Top Items:
McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Sotomayor backers urge reporters to probe New Haven firefighter — WASHINGTON — Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor are quietly targeting the Connecticut firefighter who's at the center of Sotomayor's most controversial ruling. — On the eve of Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearing …
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Dahlia Lithwick / Slate:
The New Haven firefighter is no stranger to employment disputes. — Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have announced that Frank Ricci, the firefighter who recently prevailed in his “reverse discrimination” lawsuit against the city of New Haven, Conn., will testify at Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings.
Adam Liptak / New York Times:
Path to Court: Speak Capably but Say Little — WASHINGTON — On his first day at the Justice Department in 1981, a 26-year-old lawyer named John G. Roberts Jr. was handed a high-profile assignment: to help prepare Sandra Day O'Connor, then an Arizona judge, for her Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Scott Shane / New York Times:
Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project — The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta …
Daniel Klaidman / Newsweek:
Obama doesn't want to look back, but Attorney General Eric Holder may probe Bush-era torture anyway. … From the magazine issue dated Jul 20, 2009 — It's the morning after Independence Day, and Eric Holder Jr. is feeling the weight of history. The night before, he'd stood on the roof …
WhiteHouse.gov Blog:
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE GHANAIAN PARLIAMENT — Accra International Conference Center — Accra, Ghana — THE PRESIDENT: (Trumpet plays.) I like this. Thank you. Thank you. I think Congress needs one of those horns. (Laughter.) That sounds pretty good. Sounds like Louis Armstrong back there.
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Peter Baker / New York Times:
Obama Delivers Call for Change to Africa — CAPE COAST, Ghana — President Obama traveled in his father's often-troubled home continent on Saturday as a potent symbol of a new political era but also as a messenger with a tough-love theme: American aid must be matched by Africa's responsibility for its own problems.
Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:
Weekly remarks: Obama still clearing wreckage; Cantor asks, where are the jobs? — This week's weekly remarks open with President Obama in Africa opening on foreign affairs. But by the second paragraph out of 20, he gets to what he really wants — needs — to talk about: domestic business in general and the economy specifically.
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David M. Herszenhorn / New York Times:
Leaders in House Seek to Tax Rich for Health Plan — WASHINGTON — House Democrats will ask the wealthiest Americans to help pay for overhauling the health care system with a $550 billion income tax increase, the chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee said Friday.
Discussion:
FiveThirtyEight, The Caucus, And So it Goes in Shreveport, D-Day, Fausta's Blog, Economix, Stop The ACLU and CNN
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Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
The new Report on illegal spying is not a real investigation — The Bush-era torture regime might have been that administration's most flamboyant act of criminality, but its illegal NSA warrantless eavesdropping program (and other still-unknown surveillance programs) has always been the clearest.
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Paul Singer / Roll Call:
Freshman Rep. Grayson Taken to Cleaners in Ponzi Scheme — Freshman Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) lost $3 million in a stock swindle between 2000 and 2005, a Florida television station reported this week. — According to Orlando's Local 6, Grayson was an investor in a Ponzi scheme run by the company Derivium Capital.
Discussion:
Redhot
Andrew Alexander / Washington Post:
The Stumbles That Led to an Ethics Blunder — The Washington Post's ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record “salons” was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions. — Publisher Katharine Weymouth and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli have now taken full responsibility …
Discussion:
New York Times, Emptywheel, Hot Air, Michael Calderone's Blog, The Huffington Post, Ombudsman Blog and Jay Bookman
Logan Murphy / Crooks and Liars:
David Brooks Recounts GOP Senator Who “Had His Hand On My Inner Thigh” At Dinner Party — You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player! — DOWNLOADS: (583) — PLAYS: (1398) — Think Progress has more: … This is one of those bizarre moments …
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Adriel Bettelheim / Balance of Power:
Obama Diagrams Health-Care Strategy From Abroad — President Obama dropped a few hints about how he intends to lobby Congress on health care during a news conference Friday following the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy. And if we're parsing his remarks correctly, lawmakers can expect firm prodding through …