Top Items:
Mark Mazzetti / The Caucus:
Obama Releases Interrogation Memos, Says C.I.A. Operatives Won't Be Prosecuted — Updated After a tense internal debate, President Obama officially announced this afternoon that his administration would not prosecute C.I.A. operatives for carrying out controversial interrogations of terrorist suspects …
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Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
Obama's huge test today: do we believe in secret law? — (updated below - Update II) — Today is the most significant test yet determining the sincerity of Barack Obama's commitment to restore the Constitution, transparency and the rule of law. After seeking and obtaining multiple extensions …
ACLU:
Abuse of Power: The Bush Administration's Secret Legal Memos — On April 16, 2009, the Department of Justice released four secret memos used by the Bush administration to justify torture: — A 18-page memo, dated August 1, 2002, from Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA.
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
Obama Explains Memo Release Decision — In sum: he's decided to redact the identities of the CIA officers who conducted the interrogations, but everything else will be released without censorship. The full statement is after the jump; here's the part that reflects, I think, what Obama really thinks:
Discussion:
Hullabaloo
MSNBC:
CIA employees won't be tried for waterboarding — Holder gives first definitive assurance officials are legally in the clear — WASHINGTON - The Obama administration on Thursday informed CIA officials who used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects that they will not be prosecuted.
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
“Tea Party” Protests Appear to Draw At Least 250,000 — This is an update and probably the last one. Those of you who are interested in extending the analysis (there are undoubtedly many events missing, although most of the major ones should now be covered) are encouraged to do so at Wikipedia or elsewhere.
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David Neiwert / Crooks and Liars:
Shepard Smith blows the ‘DHS is picking on the Tea Parties’ meme out of the water — You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player! — Shepard Smith brought that rarest of things to Fox News yesterday: amid the cacophony over the Tea Parties, he actually committed an act of journalism.
Ross Douthat:
The Tea Parties — They resemble nothing so much as the anti-war protests during Bush's first term. The claim that they don't have an organizing premise strikes me as obviously wrong: They're anti-bailout, anti-stimulus, anti-deficit, and anti- the tax increases that will eventually …
Fox News:
Napolitano Apologizes for Offending Veterans After DHS Eyes Them for ‘Rightwing Extremism’ — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano apologized to veterans in a FOX News interview after a DHS report labeled returning troops at risk for embracing right-wing extremism. — FOXNews.com
Discussion:
Hot Air, Ben Smith's Blog, Commentary, Michelle Malkin, JammieWearingFool, Washington Post, Wake up America and Right Wing News
Brian Faughnan / Weekly Standard:
House Democrat Leaders: Tea Partiers Are Racist, Nazi, Gun Nuts — If the Obama administration has taken flak for suggesting that conservative groups might be home to domestic terrorists, it looks like some House Democrat leaders are willing to go even further:
Brian Beutler / TPMDC:
Fox News Anchor: We Did Public Relations For Tea Parties
Fox News Anchor: We Did Public Relations For Tea Parties
Discussion:
Washington Monthly
Byron York / www.washingtonexaminer.com:
Small-town rally shows true meaning of tea parties
Small-town rally shows true meaning of tea parties
Discussion:
Hot Air
Directorblue / Doug Ross:
Tea Parties, Code Pink and the sickness of the MSM
Tea Parties, Code Pink and the sickness of the MSM
Discussion:
Winds of Change.NET, Associated Press, NewsBusters.org, Right Wing News, Cold Fury, Wizbang and Ace of Spades HQ
fra.dot.gov:
High-Speed Rail — Vision of High-Speed Rail in America — President Obama proposes to help address the nation's transportation challenges by launching new an efficient, high-speed passenger rail network in 100-600 mile corridors that connect communities across America.
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George F. Will / Washington Post:
America's Bad Jeans — On any American street, or in any airport or mall, you see the same sad tableau: A 10-year-old boy is walking with his father, whose development was evidently arrested when he was that age, judging by his clothes. Father and son are dressed identically — running shoes, T-shirts.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Outside The Beltway, The Plank, PoliGazette, The Washington Independent, Shakesville, Swampland, The Foundry and Lean Left
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Race at the Tea Party — Here's another roundup of Tea Party photos: — I continue to find it striking that the TV coverage I saw of the parties didn't make any mention of the presence of so many signs with a clear racial subtext even though such signs seem to have been apparent to so many of the curious spectators.
Discussion:
TalkLeft
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New York Post:
CNBC SWEATS ‘OBAMA-BASHING’ — THE top suits and some of the on-air talent at CNBC were recently ordered to a top-secret meeting with General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker to discuss whether they've turned into the President Obama-bashing network, Page Six has learned.
Edwin Mora / CNSNews:
Georgetown Says It Covered Over Name of Jesus to Comply With White House Request — (CNSNews.com) - Georgetown University says it covered over the monogram “IHS”—symbolizing the name of Jesus Christ—because it was inscribed on a pediment on the stage where President Obama spoke at the university …
Discussion:
Power Line, The Swamp, Flopping Aces, National Review, Atlas Shrugs, Political Punch, And So it Goes in Shreveport and Lean Left
Forbes:
The Dangers Of The Drinking Age — The government pressured states to raise it to 21. So why didn't the move save lives? — For the past 20 years, the U.S. has maintained a Minimum Legal Drinking Age of 21 (MLDA21), with little public debate about the wisdom of this policy.
Discussion:
Reason
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:
Obama Is Just Not Their Cup of Tea — As a tea party, what happened in Lafayette Square across from the White House yesterday was a washout. — There were no buttered scones, none of those dainty cucumber sandwiches and, as it happens, not a spot of tea.
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MJ Rosenberg / Mideast Peace Pulse:
Emanuel Says Obama Insists On Implementing Two State Solution, No Ifs, Ands, or Buts — Yedioth Achronoth, the largest circulation daily in Israel, reports today that President Obama intends to see the two-state solution signed, sealed and delivered during his first term.