Top Items:
Alexander Mooney / CNN:
Cheney hits Obama again: ‘Devastating’ economic policies — (CNN) — President Barack Obama's expansion of the federal government into the financial sector is likely to have “devastating” effects in the long term, former Vice President Dick Cheney said in his latest salvo directed at the new White House administration.
Discussion:
The Hill, Political Machine, Washington Monthly, MyDD, The Moderate Voice and Shakesville
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Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Same As the Old Cheney — Lately Josh Marshall's been kicking around the question of how Dick Cheney, chief of staff to Gerald Ford and defense secretary to George H.W. Bush, turned into the Dick Cheney, sociopath and vice president, that we all know and despise. — This is an interesting question.
The Huffington Post:
MoveOn Torture Ad Highlights Cheney For Investigation — MoveOn.org is set to launch an aggressive new ad campaign calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the use of torture during the Bush administration and even raising the specter of targeting former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Lindsey Ellerson / The Note:
Hillary Clinton Questions Dick Cheney's Credibility — ABC News' David Chalian Reports: Hillary Clinton stepped directly into the middle of this week's political fray when she questioned former Vice President Dick Cheney's credibility on the torture memos recently released by the Obama administration.
Scott Horton / Blogs and Stories:
Obama v. the Justice Department — Blogs and Stories — The Daily Beast has learned that department lawyers are “incensed” at the White House for waging a frontal assault on their independence to prosecute over torture. — On Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel …
Dan Balz / Washington Post:
Confronting the Bush Legacy, Reluctantly — The legacy of George W. Bush continues to haunt President Obama's administration. Try as he might, the president is finding it difficult to close the books on Bush's presidency. — That's the underlying message of the uproar over the release …
Byron York / www.washingtonexaminer.com:
Did the Times bury its story on interrogations' effectiveness? — If you go to Memeorandum, the most talked-about story on the Web today, or at least as of 11:20 this morning, is Peter Baker's New York Times piece, “Banned Techniques Yielded ‘High Value Information,’ Memo Says.” The story begins:
Discussion:
Hot Air, PrairiePundit, protein wisdom, Washington Monthly, NewsBusters.org and Daily Kos
The Politico:
Obama muddles torture message — President Barack Obama's attempt to project legal and moral clarity on coercive CIA interrogation methods has instead done the opposite — creating confusion and political vulnerability over an issue that has inflamed both the left and right.
Patrick O'Connor / The Politico:
House GOP want to oust Napolitano — House Republicans are calling on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to step down or be fired in the wake of a controversial department memo that has sparked indignant battle cries from conservatives and some veterans.
Discussion:
PrairiePundit
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National Post:
The border for dummies — Can someone please tell us how U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano got her job? She appears to be about as knowledgeable about border issues as a late-night radio call-in yahoo. — In an interview broadcast Monday on the CBC …
Discussion:
Michelle Malkin
Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
Matt Drudge — Nowhere Man? — (Photo by Jenny Zeiner for Washington Post) — Loyal Fix readers know that we follow the movements of one Matt Drudge — and his eponymous Web site — quite closely. — Why? Because, despite any number of critics across the media sphere …
David M. Herszenhorn / The Caucus:
Pelosi Now Remembers Harman Wiretap — Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged today that she had indeed been briefed about a wiretap that recorded conversations involving Representative Jane Harman, contradicting a statement she made on Tuesday when she said she didn't remember being advised of such surveillance.
Discussion:
Capitol Briefing, New York Times, The Cable, Raw Story, Capital J | JTA and Prairie Weather
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Jeff Stein / SpyTalk:
Source: Wiretap Caught Harman Discussing Pelosi Fundraising Flap
Source: Wiretap Caught Harman Discussing Pelosi Fundraising Flap
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, Think Progress, Los Angeles Times, Hot Air, The BLT, BuzzFlash.org, TPMMuckraker, Mondoweiss, Daily Kos and The Plank
Michael P. Tremoglie / thebulletin.us:
Earth Day Philly Style — Environmentalist Loved Planet, Murdered Girlfriend — Today is Earth Day, a holiday created to honor the planet and to raise the consciousness of man's effect on the environment. Philadelphia has a very strong tie to this day.
Discussion:
Moonbattery
The Huffington Post:
Bonuses To New York Times Execs Under Fire — At a time when New York Times managers are forcing all employees to take a five percent pay cut, and demanding even larger sacrifices from the NYT-owned Boston Globe, top executives of the beleaguered newspaper received substantial bonus …
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Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
Torture: Who Was In The Key Meetings? — This newly declassified history comes courtesy of Sen. Jay Rockefeller and the Senate intelligence committee. It includes a bit of information about the post 2005 Office of Legal Counsel memoranda and provides independent confirmation for the disclosure …
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ABCNEWS:
ABC News Exclusive: Torture Tape Implicates UAE Royal Sheikh — Police in Uniform Join In as Victim Is Whipped, Beaten, Electrocuted, Run Over by SUV — A video tape smuggled out of the United Arab Emirates shows a member of the country's royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
‘COLONELS IN MIRRORED SUNGLASSES’.... I can appreciate why Karl Rove is upset about recent revelations about Bush administration torture policies. After all, who wants their friends and colleagues to end up looking like war criminals? Rove has a specific job to do: make Bush and his team look better …
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Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:
Levi Johnston's shockingly candid answers to CNN's Larry King — Well, once again Larry King's bookers have got the big get — Levi Johnston is scheduled to be on the CNN show tonight, unless his pickup breaks down in Saskatchewan. — It's billed as an “exclusive” — at least for this week.
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
Who's More Popular Than Republicans These Days? — Yes, stealing this blatantly off of a liberal website, but it explains why the White House is so confident and has so much breathing room: As Chris Bowers writes: “A new CNN poll has found that Venezuela — an anti-American, socialist-block forming …
Robert Pear / New York Times:
Democrats Consider Bypassing G.O.P. on Health Care Plan — WASHINGTON — With solid majorities in both houses of Congress, Democrats are tempted to use their political muscle to speed passage of health care legislation with minimal concessions to the Republican minority.
Adam Liptak / New York Times:
Court Debates Strip Search of Student — WASHINGTON — The United States Supreme Court spent an hour on Tuesday debating what middle school students are apt to put in their underwear and what should be done about it. — Justice Stephen G. Breyer, for instance, said it struck him as …
Discussion:
Slate, Reason, Buck Naked Politics, Washington Post, Lance Mannion, Outside The Beltway, Lawyers, Guns and Money and Fausta's Blog
Washington Wire:
Pelosi Presses for ‘Truth Commission’ — Greg Hitt reports on Congress. — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pressed the case for creation of a special “truth commission” to investigate the interrogation of terror suspects during the Bush administration. — The California Democrat …
Eric Tucker / Associated Press:
Ivy Leaguer ‘infiltrates’ Falwell's university — PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Kevin Roose managed to blend in during his single semester at Liberty University, attending lectures on the myth of evolution and the sin of homosexuality, and joining fellow students on a mission trip to evangelize partyers on spring break.
Jimmy Vielkind / Politicker NY:
The Recount Will Go On: NY-20 Judge Says Residency Objections Will Be Heard ‘Case by Case’ — <!—[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]—><!— [if gte mso 9]> <![endif]—><!— [if !mso]> <![endif]—> — ALBANY—The ballot-counting the race …
Discussion:
Hotline On Call
John McCormack / Weekly Standard:
Fuzzy Math — According to an MIT study, cap and trade could cost the average household more than $3,900 per year. — It's just another inconvenient truth: If Americans want any of the government remedies that would supposedly save a planet allegedly imperiled by global warming, it's going to cost them.
Dafna Linzer / ProPublica:
Dozens of Prisoners Held by CIA Still Missing, Fates Unknown — Last week, we pointed out that one of the newly released Bush-era memos inadvertently confirmed that the CIA held an al-Qaeda suspect named Hassan Ghul in a secret prison and subjected him to what Bush administration lawyers called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
Ryan Powers / Think Progress:
Clinton on Cheney: 'It won't surprise you that I don't consider him a particularly reliable source.' — In testimony today before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) that she did not view former Vice President Cheney as a …
Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
Obama Urges Passage of Energy Legislation — NEWTON, Iowa - President Obama, declaring “a new era of energy exploration in America,” marked Earth Day by visiting a wind energy plant here and calling on Congress to pass comprehensive energy legislation, including a carbon cap-and-trade system to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
Discussion:
The Politico
Jim Lindgren / The Volokh Conspiracy:
High Unemployment States Have High Income Taxes or High Unionization or Both. — As the nation considers increasing marginal tax rates and facilitating greater union membership, I thought it might make sense to look at the states with the highest and lowest unemployment rates to see if there might be any relevant patterns.
Discussion:
Reason
Sam Roberts / New York Times:
As Housing Market Dips, More in U.S. Are Staying Put — Fewer Americans moved in 2008 than in any year since 1962, according to census data released Wednesday, and immigration from overseas was the lowest in more than a decade. — The Census Bureau reported that the annual rate …
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
When Hope is the Enemy of Change — The environment is having a rough go of things in the polls. — A Pew survey in January showed a precipitous 15-point decline in the number of American adults who describe global warming as a ‘top priority’. Meanwhile, a Gallup poll released …