memeorandum: The Settlements — Charles Krauthammer has a misleading … (Joe Klein/Swampland)

6:10 PM ET, June 5, 2009

Top Items:

Job Losses Slow; Unemployment at 9.4% — The United States economy lost 345,000 jobs in May, the government reported on Friday, a sharp slowing in the pace of job losses that fueled hopes that the economy was on its way toward a recovery. — The recession continued to take a toll …

Discussion: The Atlantic Business Channel, Economix, The Nation, Los Angeles Times, Gawker, Matthew Yglesias, FP Passport, Washington Monthly, Think Progress, The Page, The Agonist, Newsweek Blogs, Donklephant, Politics Nation and Truthdig

Felix Salmon:

Unemployment datapoint of the day — Remember the stress tests? The baseline scenario had unemployment in 2009 at 8.4%, rising to 8.9% under the more adverse scenario. Well, we're only up to May, and already it's at 9.4%. — Bloomberg tries to find a silver lining to today's gut-wrenchingly atrocious unemployment figure:

Discussion: CNBC.com, Bloomberg, Hullabaloo, The Bellows, Ezra Klein and MoJo Blog Posts

Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Employment Situation Summary

Discussion: Hot Air, DailyFinance, Outside The Beltway, Calculated Risk, TIME.com, NewsBusters.org, BizzyBlog, Salon and The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Calculated Risk:
Unemployment Compared to Stress Test Scenarios, and Diffusion Index

Discussion: BizzyBlog and DailyFinance

Jared Allen / The Hill:

Intel firestorm: GOP reveals briefing info — Republicans ignited a firestorm of controversy on Thursday by revealing some of what they had been told at a closed-door Intelligence Committee hearing on the interrogation of terrorism suspects. — Democrats immediately blasted the GOP lawmakers …

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Emptywheel, Hot Air, American Street, YID With LID, TPMMuckraker, PERRspectives, Mudville Gazette, Wake up America and Raw Story

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Keeping Them Honest — “I appreciate your efforts, and look forward to working with you so that the Congress can complete health care reform by October.” So declared President Obama in a letter this week to Senators Max Baucus and Edward Kennedy. The big health care push is officially on.

Discussion: DownWithTyranny!, Washington Post, Commentary, Incertus, Blog entry, Prairie Weather, The Washington Independent, AMERICAblog News and The Caucus

Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:

Blue Dog Public Plan Ideas Are Not What Deficit Control Looks Like — Yesterday, the House Blue Dog bloc came out with a statement on the idea of a public option in health care reform. It's supportive but not really, as per these bullet points from Igor Volsky:

Discussion: Open Left, Ezra Klein, TPMDC, Left in the West and Hullabaloo

Greg Mankiw / Greg Mankiw's Blog:
What's the point of a public option?

Discussion: The Daily Dish, Obsidian Wings and Marginal Revolution

Ezra Klein:
Will Single-Payer Supporters Have A Voice? …

Discussion: Swampland and Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog!

Faiz Shakir / Think Progress:

Inhofe Rips Obama As ‘Un-American,’ Suggests He's On The Side Of Terrorists — Reacting to President Obama's outreach to the Muslim world yesterday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) decried the president's speech as “un-American” and even suggested Obama might be on the side of terrorists:

Discussion: Jezebel, NPR, Christian Science Monitor, Blogs and Stories, D-Day, The Moderate Voice, Wall Street Journal, Washington Monthly, TPMDC, Raw Story and Salon

Mike Allen / The Politico:
Obama takes aim at Osama

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Pat Dollard, Washington Monthly and PoliticalBase.com Blog

Joe Klein / Swampland:

The Settlements — Charles Krauthammer has a misleading and evasive column about the Israeli settlements issue. He does not deal with the legality of these towns—he can't, of course, because they are illegal under the fourth Geneva Convention, which provides rules for occupying powers.

Discussion: The Daily Dish

The Corner:
The End of America's Strategic Alliance with Israel?

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Gateway Pundit, PoliGazette, Wake up America, The Mahablog, Newshoggers.com and Taylor Marsh

Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
Barack Obama's Israeli Settlements Canard

Lydia Saad / Gallup:

Cheney and Pelosi Have Poor Ratings in Common — Pelosi's ratings down, while Cheney's improved from record low — PRINCETON, NJ — Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Dick Cheney have little in common politically, but they receive almost identical image ratings from the American public.

Discussion: Fox News, Democracy in America, Brendan Nyhan, Glenn Thrush's Blog, The Plum Line, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, NewsBusters.org, Weekly Standard, Commentary, The New Argument, Scared Monkeys and Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog!

Lymari Morales / Gallup:

Conservatives Shift in Favor of Openly Gay Service Members — Weekly churchgoers also show double-digit increase in support from 2004 — WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans are six percentage points more likely than they were four years ago to favor allowing openly gay men and lesbian women to serve in the military, 69% to 63%.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Daily Dish and TPMDC

Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:

MSNBC Shrugs About Liz Cheney's Over-Exposure: “Liz Is A Great Guest” — MSNBC is shrugging off the growing criticism of the extensive airtime the network has granted Liz Cheney to mount a political defense of her father and a political offensive against the Obama administration …

Discussion: Raw Story and Daily Kos

Media Matters / Media Matters for America:
At least 22 TV appearances for Liz Cheney — in less than a month

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Huffington Post and The Plum Line

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:

IT TAKES REAL EFFORT TO BE THIS AWFUL.... Once in a while, Sean Hannity's painful on-air antics are so over the top, they're almost hard to believe. — Last night, for example, whining incessantly about President Obama's speech in Cairo, Hannity told Fox News viewers that the president …

Discussion: Media Matters for America and The American Scene

Eric Kleefeld / TPMDC:

Coleman: GOP Needs To Compete On “The Ethernet” — Former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) spoke to a friendly conservative video-blogger yesterday at the at the Conservative Heartland Leadership Conference in St. Louis, and said Republicans need to more effectively organize around the newer modes of communication — like the “ethernet”:

Discussion: Minnesota Independent, City Pages, Talking Points Memo, Minnesota Public Radio and Raw Story

Think Progress: Coleman urges Republicans to be more tech-savvy by competing on the ‘ethernet.’

