Top Items:
Washington Whispers:
GOP to Michael Steele: Quiet About Rush Limbaugh or You're Fired — Apology to Rush Limbaugh aside, new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is coming under fire from his own GOP troops to shut up and focus on his job of organizing the party and raising money, not fighting with his own political kind.
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Peter Daou / The Huffington Post:
Why on Earth Are Democrats Legitimizing and Empowering Rush Limbaugh? — I don't buy into this ‘brilliant’ strategy of elevating Rush Limbaugh in the hopes that it will tarnish Republicans. — Focus relentlessly on the disastrous Bush presidency to tarnish Republicans, yes.
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Limbaugh Attacks Stephanopoulos, Says ABC Falsely Reported That Eric Cantor Disagreed With “Fail” Remark — Okay, the Limbaugh wars have just taken yet another weird new turn — Rush is claiming that a high profile GOP leader who appeared to disagree with his professed hope that President Obama …
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Rush Refuses To Say Whether Successful Obama Fix Of Economy Would Be Good For The Country — Okay, as noted below, I somehow ended up in an extended email exchange with Rush Limbaugh. In it, Rush repeatedly insisted that his desire for President Obama to fail didn't mean he didn't want the country to “succeed.”
Americans United / americansunitedforchange.org:
WHO'S THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S REAL LEADER?
WHO'S THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S REAL LEADER?
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, MoJo Blog Posts, Liberal Values, The Swamp, American Power and The Moderate Voice
David Neiwert / Crooks and Liars: Limbaugh's excuse for hoping Obama fails — ‘Dems did it too’ — is baloney
Al Giordano / The Field on the Narcosphere:
Ugly and Incendiary — Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh began …
Ugly and Incendiary — Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh began …
Mark Murray / MSNBC:
Poll: Obama's rating at all-time high — NBC/WSJ poll shows gap between popularity of president and his policies — WASHINGTON - After Barack Obama's first six weeks as president, the American public's attitudes about the two political parties couldn't be more different, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds.
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Laura Meckler / Wall Street Journal:
Obama Gets Strong Support in Poll — Popularity Can Help President Pursue Big Initiatives; Warning Signs on Health Care — WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama enjoys widespread backing from a frightened American public for his ambitious, front-loaded agenda, a new poll indicates.
Mark Murray / MSNBC:
SNEAK PEEK AT THE NBC/WSJ POLL — From NBC's Mark Murray — Here's one set of numbers we're releasing before the entire NBC/WSJ poll comes out at 6:30 pm ET: By a 48-20 percent margin, Americans believe the Democratic Party would do a better job of getting the U.S. out of recession than the Republican Party.
SteveK / TVNewser:
White House Knocks Jim Cramer For Calling Obama Budget “Greatest Wealth Destruction By a President” — NBC's Tom Costello, on duty at the White House today, asked press secretary Robert Gibbs about some comments made by his CNBC colleague Jim Cramer. On the Today show this morning …
Discussion:
Gateway Pundit, NewsBusters.org, CNBC, Don Surber, American Power, Clusterstock, The Politico and JammieWearingFool
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Michael Calderone / The Politico:
How media sucks up to White House — In a profile last month, The Washington Post described deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina as a “low-profile aide” who begins “fixing President Obama's problems” before 7 a.m., works 14 hours straight and then hits the gym.
Discussion:
Associated Press
The New Republic:
Wealthy Idiots Meet Idiot Reporter — I've seen a lot of dumb news reports in my life, but I'm not sure anything can quite match this one from ABC News. The premise of the report is this: Barack Obama plans to raise taxes on people who make more than $250,000, so the reporter has gone …
Discussion:
AMERICAblog News, Cafe Talk Aggregator, Economix, Donklephant, New York Magazine and Washington Monthly
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Huma Khan / Political Punch:
Emblems to Stamp Projects Funded by the Stimulus Package — ABC News' Sunlen Miller reports: — Put a stamp on it — that's what the White House says. — President Obama announced today that his administration will begin stamping an emblem on projects funded by the economic stimulus package …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Scott's Slant on Politics, Pajamas Media, Weekly Standard, QandO, D-Day, Say Anything and Flopping Aces
Huma Khan / Political Punch:
Bullish Obama Suggests Nation Should Buy! Buy! — President Obama told Americans to take a look at investing in the stock market this afternoon, a remarkable utterance for an American president, especially as the Dow Jones Industrial Average proceeds on its course Southward.
