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 …
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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
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
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Frank James / The Swamp:
Obama's 2nd press conference live-blog — 8:32 pm — Stars and Stripes' reporter ask where will the administration find cuts in the defense or veterans budgets. Obama says veterans should be held harmless. Defense contracting is another matter. “There is uniform acknowledgement that the procurement system doesn't work.
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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
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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, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Lean Left, RedState, Riehl World View, The Corner, The Agitator, The Washington Independent and The Daily Dish
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 …
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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.
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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.
Discussion:
OC Progressive
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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
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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
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 …
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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.
Associated Press:
Bunning: McConnell making fundraising difficult — FRANKFORT, Ky. — U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning is blaming his fundraising difficulties on a fellow Kentucky Republican, Senate Minority Floor Leader Mitch McConnell. — Bunning said during a conference call Tuesday that McConnell and Texas …
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Glenn Thrush / Glenn Thrush's Blog:
McConnell's sabotaging me, Bunning says
McConnell's sabotaging me, Bunning says
Discussion:
Enraged Conservative
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 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 …
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.
CNN:
Meghan McCain: ‘I support the president’ — (CNN) — Meghan McCain, a contributor to TheDailyBeast.com, is the daughter of Sen. John McCain and Cindy McCain. But it's her recent verbal sparring with conservative Republicans that's put her in the spotlight.
Discussion:
The Atlantic Politics Channel, The Huffington Post, The New Republic, Alarming News and Hot Air
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 …
Joe Weisenthal / Clusterstock:
Maxine Waters Puts On Her Goldman Sachs Conspiracy Hat (CLIP) — Whenever they hold these banking hearings, there are two people we enjoy hearing from: Ron Paul and Maxine Water. Ron Paul because he challenges the administration on core questions of monetary theory and that's fun.
Mazal Mualem / Haaretz:
Labor votes in favor of joining Netanyahu coalition — The Labor Party Central Committee voted on Tuesday in favor of joining Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, despite vocal opposition from within the party. — Netanyahu reached the preliminary agreement with Barak early Tuesday.
Michael Brooks / New Scientist:
Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe — Related editorial: We must heed the threat of solar storms — IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived.
Discussion:
The New Republic
Adam Serwer / American Prospect:
TAMMY BRUCE. — It's worth considering the full context of Tammy Bruce's comments on Michelle Obama yesterday. Bruce said this of the first lady: … Right. Nothing that makes a racist comment more obvious than a self-conscious attempt to qualify it as not being racist.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly