Top Items:
Jackie Calmes / New York Times:
Democrats Resisting Obama on Social Security — President Obama's plan to form a Social Security task force was shelved, partly because of objections from House and Senate leaders.
Discussion:
The Hill, Democracy in America, cab drollery, PoliGazette, MSNBC, Political Machine, Associated Press and CBS News
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Jane Hamsher / Firedoglake:
Social Security: White House Triangulates Against Pete Peterson — Rob Kuttner writes in the Washington Post this morning that billionaire Social Security slasher Pete Peterson was originally scheduled to be a keynote speaker at today's fiscal responsibility summit (as reported here last Wednesday) …
Ezra Klein / American Prospect:
How Entitlement Reform Became Health Reform — Why progressives should stop worrying and learn to love today's White House Fiscal Summit. — It's testament to how deeply the idea of an entitlement crisis has embedded itself in Washington that news that Obama planned a “fiscal accountability summit” …
Robert Kuttner / Washington Post:
The Deficit Hawks' Attack on Our Entitlements
The Deficit Hawks' Attack on Our Entitlements
Discussion:
Paul Krugman, The Plum Line, The Daily Dish, The Opinionator, Blog entry and Christy Hardin Smith
Jeanne Cummings / The Politico:
Forget change: GOP eyes retro strategy — Republicans are hatching a political comeback by dusting off a strategic playbook written nearly two decades ago. — Its themes: Unite against Democrats' economic policy, block and counter health care reform and tar them with spending scandals.
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Lydia Saad / Gallup:
Assessing Obama's Job Approval at the One-Month Mark — Receives solid approval, but not extraordinary in historical terms — USA - Government and Politics - Presidential Job Approval - The Presidency - Americas - Northern America — PRINCETON, NJ — President Barack Obama remains …
The Huffington Post:
The Myth Of The Filibuster: Dems Can't Make Republicans Talk All Night — Hoping for a C-SPAN spectacle of GOP obstruction, some impatient Democrats are urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to call Republicans on their filibuster bluff. — House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, Washington Monthly, Brian Beutler, The Impolitic, Daily Kos, MyDD, MoJo Blog Posts, Hullabaloo and Democracy in America
Amanda Terkel / Think Progress:
Obama Hits GOP Governors Rejecting Stimulus Funds: There'll Be ‘Ample Time For Campaigns Down The Road’ — This morning, President Obama addressed members of the National Governors Association, focusing his remarks on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
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Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:
No rest for Rahm at the movies — A surprised fellow moviegoer passes on word that Rahm Emanuel took time out Saturday night to see The Wrestler at the E Street Cinema last night with a Secret Service Agent. — It was not a quiet night out. — “The guy sitting next to Rahm …
Capital Commerce:
Rick Santelli: The Man Who Talked Back — Which, do you suppose, would be the bigger draw right about now: a) a Barack Obama house party supporting the housing bailout package, or b) a Rick Santelli-inspired “Chicago Tea Party” opposing the bailout package?
Discussion:
Pat Dollard
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David Shepardson / Detroit News:
Auto team drives imports — Fed task force has few new U.S. cars — WASHINGTON — The vehicles owned by the Obama administration's auto team could reflect one reason why Detroit's Big Three automakers are in trouble: The list includes few new American cars.
Discussion:
The Foundry, Hot Air, Gawker, TigerHawk, Sweetness & Light, Scared Monkeys and Don Surber
Michelle Malkin:
Hey, lady, your $800,000 house is NOT my problem — Repeat after me: Property value-preservation is not a civil right. — Craig Meister at the Examiner.com points me to this typical CNN sob story clip of a bus driver named Minta Garcia who is demanding that President Obama halt all foreclosures.
Nick Gillespie / Reason:
One More Reason To Fear the Stimulus Package: Joe Biden, Computer Illiterate and Gaffemeister Extraordinaire, Is In Charge of It All — Fox News delivers the bad news: … More here. — The idea of Joe Biden—the feller who created the position of the drug czar; plagiarized from Robert Kennedy …
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Patrick Gavin / The Politico:
The 10 most influential D.C. Twitterers — When you talk about Twitter, you might as well be talking about the Snuggie: People around you swear that it's actually useful, but you can't help thinking it silly and declaring, “I just don't get what all the buzz is about.”
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Banking on the Brink — Comrade Greenspan wants us to seize the economy's commanding heights. — O.K., not exactly. What Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman — and a staunch defender of free markets — actually said was, “It may be necessary to temporarily nationalize …
Robert Barnes / Washington Post:
Legal Experts Propose Limiting Justices' Powers, Terms — If we had it to do all over again, would we appoint Supreme Court justices for life? Allow the chief justice to keep the job forever? Let the court have the final word on which cases it hears and those it declines?
Henry Blodget / Tech Ticker:
Citigroup's Clever Plan to Screw Taxpayers Again — From The Business Insider, Feb. 23, 2009: — So Citigroup (C) has proposed that the US taxpayer and other preferred shareholders convert up to $75 billion of preferred stock into common stock, thus bolstering the company's tangible equity …
Discussion:
TalkLeft
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Ben Armbruster / Think Progress:
Sanford Offers Unemployed South Carolina Resident ‘Prayers’ Instead Of Stimulus Funds — Following the lead of a number of his fellow Republican governors, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) has given some indication that he will not accept some of the money slated for South Carolina …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Salon, The Politico and Real Clear Politics
Anne Bayefsky / Forbes:
The Obama Administration Sacrifices Israel — The cover-up on Durban II's anti-Semitic agenda. — The Obama administration's decision to join the planning of the U.N.'s Durban II “anti-racism” conference has just taken a new twist: cover-up. On Friday, State Department officials …
Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:
Obama - Feeling The Chill? — Obama was widely mocked for running up the White House thermostat to the point where, as his adviser David Axelrod explained, “You could grow orchids in there.” — But check out these new photos of Obama At Work from ABC News. Is that a fashionable non-Carteresque non-cardigan sweater we see?
Discussion:
Political Punch
Bob Cusack / The Hill:
Harry Reid: Economy starting to turn around — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Monday that the banking industry is “very close” to being stabilized and the nation's economy is starting to rebound. — “We tend to talk about the negative. ...
Ryan Powers / Think Progress:
Rove ignores House Judiciary Committee subpoena. — Pursuant to a subpoena issued earlier this month, Karl Rove was due to appear for a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee today. But as CongressMatters reports, despite being “expected” to appear this time, Rove was a no show.
Mark Kleiman / The RBC:
Minnesota: Where's the outrage? — If I were a Minnesotan, I think I'd be pretty angry about the way that Norm Coleman and his friends in the national Republican Party have deprived the state of half its representation in the Senate. It's now clear that Coleman can't win …
Washington Post:
Editor's Note — The headline, illustration and text of “Below the Beltway,” a column in The Washington Post Magazine today, may cause offense to readers. The magazine was printed before a widely publicized incident last week in which a chimpanzee attacked and badly mauled a woman in Stamford …
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
REMOVING ALL DOUBT.... Five years ago, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ken.) won re-election despite odd and erratic personal behavior. Now, in advance of another re-election fight, Bunning is acting strangely again. — Last month, Bunning decided not to show up for work for a while, and refused to say publicly where he was.
Mark Blumenthal / Pollster.com:
Dispatches: Greenberg vs. Penn — Of the many stories in Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg's new book, Dispatches from the War Room, the most newsworthy may be his slashing condemnation of Mark Penn, the pollster that displaced him within the inner circles of both President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.