Top Items:
Gregg Levine / Firedoglake:
BREAKING: NY-20: Tedisco Preps for Loss, Files Motion to Overturn Election Results Before Polls Even Close — Republican Jim Tedisco may be running for the House in a district where Republicans outnumber Democratic voters by some 70,000, but with the polls closing in a matter of hours, Tedisco's campaign is prepping for a loss.
RELATED:
Lauren Stanforth / Local politics:
Text message to wrong district — Democratic candidate Scott Murphy got an unexpected volunteer today, in the form of woman fuming about a text message she received this morning from Republican challenger Jim Tedisco's camp. — Niskayuna resident Clara Mehserle says she received a text message …
Discussion:
The Campaign Spot, Hot Air, Hotline On Call, G-O-T-V, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room and Taegan Goddard's …
Gregg Levine / Firedoglake:
NY-20 Update: Tedisco Motion Included Request to Prevent Murphy from Being Certified, No Matter the Margin — As reported earlier, Republican Jim Tedisco took the extraordinary measure of filing a motion with the Dutchess County Clerk that was designed to contest and stall certification of the results …
Pat Doyle / Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Court to count up to 400 ballots in Senate recount trial — The absentee ballots are far fewer than Norm Coleman sought and appear to include many that Al Franken had identified as wrongly rejected. — In a potentially decisive ruling, a panel of three judges today ordered up to 400 …
Discussion:
Media Matters for America, TPMDC, The BRAD BLOG, The Caucus, Democracy in America, TIME.com, Swampland, MyDD and PoliticalBase.com Blog
RELATED:
Manu Raju / The Politico:
Court ruling favors Franken — A three-judge panel has dealt a blow to Norm Coleman's efforts to retake the lead in the Minnesota Senate race, putting at most 400 ballots in play — far fewer than what the Republican pushed for during the seven-week recount trial.
Pat Doyle / Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Judges' ruling is boon to Franken — Absentee ballots to be counted will be far fewer than Coleman sought in effort to close the U.S. Senate gap. — Norm Coleman's lawyers all but conceded defeat Tuesday and promised to appeal after a panel of three judges ordered no more than 400 …
Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
Election Contest Ruling Deals Coleman Setback, Appeal Certain
Election Contest Ruling Deals Coleman Setback, Appeal Certain
Discussion:
Salon
Jeffrey Young / The Hill:
Sebelius: Budget reconciliation on the table — President Obama's nominee to be secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) reaffirmed Tuesday that the administration is leaving the door open to using a controversial partisan procedural tactic to pass health reform.
RELATED:
Carrie Budoff Brown / The Politico:
Sebelius paid over $7,000 in back taxes — Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius has paid back taxes of more than $7,000 stemming from “unintentional errors” revealed during her accountant's review of recent tax returns. — The White House on Tuesday released a letter Sebelius sent …
Brian Montopoli / CBS News:
Another Obama Nominee Has Tax Issues — Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama's nominee to become Health and Human Services secretary, said in a letter obtained by the Associated Press that she made “unintentional errors” on her taxes and has corrected her returns from three different years.
Jeffrey Goldberg / The Atlantic Online:
Netanyahu to Obama: Stop Iran—Or I Will — In an interview conducted shortly before he was sworn in today as prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu laid down a challenge for Barack Obama. The American president, he said, must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—and quickly …
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times, New York Times, MyDD, Spectator, American Power, Taylor Marsh, Eunomia, TIME.com, The Daily Dish, MoJo Blog Posts, Matthew Yglesias, PoliGazette, The TrogloPundit, Power Line, Newshoggers.com, TPMCafe, Democracy in America, The Atlantic Politics Channel and Israel Matzav
RELATED:
RADAR:
Exclusive: Biden Daughter Cocaine Video Was a Setup — It was a setup. — The video purporting to show Vice President Joe Biden's daughter Ashley snorting cocaine was preplanned by a man trying to get rich selling the tape, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.
Discussion:
Fox News
Patrick O'Connor / The Politico:
GOP dinner gets Newt, not Palin — Sarah Palin continues to have a rocky post-election season in the nation's capital. — Congressional Republicans are replacing their party's former vice presidential nominee as the headliner of their big spring fundraising dinner with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich …
RELATED:
Toby Harnden / Toby Harnden's blog listings:
“Slightly smaller than Oregon”: a White House briefing on Britain — So here's what the White House is telling American reporters - and by extension the American people - about Britain. It's laid out in an inch-thick “press kit”, with the Seal of the President of the United States emblazoned on the cover …
Matt Corley / Think Progress:
Hersh: Cheney ‘Left A Stay Behind’ In Obama's Government, Can ‘Still Control Policy Up To A Point’ — In an interview on NPR's Fresh Air yesterday, host Terry Gross asked investigative journalist Seymour Hersh if, as he continues to investigate the Bush administration, “more people” were …
Paul Krugman:
Partying like it's 1931 — I'm detecting a trend in commentary that I find slightly ominous. Some of the economic news lately has been slightly better than expected, which was bound to happen at some point (on average, after all, half the news should be better than expected).
