Top Items:
Steve Clemons / The Washington Note:
BREAKING: Darrel Thompson Jumps Off Burris Ship — Acting Chief of Staff to Senator Roland Burris, Darrel Thompson, has resigned his position, according to senior staffers in the US Senate. — Darrel Thompson, a former Senior Adviser to Senator Harry Reid, had been dispatched by Senator Reid …
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Chicago Breaking News:
Quinn calls on Burris to quit — Gov. Pat Quinn at his press conference this morning. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune) — Gov. Patrick Quinn today called on U.S. Sen. Roland Burris to resign amid the furor of questions over his contacts with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Manu Raju / The Politico:
WH to Burris: Think again — CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn said Friday that Roland Burris should resign from the Senate and the vacancy should then be filled by a special election, injecting fresh momentum in the growing campaign to oust the man picked to fill President Barack Obama's Senate seat.
Discussion:
The New Republic
Josh Gerstein / The Politico:
Gibbs rebukes CNBC's Santelli — White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs jumped at the chance Friday to rebuke a CNBC reporter whose attack on President Barack Obama's anti-foreclosure plan caught fire on the Internet. — Gibbs took on CNBC's Rick Santelli in unusually personal terms …
Discussion:
Democratic Strategist
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David Brooks / New York Times:
Money for Idiots — Our moral and economic system is based on individual responsibility. It's based on the idea that people have to live with the consequences of their decisions. This makes them more careful deciders. This means that society tends toward justice — people get what they deserve as much as possible
Discussion:
The Seminal, Liberty Street, QandO, Commentary, American Power, Outside The Beltway, The Huffington Post and Brilliant at Breakfast
The Huffington Post:
Gibbs V. Santelli: He Should Read President's Plan (VIDEO) — Rick Santelli, the CNBC reporter who went into a certifiable rant against the Obama housing plan Thursday, found himself in the White House bullseye 24-hours later: the object of scorn and humorous derision from the president's press secretary Robert Gibbs.
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Firedoglake, Pat Dollard, TVNewser, Wonkette, TigerHawk and Hot Air
The Huffington Post:
Schumer: Failed ‘Zombie’ Banks Should Be Nationalized — Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) believes that failed “zombie” banks, no matter what their size, should be taken over by the government, which should then wipe out shareholders, fire management, clean up the banks and quickly resell them into the marketplace.
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Paul Krugman, Spin Cycle, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Washington Monthly and Open Left
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Alison Vekshin / Bloomberg:
Dodd Says Short-Term Bank Takeovers May Be Necessary — Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said banks may have to be nationalized for “a short time” to help lenders including Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. survive the worst economic slump in 75 years.
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Needed: Less Talking About Nationalization, More Action
Needed: Less Talking About Nationalization, More Action
Discussion:
Obsidian Wings
Alex Leo / The Huffington Post:
John Gibson Did Not Compare Eric Holder To Monkey With Bright Blue Scrotum (UPDATED) — UPDATE: The Huffington Post has learned that the below video has been doctored. We regret the error and apologize to Mr. Gibson. John Gibson never compared Eric Holder to a monkey with a bright blue scrotum.
Discussion:
Portfolio, TVNewser, Oliver Willis, johnny dollar's place, Crooks and Liars, Patterico's Pontifications and PoliGazette
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Joan Lowy / Associated Press:
AP Interview: Transportation secretary says taxing how much we drive may replace gasoline tax — WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn …
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Fox News:
Obama Administration Shoots Down LaHood Mileage Tax Idea — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood floated the idea to tax motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn. — FOXNews.com — President Obama's transportation department slapped down a suggestion …
Ryan Powers / Think Progress:
Jindal Rejects $90 Million In Recovery Funding That Would Have Benefited 25,000 Louisiana Residents — Jindal Rejects $90 Million In Recovery Funding That Would Have Benefited 25,000 Louisiana Residents» — When President Obama signed the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act last week …
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence — Listening to neoconservative mastermind Richard Perle at the Nixon Center yesterday, there was a sense of falling down the rabbit hole. — In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack.
Jackie Calmes / New York Times:
Obama Bans Gimmicks, and Deficit Will Rise — WASHINGTON — For his first annual budget next week, President Obama has banned four accounting gimmicks that President George W. Bush used to make deficit projections look smaller. The price of more honest bookkeeping: A budget …
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias, Balloon Juice, Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Donklephant, Maggie's Farm, TIME.com, Wonk Room and MoJo Blog Posts
William Glaberson / New York Times:
Guantánamo Meets Geneva Rules, Study Finds — A Pentagon report requested by President Obama on the conditions at the Guantánamo Bay detention center concludes that the prison complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva conventions, but it makes many recommendations …
Discussion:
Salon
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Forbes:
Laissez-Faire Capitalism Has Failed — The financial crisis lays bare the weakness of the Anglo-Saxon model. — It is now clear that this is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the worst economic crisis in the last 60 years. While we are already in a severe …
Discussion:
Obsidian Wings
Jeffrey Goldberg:
Glenn Greenwald is Hysterical — Not funny-hysterical, just hysterical. I think he feels badly about writing for The American Conservative, maybe because he knows that writing for a magazine founded by Pat Buchanan and animated by Buchanan's hostility to Jews and to Israel is a self-marginalizing act …
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Eamon Javers / The Politico:
The Obama Cabinet is a CEO black hole — In President Barack Obama's Cabinet, there is a Nobel Prize winner, a former mayor, and a veteran CIA agent. Surrounding him in the White House West Wing are a former four-star general, one of the nation's most eminent economists …
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mikero.com:
More Darwin — Update: 2pm CST: (I've rewritten most of the post so that it reflects the current state of affairs. Many comments below were made before the storefront was open, so that is why they say what they do) — So, I made some Darwin artwork that parodies the famous Shepard Fairey Obama poster.
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Washington Post Stands By Climate Change Denialism — For those who are late to the party, recently George Will wrote a column claiming, most broadly, that in the 1970s there was a scientific consensus that the world was suffering from “global cooling” that was as firm as the current consensus about global warming.
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
Obama's Supine Diplomacy — The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, predicted in October that “it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama.” Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban missile crisis.
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight.com:
Land of a Thousand Liebermans — The jungle primary isn't just for Louisiana anymore. — In fact, it isn't for Louisiana at all, which has phased out the system for federal races. But the practice was recently adopted by Washington State. And if a State Senator from San Luis Obispo gets his way …
Paul Steinhauser / CNN:
Poll: Obama rating slips, but still high — CNN Deputy Political Director — WASHINGTON (CNN) — A national poll indicates that two out of three Americans approve of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president of the United States. — The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey …
Michael Calderone / The Politico:
Iseman to POLITICO: The Times lied — Vicki Iseman, who sued The New York Times over a story suggesting that she had had a romantic relationship with John McCain, is now accusing the paper of lying about whether it apologized or retracted the story in the course of settlement discussions.