Top Items:
Washington Post:
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.
Discussion:
Weekly Standard, Wizbang, Wake up America, Los Angeles Times, THE WEEK News & Opinion, RedState and The Note
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Edwin Chen / Bloomberg:
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.
Wall Street Journal:
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.
Associated Press:
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.
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:Praising HELP — A full-throated statement from President Obama …
Discussion:
The Hill
Kbh / KeithHennessey.com:Does the House really want to raise taxes on eight million uninsured people?
Craig Crawford / Craig Crawford's Trail Mix:
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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Maureen Dowd / New York Times:
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 …
Dahlia Lithwick / Slate:
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 …
Matt Apuzzo / Associated Press:
FACT CHECK: Don't quote Sotomayor on that, Senator — WASHINGTON (AP) - In endorsing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy did some creative rewriting of history. And he put quote marks around it. — Trying to head off criticism …
Paul / Power Line:The great gesturer — Why do so many Senators persist during …
Discussion:
Sadly, No!
Jennifer Rubin / Pajamas Media:The Evasions and Misstatements of Sonia Sotomayor
Discussion:
Power Line, Weekly Standard, The Foundry, Right Wing News, Washington Post and Commentary
Randy Barnett / The Volokh Conspiracy:Mike Seidman on Sotomayor: On the Federalist Society Online Debate …
Byron York / Washington Examiner:Republicans don't believe Sotomayor's stories
Discussion:
Washington Post, Power Line, NY Daily News, Sister Toldjah, SCOTUSblog, Newsweek Blogs and Bench Memos
Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:Sotomayor Leaves Passion Behind
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Note, Balkinization, Time, On Deadline and Taylor Marsh
Josh Gerstein / The Politico:GOP not buying ‘Latina’ explanation
Discussion:
The Swamp, New York Times, Politico Live's Blog, Washington Post, ABCNEWS, QandO and The Confluence
Gateway Pundit:
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.
Discussion:
JustOneMinute, Scared Monkeys, theblogprof, Pundit & Pundette, No More Mister Nice Blog, PoliGazette, Macsmind and Weasel Zippers
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Duk / Yahoo! Sports:
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
Allahpundit / Hot Air:Video: Even All-Star Game not safe from gratuitous Obama photo ops
Discussion:
The Pink Flamingo
WorldNetDaily:
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
Kyle / Right Wing Watch:
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.”
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Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
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:
John O'Connor / The State:
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.
RELATED:
Michael Calderone / Michael Calderone's Blog:Media pushed for Sanford access; Tapper on ‘slimy’ email
Washington Post:
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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Laurie K. Blandford / TCPalm.com:
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,” …
Discussion:
Moe_Lane's blog
Bill Wyman / Wall Street Journal:
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
Jonathan Martin / The Politico:
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 …
Thomas Szasz / Wall Street Journal:
Universal Health Care Isn't Worth Our Freedom — What would Thoreau have made of the current debate? — Printer — Friendly — People who seek the services of auto mechanics want car repair, not “auto care.” Similarly, most people who seek the services of medical doctors want body repair, not “health care.”
Discussion:
And So it Goes in Shreveport
Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times:
Goodbye Iraq, and Good Luck — I'm in the provincial headquarters building in downtown Kirkuk — the oil-rich district of northern Iraq that is the most disputed corner of this country. The provincial leaders — Sunnis, Kurds, Turkmen and Christians — have come to meet America's top military officer …
Discussion:
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