Wall Street Journal:

Nominee's Criminal Rulings Tilt to Right of Souter — WASHINGTON — While Judge Sonia Sotomayor stands in the liberal mainstream on many issues, her record suggests that the Supreme Court nominee could sometimes rule with the top court's conservatives on questions of criminal justice.

Discussion: McClatchy Washington Bureau, National Journal Online, New York Times, Washington Post, Legal Beat, Washington Times, The Caucus, CBS News, USA Today, The Note and The Washington Independent

Wendy E. Long / The Judicial Confirmation Network:
Sotomayor Questionnaire Omits Memo on Death Penalty and Racism

Discussion: Think Progress, MoJo Blog Posts and Bench Memos

Jeff Stein / SpyTalk:

Exclusive: Mudd Withdraws as DHS Intelligence Chief (Updated) — The White House confirmed this afternoon it was withdrawing Phil Mudd from Senate consideration to be the Department of Homeland Security's intelligence chief. — Mudd, a career CIA employee who is currently the head of FBI counterterrorism, said the choice was his.

Discussion: Raw Story

Laura Rozen / The Cable:
DHS intel nominee withdraws (UPDATED)

Discussion: ATTACKERMAN, Associated Press, Salon and The Washington Independent

Victor Zapanta / Think Progress:

McHugh on DADT: I have no interest in excluding people ‘otherwise qualified to serve.’ — After President Obama named Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) as his nominee for Secretary of the Army, progressives have been working to better understand McHugh's current position on “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” the ban on gays serving openly in the military.

Discussion: Law Dork, 2.0

Jennifer Bendery / Roll Call: McHugh Says View Has Changed on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

Deborah Solomon / Wall Street Journal:

White House Set to Appoint a Pay Czar — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to appoint a “Special Master for Compensation” to ensure that companies receiving federal bailout funds are abiding by executive-pay guidelines, according to people familiar with the matter.

Discussion: Think Progress, The Washington Independent, Blog entry, Hot Air, Dealbreaker, Scared Monkeys, Fox News, PoliBlog, Salon, QandO and The Page

Charles Bremner / Times of London:

Barack and Michelle Obama decline dinner with the Sarkozys — The Obamas turn up in Paris this evening, but have declined a dinner invitation from the couple next door: the Sarkozys. — President Obama's reluctance to spend more than minimum time with the French leader on his visit for the D …

Discussion: Politics Daily, Taylor Marsh, Patterico's Pontifications, Townhall.com, The Page and Fausta's Blog

John / Power Line:

It Could Be Worse — Much has been made of President Obama's “on the other hand” transition, in his speech yesterday, from the Holocaust to the travails of the Palestinians. Some thought that he implied a kind of equivalence. But the appalling Tom Brokaw reminded us that it could have been worse …

Discussion: Weekly Standard, NewsBusters.org blogs and Hot Air

Jerusalem Post:

Settlers build ‘Oz Yehonatan’ outpost — Article's topics: Barack Obama, Settlements — A day after US President Barack Obama reiterated his call to stop settlement activity during a speech in Cairo, defiant settlers continued to erect illegal structures in the West Bank …

Discussion: Don Surber

Mike Hale / ArtsBeat:

Review: Glenn Beck, Simulcasting Discontent — Before starting his performance Thursday night at the Midland Theater in Kansas City, Mo., which was simulcast to more than 440 movie houses around the country, Glenn Beck walked over to the camera, waved, and acknowledged the critic for The New York Times.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, TVNewser and NewsBusters.org blogs

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

Republican senator seeks to outlaw tobacco — A Republican senator who is also a doctor is calling for a new era of Prohibition — outlawing cigarette smoking and other tobacco use. — The unlikely demand comes from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), one of the staunchest free-market conservatives in the Senate.

Discussion: Hot Air and The Washington Independent

Wall Street Journal:

FDIC Pushes Purge at Citi — Bair Wants to Shake Up Management, Sought to Cut Rating of Bank's Health — WASHINGTON — The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is pushing for a shake-up of Citigroup Inc.'s top management, imperiling Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, people familiar with the matter said.

Discussion: Bloomberg, Washington Post, DailyFinance, New York Times, The Foundry, Felix Salmon, Wonk Room and naked capitalism

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

Are House Democrats about to block Obama's new secrecy law? — (updated below - Update II) — Earlier this week, I noted that the Senate had passed — with Obama's support — a pernicious amendment to the spending supplemental bill, jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman …

Discussion: Firedoglake, Campaign Silo, TPMDC, D-Day, Hullabaloo, MoJo Blog Posts, Daily Kos, TalkLeft and Taylor Marsh

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

Racist Knows the Pain of Being Called Racist — This is pretty rich — both for Sen. Sessions (R-AL) and CNN for taking his line at face value. Sessions is saying he can feel Sonia Sotomayor's pain over being called a ‘racist’ since he was called a ‘racist’ too.

Discussion: CNN and Washington Monthly