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias
Fox News:
With GM's Wagoner Ousted, Should Union Head Have Met the Same Fate? — Even though UAW President Ron Gettelfinger argues that his workers have made significant concessions in recent years, analysts say the offerings were too little, too late. — FOXNews.com
RELATED:
William J. Holstein / New York Times:
One Roadblock Too Many for G.M. — PRESIDENT OBAMA'S stunning decision …
One Roadblock Too Many for G.M. — PRESIDENT OBAMA'S stunning decision …
Shobhana Chandra / Bloomberg:
Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Fell by a Record 19% — Home prices in 20 U.S. cities fell 19 percent in January from a year earlier, the fastest drop on record, as demand plummeted and foreclosures rose. — The S&P/Case-Shiller index's decrease was more than forecast and compares with an 18.6 percent decrease in December.
RELATED:
Byron York / www.washingtonexaminer.com:
Beyond AIG: A Bill to let Big Government Set Your Salary — It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses.
Bloomberg:
Waxman Said to Propose Carbon Cuts, Renewable Quotas — Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House energy panel, will unveil draft legislation to reduce U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 percent, according to two people familiar with the measure. — The California Democrat …
RELATED:
Michael Wolff / Vanity Fair:
The Man Who Ate the G.O.P. — In an ailing radio industry, with a graying audience and a pro-government landscape, Rush Limbaugh should be shuffling off into irrelevancy. Instead, his ever more outrageous attacks have everyone debating whether he's the G.O.P.'s de facto leader, while the party shapes its ideology to fit his needs.
Ezra Klein / American Prospect:
YOUR WORLD IN GRAPHS: THE SENATE IS BROKEN EDITION. — Congressional expert Norm Ornstein's has a nice article arguing that the Senate is an increasingly broken and incapable institution. It's anchored by this graph tracking the rise in filibusters over time.
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
GM's Problems are 50 Years in the Making — Let's take something of a 30,000-foot view on the condition of General Motors. The chart below details GM's operating margin — its profits divided into its revenues — over the past 50 years: — I haven't provided the dates on the chart because they aren't important.
Discussion:
Emptywheel
Pascal Fletcher / Reuters:
Miss Universe says had “lot of fun” in Guantanamo — MIAMI (Reuters) - A “relaxing, calm, beautiful place” may not be everyone's description of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States holds about 240 prisoners in a detention center that has drawn condemnation from around the world.
John Amato / Crooks and Liars:
Projection: Breitbart's new conspiracy theory is something Conservatives (like John McCain) have been doing to us for years — Andrew Breitbart tries to whip up the right wing bloggers into a frenzy over his new conspiracy theory about “comments” put by liberals on right-wing blogs which appears in the Moonie Times.
Danny / The Note:
McCain to Obama: Don't Be Like LBJ — ABC News' Teddy Davis reports: — Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has been largely supportive of President Obama's plans to bolster U.S. forces in Afghanistan but he said Tuesday that his former rival should go a step further and commit now to boosting US forces …
Molly K. Hooper / The Hill:
Republican may vote for Obama budget plan — Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.) may buck his party when the House votes on President Obama's budget proposal later this week. — The freshman lawmaker told The Hill that his constituents are split, adding that he wants more information before deciding whether …
Hank Beckman / The Naperville Sun:
Public anger leads to Ayers cancellation — Naperville North High School won't let 1960s radical speak to students after outcry — On second thought, Dr. William Ayers won't be coming to Naperville after all. — After a weekend of hostile e-mails from area residents …
Gene Healy / www.washingtonexaminer.com:
Beware the cult of Obama — You've met them. They may be friends of yours, or family members. You may even be one of them (in which case you'll hate this column). I'm referring to those who've heard the Call of Obama. — Tucker Carlson compares it to a dog whistle: Inaudible to most, but irresistible to those who can hear it.
Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:
Prof. Krugman, Meet Prof. Krueger — When Princeton Professors collide! In one corner we have Nobel Laureate, Princeton economics professor and Bush-basher supreme Paul Krugman: — So in 2007 the Pension Benefit Guarantee [sic] Corporation — which stands behind corporate pensions …