Top Items:
The Huffington Post:
Specter Will Vote Against Employee Free Choice Act — UPDATE: Senator Specter ended speculation on where he would come down on the Employee Free Choice Act by declaring, on the Senate floor, that he would oppose the legislation until the economy improves. — “The problems of a recession …
RELATED:
Kevin Bogardus / The Hill:
Specter delivers death blow to labor union bill — Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) announced Tuesday he will oppose card check, giving an apparent death blow to the most important congressional issue to organized labor. — Specter made the dramatic announcement in a floor speech.
Discussion:
The Swamp, CBS News, Political Machine, TPMDC, Commentary, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Blue Crab Boulevard and Shopfloor
David Weigel / The Washington Independent:
Norquist: Specter to Oppose Cloture on EFCA
Norquist: Specter to Oppose Cloture on EFCA
Discussion:
Philly.com, Hot Air, TPMDC, The Atlantic Politics Channel, The Politico, The Other McCain, Washington Monthly, Matthew Yglesias and Shopfloor
United States Senator Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania:
Senator Specter Speaks on Employee Free Choice Act/Card Check
Senator Specter Speaks on Employee Free Choice Act/Card Check
Discussion:
DownWithTyranny!, Open Congress, MyDD, Democracy in America, The Washington Independent and AmSpecBlog
Blue Texan / Firedoglake:
K-Lo & Crew: Only Republicans Should be Honored at Catholic Colleges — Right-wing Catholics are furious that President Obama is [defiling the sanctity of] delivering the commencement address at Notre Dame. — K-Lo called it “disgraceful,” grunting, “They took a giant step away …
Discussion:
Associated Press, Salon, PERRspectives, Washington Monthly, RedState and National Review
RELATED:
Jamison Foser / Media Matters for America:
Newt Gingrich, guardian of Catholic values — FOX contributor Newt Gingrich is upset: — To which Matt Cooper replies: — That isn't really fair to Newt, though. Gingrich has only been divorced twice so far. There was Jackie, his former high school math teacher …
Michael Calderone / Michael Calderone's Blog:
Obama skips major papers: No NYT, WaPo, WSJ, USA Today — During President Obama's second East Room news conference, he took questions from 13 reporters over about an hour — that's the same as during his first presser on Feb. 9. — But in quite a departure from the first presser …
RELATED:
Thomas Ferraro / Reuters:
U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.
RELATED:
Alexander Burns / The Politico:
Obama statement excerpts released — The White House has released advance excerpts of the President's opening remarks tonight. — Obama will tell Americans: “[W]e've put in place a comprehensive strategy designed to attack this crisis on all fronts. It's a strategy to create jobs …
Discussion:
QandO
RELATED:
Corey Boles / Wall Street Journal:
Obama Sees ‘Signs of Progress’ — WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Tuesday night that “signs of progress” are emerging from his administration's efforts to tackle the severe economic recession the U.S. is undergoing. — He said that the multi-pronged strategy put in place …
RELATED:
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
The GOP's Cheney Problem — The least popular vice-president in memory is not helping the Republicans regroup - according to this piece from the Hill. But Cheney is not giving these disgraceful and classless interviews to help the GOP. He's giving them because it is beginning to dawn …
RELATED:
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Dems Hammer GOP's New “Too Many Ideas” Strategy — Dems are opening fire on the GOP in response to our story below, which quotes Mitch McConnell's spokesperson saying that the GOP will start attacking the Obama administration for throwing out too many ideas on the economy, with not enough cohesion.
RELATED:
Frank James / The Swamp:
Obama's 2nd press conference live-blog — 9:05 pm — The press conference is over, not having gone the full hour. Obama didn't make any news either way. There won't be any new controversies coming out of this press conference, which is the first way of measuring the success or failure of these staged events.
Discussion:
Chicago Breaking News
Ted Barrett / CNN:
Dems propose cutting Obama budget by billions — CNN Congressional Producer — WASHINGTON (CNN) — Hours before President Obama was to hold a prime-time news conference — in part to boost his $3.6 trillion budget plan — a key Democratic senator Tuesday unveiled a scaled-down budget proposal.
Discussion:
PoliPundit.com
Charles Homans / Washington Monthly:
Culture Shock — What happened when one conservative Web site ventured outside the movement bubble. — Last May, Conor Friedersdorf, a twenty-eight-year-old recent graduate of NYU's Journalism School, decided he was going to save conservative journalism.
Discussion:
American Power, Eunomia, Lean Left, RedState, Riehl World View, Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Corner, The Washington Independent and The Agitator
Christopher D. Carroll / The Economists' Forum:
Treasury rewards waiting — Maybe it was worth the wait. — Judging from preliminary details, the US Treasury's plan to rescue the financial system is a lot savvier about the relationship between financial markets and the macroeconomy than are the usual-suspects: critics from both left …
Discussion:
MoJo Blog Posts
RELATED:
Manu Raju / The Politico:
Coleman won't rule out federal appeal — Former Sen. Norm Coleman is still considering taking his election lawsuit to the federal court if he's unsuccessful in reversing Al Franken's 225-vote lead in the Minnesota Senate recount. — Speaking to reporters at the Capitol …
RELATED:
Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
A major difference between conservatives and progressives — (updated below - Update II) — One of the linchpins of the Bush presidency, especially during the first term (and well into the second, until he became a major political liability), was the lock-step uncritical reverence …
Glenn Harlan Reynolds / Forbes:
Money For Nothing — Jilted Wall Street donors should rethink future political donations. — An honest politician, as an old saw has it, is one who stays bought. If this is true, then we have the most dishonest bunch of officeholders ever, and it may lead Wall Street to reconsider its donations in the future.
Jeffrey Lord / American Spectator:
The 1966 Election's Warning to Obama — It was a historic tidal wave of rejection. Symbolized by, of all things, housewives boycotting supermarkets. And the active participation of seven future presidents of the United States. — The 1966 “off year” or congressional elections …
The White House:
Open for Questions: President Obama to Answer Your Questions on Thursday — Today, the President invited everyone to use a new feature on WhiteHouse.gov called “Open for Questions” to ask a question about the economy and rate other questions up or down. Then, on Thursday morning …
Khaled Abu Toameh / Hudson New York:
On Campus: The Pro-Palestinians' Real Agenda — During a recent visit to several university campuses in the U.S., I discovered that there is more sympathy for Hamas there than there is in Ramallah. — Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought …
Ben Smith / The Politico:
Reines storm: Clinton conflict brews — Hillary Clinton's departure for the State Department was meant to end the era of Clinton drama, and to leave the turmoil of her campaign behind. But one former Clinton aide, now a senior adviser to Secretary Clinton, has brought at least some of that drama along with him.
Jeffrey A. Miron / CNN:
Commentary: Legalize drugs to stop violence — Editor's note: Jeffrey A. Miron is senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University. — CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) — Over the past two years, drug violence in Mexico has become a fixture of the daily news.