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House Democrats Want to Fund Health Care With an Ill-Advised Surtax on the Rich. — THERE IS a serious case to be made that the U.S. income tax system should become more progressive. The average rate paid by the top 1 percent of households shrank from 33 percent in 1986 to about 23 percent in 2006.
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Weekly Standard, Wizbang, Los Angeles Times, Wake up America, THE WEEK News & Opinion, RedState and The Note
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Obama Open to Partisan Vote on Health-Care Overhaul, Aides Say — President Barack Obama may rely only on Democrats to push health-care legislation through the U.S. Congress if Republican opposition doesn't yield soon, two of the president's top advisers said.


Health Bill Would Hit Small Business — $1.04 Trillion House Health Bill Hits All but Tiniest Firms for Not Providing Insurance — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, from left, stands with House Democratic leaders Steny Hoyer, Pete Stark, Henry Waxman, Charles Rangel, and John Dingell to announce health-care legislation on Tuesday.

Sen. Kennedy's committee passes health care bill — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate health committee has passed legislation to revamp health care, becoming the first congressional committee to act on President Barack Obama's goal of overhauling the system this year.

Does the House really want to raise taxes on eight million uninsured people?

Praising HELP — A full-throated statement from President Obama …
Discussion:
The Hill

Obama's political team targets Democrats
Discussion:
The Note, Democratic Strategist, Blog entry, The Tolbert Report and The Political Carnival

Smiling GOPers Ought to be Frowning — Watching Lindsey Graham's gotcha grin as he needled Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with disingenuous and rhetorical questions you had to wonder what was so funny. — Does the Republican senator think it is amusing that he and his party's …
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White Man's Last Stand — You can't judge a judge by her cover. — Despite the best efforts of Republicans to root out any sign that Sonia Sotomayor has emotions that color her views on the law, the Bronx Bomber kept a robotic mask in place. — A wise Latina woman with the richness …


At Sotomayor's hearing, the abortion protestors are the only ones telling the truth. — Anyone who believes these confirmation hearings represent much beyond empty political theater should consider how meaningful these proceedings can really be when the only people speaking the truth …

The great gesturer — Why do so many Senators persist during …
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Sadly, No!

The Evasions and Misstatements of Sonia Sotomayor
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Power Line, Weekly Standard, The Foundry, Right Wing News, Washington Post and Commentary

Mike Seidman on Sotomayor: On the Federalist Society Online Debate …

Republicans don't believe Sotomayor's stories
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Washington Post, Power Line, NY Daily News, Sister Toldjah, SCOTUSblog, Newsweek Blogs and Bench Memos

GOP not buying ‘Latina’ explanation
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The Swamp, New York Times, Politico Live's Blog, Washington Post, ABCNEWS, QandO and The Confluence

Sotomayor Leaves Passion Behind
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The Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Note, Balkinization, Time, On Deadline and Taylor Marsh


OBAMA BOOED IN ST. LOUIS!... And Throws a Sissy Pitch (Video) — Barack Obama Booed at the All-Star Game in St. Louis On Tuesday! — And, he threw a sissy pitch: — It's going to be a rough 4 years. He's only been in office 5 months and he's already getting booed. — ...And protested.
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JustOneMinute, Scared Monkeys, theblogprof, Pundit & Pundette, No More Mister Nice Blog, PoliGazette, Macsmind, Weasel Zippers and Theo Spark
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Obama reps Chicago's South Side, delivers All-Star first pitch — ST LOUIS — Where did it land? Was it a strike or wasn't it? Why didn't the network choose a better camera to shoot from? Those were the questions that viewers of baseball's All-Star Game were asking themselves at home …
Discussion:
Reuters, Reason, NewsBusters.org, NO QUARTER, USA Today, Swampland and Confederate Yankee

Video: Even All-Star Game not safe from gratuitous Obama photo ops
Discussion:
The Pink Flamingo


Bombshell: Orders revoked for soldier challenging prez — Major victory for Army warrior questioning Obama's birthplace — A U.S. Army Reserve major from Florida scheduled to report for deployment to Afghanistan within days has had his military orders revoked after arguing he should not be required …
Discussion:
JustOneMinute, Confederate Yankee, Vox Popoli, Balloon Juice and The Washington Independent


CFJ: Obama Is Putting a Terrorist On The Bench! — Yesterday, we noticed that the Committee for Justice had just unveiled two ads calling for Sonia Sotomayor's defeat - one contrasting her to Martin Luther King and the other claiming she wants to “take away your guns.”
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Salon, Washington Monthly, TPMDC, Pam's House Blend and Committee for Justice Blog
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Buchanan: GOP Needs More Race-Baiting, Not Less — A provocative article by Pat Buchanan argues that contrary to conventional wisdom, Republicans shouldn't worry about alienating Hispanic voters, they should just focus on getting white people to like them more: … And he sees race-baiting attacks as the way to do it:


Media jostled for access to Sanford — E-mails illustrate frenzy to be the first on the air or in print — National media blitzed Gov. Mark Sanford's staff, offering big ratings and, possibly, a sympathetic venue in an effort to land the first interview with the governor after his six-day trip to Argentina.
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Media pushed for Sanford access; Tapper on ‘slimy’ email

Obama Announces $12 Billion Community College Initiative — $12 Billion Will Fund New Web Courses, Construction and Innovation Grants — President Obama came to this economically struggling state Tuesday with a sobering message about its vanishing jobs and a promise of renewal through a new federal investment in community colleges.
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Port St. Lucie apologizes to Treasure Coast Tea Party — PORT ST. LUCIE — After a week of complaints about a sign at Freedomfest on July 4, city officials apologized to the Treasure Coast Tea Party. — “It was not our intent to interfere or cast dispersions on the tea party,” …

The Tragedy of Michael Jackson — The self-proclaimed King of Pop was nobody's victim. — Printer — Friendly — Am I the only one who sensed, amid the raucous hoopla that followed Michael Jackson's death, something antiquated in the air? The hip-hop era, profane and insistent …
Discussion:
Reason


Dems reject palling around with Palin — Gov. Sarah Palin said last weekend that she'd be willing to campaign for some Democrats when she leaves office later this month. — She may not have many takers. — Interviews with a number of the most conservative Democrats in the House …

Chuck Todd's arguments against investigations — (updated below - Update II) — NBC's Chuck Todd — who, remember, is billed as a reporter covering the White House, not a pundit expressing opinions — was on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Tuesday discussing reports that Eric Holder is likely …