Top Items:
Joseph Curl / Press Association:
Bush takes swipes at Obama policies — Defends interrogations — Former President George W. Bush fired a salvo at President Obama on Wednesday, asserting his administration's interrogation policies were within the law, declaring the private sector not government will fix the economy and rejecting the nationalization of health care.
Discussion:
Megan McArdle, The Swamp, Top of the Ticket, The Fix, Opinion L.A., At-Largely, Think Progress, Washington Times, Don Surber, Weekly Standard, DISSENTING JUSTICE, No More Mister Nice Blog, Swampland, Gawker, Political Punch, White House Watch, QandO, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Flopping Aces, Wolf Howling, Scared Monkeys, Mises Economics Blog and Raw Story
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New York Times:
Obama Poll Sees Doubt on Budget and Health Care — A substantial majority of Americans say President Obama has not developed a strategy to deal with the budget deficit, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, which also found that support for his plans to overhaul health care …
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Atlantic Correspondents, The Huffington Post, People-Press.org, Think Progress, CBS News, The Atlantic Politics Channel, Reuters, The Swamp, msnbc.com, Hot Air, Taylor Marsh, The New Republic, Latest Open Salon Blog, White House Watch, Los Angeles Times, Maggie's Farm, Eunomia, Daily Kos, Swampland, Wake up America, AMERICAblog News, No Sheeples Here!, TVNewser, Pundit & Pundette, Outside The Beltway, The Foundry, Scared Monkeys, The Strata-Sphere, No More Mister Nice Blog, Cato @ Liberty and WSJ.com
US News:
Polls Show Declining Support For Obama Decisions
Polls Show Declining Support For Obama Decisions
Discussion:
Think Progress, Wall Street Journal, Washington Monthly, Reason, The Note, Commentary and The BLT
Chicago Tribune:
Senator questions firing of 3 inspectors general — Removal of 2 inspectors general prompts questions — WASHINGTON - — He was appointed with fanfare as the public watchdog over the government's multi-billion dollar bailout of the nation's financial system.
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Dan / Riehl World View:
Not Just Walpin - 3 IG Firings Being Questioned — Another update: A witness to Walpin-gate. The Wash. Times isn't buying it. It is pretty thin gruel. — (Just a note — Why are we reading about this in the Chicago Tribune? Perhaps his local paper doesn't have an Oba-worship problem?)
Neil A. Lewis / New York Times:
White House Defends Inspector General's Firing
White House Defends Inspector General's Firing
Discussion:
American Spectator, Hot Air, Democracy in America, Runnin' Scared, The Swamp and AmSpecBlog
The Huffington Post:
Daschle Urges Obama To Drop Federal Public Health Care Plan — The man once slated to head Barack Obama's health care system overhaul is now coming out against one of the chief components of that effort. — Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said on Wednesday that the Obama White House …
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Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
The Most Important Number in Politics Today — Seventy-two percent. — That's the number of people in the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll who say that President Obama inherited the “current economic conditions” gripping the country as compared to just 14 percent who said the situation was the result mostly of his policies.
Discussion:
msnbc.com
Gorman Gorman / The Note:
Daschle Folds on Federal Public Health Care Plan
Daschle Folds on Federal Public Health Care Plan
Discussion:
Washington Post, CBS News, Daily Kos, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, The Foundry, AmSpecBlog, First Draft, Weekly Standard, The Treatment, Commentary and AMERICAblog News
Glenn Kessler / Washington Post:
U.S. Struggling for Right Response to Iran — Obama Seeks Way to Acknowledge Protesters Without Alienating Ayatollah — The political unrest in Iran presents the Obama administration with a dilemma: keep quiet to pursue a nuclear deal with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader …
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John Kerry / New York Times:
With Iran, Think Before You Speak — THE grass-roots protests that have engulfed Iran since its presidential election last week have grabbed America's attention and captured headlines — unfortunately, so has the clamor from neoconservatives urging President Obama to denounce the voting …
Discussion:
Time, The Washington Note, The Huffington Post, Weekly Standard, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room and Taylor Marsh
Politics in Minnesota:
Two sources: Supreme Court ruling on U.S. Senate race to arrive tomorrow! — PIM has now heard from two sources on different sides of the Minnesota U.S. Senate race recount scene that the final Minnesota Supreme Court ruling is expected to arrive tomorrow, Thursday, June 18th.
Discussion:
The Plum Line, Washington Wire, The Fix, Alas, a blog, Talking Points Memo and The Hill's Blog Briefing Room
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Lyle Denniston / SCOTUSblog:
Court rejects DNA access claim — CORRECTION 3:50 p.m.: The paragraph describing the Court's ruling in Yeager v. U.S. was in error as published. F. Scott Yeager has not been convicted of any crime. See the UPDATE below, at the end of that paragraph. — Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court …
Steve Verdon / Outside The Beltway:
SCOTUS: No to Post Conviction DNA Testing
SCOTUS: No to Post Conviction DNA Testing
Discussion:
Megan McArdle
Ezra Klein:
Health Care Reform in Danger — Health reform is, I think it fair to say, in danger right now. The news out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee was bad. The Congressional Budget Office had scored a partial bill and the result was a total fiasco.
Discussion:
The Opinionator, Crooks and Liars, The Hill, The Treatment, Kaiser Health News, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Hullabaloo, The Atlantic Business Channel, Ben Smith's Blog, Wonk Room, DownWithTyranny!, Democratic Strategist, FiveThirtyEight, About.com US Liberal Politics, The Confluence, New York Times, Blue Mass. Group and Corrente
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The Independent:
Robert Fisk: Secret letter ‘proves Mousavi won poll’ — They were handing out the photocopies by the thousand under the plane trees in the centre of the boulevard, single sheets of paper grabbed by the opposition supporters who are now wearing black for the 15 Iranians who have been killed in Tehran …
Patrick Gavin / Michael Calderone's Blog:
Froomkin out at Washington Post (UPDATED) — In a move sure to ignite the left-wing blogosphere, washingtonpost.com columnist Dan Froomkin (author of the “White House Watch” blog) has been let go by the news organization, POLITICO hears. In so many words, Froomkin was told that his blog had essentially run its course.
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Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
The Washington Post fires its best columnist. Why? — (updated below) — One of the rarest commodities in the establishment media is someone who was a vehement critic of George Bush and who now, applying their principles consistently, has become a regular critic of Barack Obama — i.e. …
Andy Barr / The Politico:
Olive Garden pulls Letterman ads — Following a week of back and forth between CBS late night comic David Letterman and Sarah Palin over a crude joke he told about the Alaska Republican governor's daughter, the Olive Garden restaurant says it is cancelling all of its scheduled ads on Letterman's “Late Show” for the rest of the year.
Discussion:
Don Surber
Associated Press:
PETA wishes Obama hadn't swatted that fly — Rights group seeks compassion for curious and ‘least sympathetic animals’ — WASHINGTON - The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants the flyswatter in chief to try taking a more humane attitude the next time he's bedeviled by a fly in the White House.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice
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Blaine Harden / Washington Post:
Global Insurance Fraud By North Korea Outlined — Government Has Collected Millions Of Dollars on Large, Suspicious Claims — For Kim Jong Il's birthday, North Korean insurance managers prepared a special gift. — In Singapore, they stuffed $20 million in cash into two heavy-duty bags and sent them …
City Room:
Jet Lands at Newark With Dead Pilot — A Continental Airlines jetliner carrying 247 passengers landed in Newark shortly before noon on Thursday, after the flight's captain died midflight. — Two first officers took control of the plane, a Boeing 777, after the captain, who was 61 years old …
Joe Nocera / New York Times:
Only a Hint of Roosevelt in Financial Overhaul — Three quarters of a century ago, President Franklin Roosevelt earned the undying enmity of Wall Street when he used his enormous popularity to push through a series of radical regulatory reforms that completely changed the norms of the financial industry.
Jennifer Rubin / Commentary:
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Demands Answers on Voter Intimidation Case Dismissal — As was commented upon here at CONTENTIONS, and widely reported and remarked upon elsewhere, the Obama Justice Department took the unusual action last month of dismissing a default judgment …
Helene Cooper / New York Times:
In a Staff Shuffle, Signs of Obama's Direction on Mideast — WASHINGTON — So now Dennis B. Ross, the Obama administration's senior Iran policy maker, less than three months into his State Department job, is moving to the White House, administration officials say.
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog
Jared Allen / The Hill:
Bipartisan group wants reconciliation off table — A bipartisan group of House members is demanding that special budget rules allowing Democrats to pass healthcare legislation by a simple-majority vote be taken off the table. — Democratic leaders have signaled they are open to using reconciliation …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly