiel / Muckraker:
Conyers Introduces Contempt Resolution, Call for Lawsuit against White House — As expected, things are finally moving forward in the House today to bring contempt resolutions against White House officials for ignoring Congressional subpoenas as part of the U.S. attorney firings investigation.
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Mcjoan / Daily Kos:
FISA Fight: House Blue Dogs enabling the GOP — CQ is reporting ( link here) that the House Republicans will try to derail the effort to pass a 21 day extension of the existing surveillance law and force a vote on the Senate bill: … The Blue Dogs that have endorsed the Senate passed bill wrote to Pelosi last week.
Discussion:
Firedoglake, DownWithTyranny!, The Raw Story, Hullabaloo, Suburban Guerrilla and ShopFloor.org
ABCNEWS:
Edwards Weighs Clinton Endorsement — Former Candidate Torn Between Clinton and Obama in Democratic Race — As he weighs a possible endorsement in the Democratic race, former Sen. John Edwards is as split as the party he once hoped to lead — and is seriously considering supporting …
Michelle Malkin:
Mohammed cartoon reprint: Show your solidarity — Two years ago, the Mohammed cartoon conflagration consumed the world and the blogosphere helped lead the way in fighting back. Longtime readers will remember that this site hammered the issue in support of Denmark.
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CNN:
Newspapers reprint Prophet Mohammed cartoon — (CNN) — Newspapers across Europe Wednesday reprinted the controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that sparked worldwide protests two years ago. — The move came one day after Danish authorities arrested three people allegedly plotting a …
Alex Tabarrok / Marginal Revolution:
Was there a Housing Bubble? — The conventional wisdom is that there was a housing bubble which has now popped. The data, however, tell a different story. Remember, that the evidence for the bubble was that real house prices had increased tremendously since around 1997 leading to prices …
Discussion:
The Newshoggers, Ross Douthat, Washington Monthly, Megan McArdle, The Glittering Eye and Paul Krugman
Wall Street Journal:
Obama's Wiretap Votes — Now and then sanity prevails, even in Washington. So it did yesterday as the Senate passed a warrantless wiretap bill for overseas terrorists while killing most of the Lilliputian attempts to tie down our war fighters. — “We lost every single battle we had on this bill …
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Mary Ann Akers / The Sleuth:
Jewish Rep. Cohen Battles Antisemitism and Racism In Re-Election — If you thought race was an uncomfortable issue in the Democratic presidential primary, wait 'til you get a load of what's going on in the Democratic primary in the Memphis area's 9th District of Tennessee …
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:
An Obama spin win — A Democratic operative notes a bit of a victory in the spin wars: — The news organizations counting and referring to the delegate count have started much more clearly breaking out the pledged delegates from the superdelegates, and referring to the pledged delegates as a key metric.
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Thomas Joscelyn / Weekly Standard:
A Master Terrorist Is Killed — According to multiple press accounts, Iran's and Hezbollah's master terrorist, Imad Mugniyah, is dead. He was reportedly killed by a car bomb in Damascus last night. Hezbollah is claiming that he was killed by the Israelis.
Discussion:
Jerusalem Post, Pajamas Media, The Belmont Club, Power Line, Lone Star Times, BLACKFIVE and Gateway Pundit
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Greg Sargent / TPM Election Central:
Obama Campaign: We're On The Verge Of Wrapping This Thing Up — On a conference call this morning, Obama advisers sounded as confident a note as they ever have, arguing that yesterday's victories have left them with an all but insurmountable lead in delegates.
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Jonathan Martin / Jonathan Martin's Blogs:
McCain manager welcomes age debate with Obama — McCain campaign manager Rick Davis today sent an unmistakable message to Barack Obama over the Illinois Democrat's effort to stoke the obvious age contrast between himself and the 71-year-old McCain: Bring it on.
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Gallup:
Gallup Daily: Tracking Election 2008 — Based on polling conducted February 10-12, 2008 — PRINCETON, NJ — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama remain locked in a statistical tie among Democrats nationally for the Democratic presidential nomination. — In Gallup Poll Daily tracking conducted …
Jerome Armstrong / MyDD:
50 means 50, and far from over — I'd like to take my friend Markos at his word, that Obama is running a 50-state strategy. As a fellow 50-state propagandist, I would expect that he shares the opinion that it applies not just to a presidential campaign, but also to the presidential nomination.
Discussion:
Middle Earth Journal, Daily Kos, Lawyers, Guns and Money, Taylor Marsh, TalkLeft and Tennessee Guerilla Women
Steven Kreytak / Austin American-Statesman:
Court strikes down Texas ban on sex toys — Federal appeals court says law violates right to privacy. — A federal appeals court has struck down a seldom-enforced Texas law making it a crime to promote or sell sex toys. — The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling in a case originally filed …