Discussion:
Commentary, Think Progress, Ben Smith's Blogs, Corrente, Clusterstock, Fausta's Blog, Gawker, RedState, Gothamist, The Campaign Spot and WillCollier.com
Patrick O'Connor / The Politico:
Dems yank DC vote bill in House — It looks like voters in the District of Columbia will have to wait another week - and possibly a lot longer - to claim official representation in the House. — Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters Tuesday night that the bill would not come …
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Eric Lipton / New York Times:
Ex-Leaders at Countrywide Start Firm to Buy Bad Loans — CALABASAS, Calif. — Fairly or not, Countrywide Financial and its top executives would be on most lists of those who share blame for the nation's economic crisis. After all, the banking behemoth made risky loans to tens of thousands of Americans …
CNN:
Palin foe gets administration job — (CNN) - Alaska State Sen. Kim Elton, one of the leading officials to pursue an investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin during the heat of the presidential campaign, has taken a high-level job in the Interior Department. — Palin reacted in a short statement Monday …
Michael Isikoff / Newsweek:
Extraordinary Measures — A new memo shows just how far the Bush administration considered going in fighting the war on terror. — In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside …
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Alex Isenstadt / The Politico:
Senators push select econ committee — Senators Byron Dorgan and John McCain introduced legislation Tuesday calling for a Senate select committee to investigate the causes of the financial crash. — “People are confused, upset, and unhappy,” McCain told reporters this afternoon.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice
Kleinheider / Post Politics:
MTSU POLL: One In Six Tennesseans Admit To Telling Racist Jokes About The President — The newest poll on state and national issues in Tennessee is out from our friends over at Middle Tennessee State University complete with charts and graphs. Some of the more interesting findings below.
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Our Interrelated Crises — David Brooks seems to think that Barack Obama is trying to do too much at once. Steve Benen retorts that “The notion that multiple problems — healthcare, energy, education, infrastructure, economic growth — may be inter-connected seems to elude Brooks entirely.”
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Willem Buiter / Willem Buiter's Maverecon:
The unfortunate uselessness of most ‘state of the art’ academic monetary economics — The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England I was privileged to be a ‘founder’ external member of during the years 1997-2000 contained, like its successor vintages of external and executive members …
Paul Krugman:
Zombie financial ideas — Calculated Risk looks at the latest plan floated by the Treasury — to make low-interest, non-recourse loans to private investors who buy bad assets — and immediately gets it: this is a plan to drive up the prices of toxic assets by creating a lot of moral hazard.
Jack Cafferty / CNN:
Cafferty: My crush on Michelle Obama — Editor's note: Jack Cafferty is the author of a new book, “Now or Never: Getting Down to the Business of Saving Our American Dream,” to be published in March. He provides commentary on CNN's “The Situation Room” daily from 4 to 7 p.m. ET.
Newsdesk / Clout St:
Quigley opens up lead in Rahm replacement race — (To check the election results yourself click here for Chicago and here for suburban Cook County.) — (To look at AP election totals, click here.) — (To read the Tribune's coverage in the run up to the election, click here.)
Domenico Montanaro / MSNBC:
MCCAIN EARMARKS AMENDMENT FAILS — From NBC's Ken Strickland — Today Sen. John McCain failed in his effort to strip thousands on earmarks from a government funding bill moving through Congress. His amendment would also have reduced the funding for several government departments to last year's lower spending levels.
Discussion:
Hot Air
Greg Mankiw / Greg Mankiw's Blog:
Team Obama on the Unit Root Hypothesis — All academics, to some degree, suffer from the infliction of seeing the world through the lens of their own research. I admit, I do it too. So when I read the CEA's forecast analysis, this sentence jumped out at me: