Top Items:
Reid Wilson / The Hill:
Conservatives gear up for high court fight — Phone lines around Washington began burning this morning as conservative organizations kicked off preparations for the fight over President Obama's eventual Supreme Court nominee. — Associate Justice David Souter's decision to step down at the end …
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Nell Scovell / Vanity Fair:
Let's Make Clarence Thomas's Worst Nightmare Come True — Minutes after NPR reported that Justice David Souter plans to step down from the Supreme Court, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof updated his Facebook status to ponder a replacement: “I think Obama just might appoint Elena Kagan …
Krooney / The Page:
White Men Need Not Apply — HALPERIN'S TAKE: The eleven real Supreme Court nomination questions to watch now. — Get The Page delivered to your inbox. Sign up for TIME's daily political newsletter here.
Michelle Malkin:
Obama's choices: Gird your loins — Conservatives in Washington are gearing up for the SCOTUS battle. My legal sources have compiled sketches of Obama's top three likely picks and their records. Gird you loins: — Elena Kagan … Sonia Sotomayor … Diane Wood
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars, The Huffington Post, The Caucus, Top of the Ticket, The Sundries Shack, Hot Air, Jules Crittenden and AmSpecBlog
Dana Goldstein / American Prospect:
MARK HALPERIN: OH NOES, A WOMAN MIGHT GET THE JOB! — You know what is so offensive? Those damn P.C. police pressuring the president to place a second woman on the Supreme Court. You know, because it's not embarrassing or anything that although 51 percent of the population is female, only 11 percent of the Court is.
Discussion:
The Page, Washington Monthly, MSNBC, Shakesville, Law Blog, D-Day, Lawyers, Guns and Money and Comments from Left Field
CNN:
Conservatives prepare for Supreme battle — WASHINGTON (CNN) — There are few issues that rally conservatives as much as a Supreme Court nomination — and activists are wasting no time gearing up for a battle. — Conservative groups worked into the night Thursday after news broke …
Media Matters:
FLASHBACK ... Kristol called for 2006 and 2008 to be “a referendum” …
FLASHBACK ... Kristol called for 2006 and 2008 to be “a referendum” …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Flashback: Specter Opposed Confirmation Of Potential Obama Supreme Court Nominee
Flashback: Specter Opposed Confirmation Of Potential Obama Supreme Court Nominee
Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:
Obama shares thoughts, plans on David Souter and replacement process
Obama shares thoughts, plans on David Souter and replacement process
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Conservatives target Sotomayor, Kagan, Wood
Conservatives target Sotomayor, Kagan, Wood
Discussion:
PoliGazette, Democracy in America, Bench Memos, The Atlantic Politics Channel and The Note
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
The Use of Torture and What Nancy Pelosi Knew — Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent's life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge.
Discussion:
MoJo Blog Posts, The Daily Dish, Liberty Street, Commentary, Washington Monthly, The Plank and The New Ledger
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Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
Ronald Reagan: vengeful, score-settling, Hard Left ideologue — (updated below - Update II) — This is a perfect illustration of how severely our political spectrum has shifted in the last two decades and how depraved and extremist our political and media classes have become:
Amy Diluna / NY Daily News:
First Lady Michelle Obama steps out in Lanvin sneakers and they're only $540! — Michelle Obama has taken casual to a haute new level. — While volunteering Wednesday at a D.C. food bank, the First Lady sported her usual J.Crew cardigan, a pair of utilitarian capri pants and, on her feet, a sneaky splurge: trainers that go for $540.
Discussion:
Top of the Ticket, JustOneMinute, Hot Air, Fausta's Blog, Taylor Marsh, AMERICAN DIGEST, Michelle Malkin, RedState, Moonbattery, Don Surber, Brutally Honest and 24Ahead
Andrew C. McCarthy / National Review:
Saying No to Justice — I did something today that I've never done before. The Department of Justice, which I proudly served for a quarter century as an assistant U.S. attorney and a deputy U.S. marshal, asked me for help, and I declined. Actually, what I declined to do was attend a meeting.
Discussion:
Fausta's Blog
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JTA:
Case against ex-AIPAC staffers dropped — WASHINGTON (JTA) — A source with intimate knowledge of the case against two ex-AIPAC staffers accused of passing along classified information says the case has been dropped. — Keith Weissman, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's former Iran analyst …
Discussion:
Washington Times, Washington Wire, Commentary, PoliGazette, Ben Smith's Blog and The Hill's Blog Briefing Room
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Neil A. Lewis / New York Times:
U.S. to Drop Spy Case Against Pro-Israel Lobbyists
U.S. to Drop Spy Case Against Pro-Israel Lobbyists
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias, The Plank, The Politico, American Footprints, RebelReports and Truthdig
Jerry Markon / Washington Post:
Prosecutors to Drop Charges Against Two Former AIPAC Lobbyists
Prosecutors to Drop Charges Against Two Former AIPAC Lobbyists
Discussion:
ATTACKERMAN, SpyTalk, The Atlantic Politics Channel, Jeffrey Goldberg, D-Day and Newshoggers.com
Zachery Kouwe / New York Times:
The Lenders Obama Decided to Blame — Peter A. Weinberg and Joseph R. Perella are part of a band of Wall Street renegades — “a small group of speculators,” President Obama called them Thursday — who helped bankrupt Chrysler. — That, anyway, is the Washington line.
Discussion:
Deal Journal, Wall Street Journal, The New Ledger, Guardian, DealBook, Salon, TPMCafe, NewsBusters.org, BizzyBlog, Power Line and Pirate's Cove
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Jimmy Orr / Christian Science Monitor:
Biden kicked out of country after flu remarks? — Things have gotten so bad for the vice president following his disastrous Today Show appearance that he's been exiled? — No. It's just coincidental that the day after he strayed way off message on how to deal with the flu virus …
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
New DHS folly: The Domestic Extremism Lexicon — The Janet Napolitano-led Department of Homeland Security strikes gold again with a follow-up to its April 7th report casting conservative political positions as indicators of threats to national security. Raw Story and the Daily Beast report …
Discussion:
Moe Lane
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Fredric U. Dicker / New York Post:
PATERSON BURNED BY A RACIAL ‘FIRE’ — 300G SETTLES SUIT BY WHITE FOTOG — ALBANY — Gov. Paterson, who raised state taxes by $8 billion last month, just cost state taxpayers $300,000 more. — The state has secretly settled an embarrassing federal racial-discrimination lawsuit, The Post has learned.
Discussion:
JammieWearingFool
Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Jon Stewart: Hey, sorry for calling Harry Truman a war criminal — A follow-up to Wednesday night's Kinsleyan gaffe: He's sorry, he's just not sure why he's sorry. The closest we get to an explanation is that the decision to drop the bomb was “complicated,” but of course that's why Cliff …
Lindsey Ellerson / The Note:
Mark Penn: No Edwards Could Have Meant ‘Different Outcome’ — ABC News' Kate Snow and Rick Klein report: What if John Edwards hadn't run for president in 2008? — What if he had followed the hindsight-is-20-20 advice being offered now by his wife and chief strategist …
Jay Nordlinger / The Corner:
Knowing a Good Man When You See One — The Dalai Lama has been visiting the Boston area, and I'd like to mention a few reports. First, a note from an NRO reader: Hi, Jay, I had the great opportunity to see the Dalai Lama speak at MIT this afternoon. When he opened the forum to audience Q&A …
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
‘Secret’ CIA document on White House Flickr feed — A photograph posted by the White House to the photo sharing website Flickr includes an image of a document with the letters CIA printed beneath what appears to be the word “secret.” — The photograph by White House photographer Pete Souza …
David Brooks / New York Times:
Genius: The Modern View — Some people live in romantic ages. They tend to believe that genius is the product of a divine spark. They believe that there have been, throughout the ages, certain paragons of greatness — Dante, Mozart, Einstein — whose talents far exceeded normal comprehension …
Nicholas Ballasy / CNSNews:
Tony Bennett: Americans Should Support Anything Obama Wants — (CNSNews.com) - Grammy-award winning musician Tony Bennett told CNSNews.com he “loves everything” Barack Obama has done in his first 100 days as president and thinks every American should “give him all-out support for anything he wants to do.”
Discussion:
Hot Air
The White House:
WhiteHouse 2.0 — In the President's last Weekly Address, he called on government to “recognize that we cannot meet the challenges of today with old habits and stale thinking.” He added that “we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative …