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, Los Angeles Times, Wake up America, 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.
Kbh / KeithHennessey.com:
Does the House really want to raise taxes on eight million uninsured people? — The President has said he would not allow taxes to be raised on anyone with less than $250,000 of income. — Today for the first time we see the legislative language for and a summary of the health care reform bill …
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
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 …
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, The Volokh Conspiracy, Weekly Standard, The Foundry, Right Wing News, Washington Post and Commentary
Eva Rodriguez / PostPartisan:Sotomayor's Unconvincing Backpedaling
Discussion:
Hot Air, The Corner, Washington Post, GayPatriot, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Huffington Post, YID With LID, Opinion L.A., TBogg, The BLT, Maggie's Farm, Macsmind, Time and Top of the Ticket
Randy Barnett / The Volokh Conspiracy:Mike Seidman on Sotomayor: On the Federalist Society Online Debate …
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
Dana Milbank / Washington Post:Sotomayor Sticks to Her Guns
Discussion:
DailyHowler.com, The Confluence, The Fix, PostPartisan, The Nation, Rough Sketch and The Campaign Spot
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.
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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, NewsBusters.org, Reason, NO QUARTER, USA Today, Swampland and Confederate Yankee
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, The Washington Independent and Balloon Juice
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
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.”
Discussion:
Think Progress, The Daily Dish, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Salon, Wonk Room, Balloon Juice, Washington Monthly, TPMDC and Pam's House Blend
RELATED:
Faiz Shakir / Think Progress:
Key Obama advisers indicate openness to pushing health care reform through with just Democratic votes. — Bloomberg's Ed Chen reports that two of Obama's top advisers — Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod - “may rely only on Democrats to push health-care legislation through the U.S. Congress …
RELATED:
Mark Preston / CNN:Obama's political team targets Democrats
Discussion:
The Note, Blog entry, Democratic Strategist, The Tolbert Report and The Political Carnival
Randy Barnett / The Volokh Conspiracy:
Sotomayor Again Misstates Fundamental Rights Doctrine: — As she did yesterday, Sotomayor asserted that a right is “fundamental” if it is “incorporated” against the states via the 14th Amendment rather than that a right is incorporated against the states if it is fundamental.
Discussion:
Bench Memos
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,” …
Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
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 …
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 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:
The New Republic
Accounting Specialist Editor, Remote US — 
Senior Correspondent - Wealth, NY — 
Asia Credit Reporter, Seoul — 
Senior Editor, DC — 
Senior Social Media Specialist, NC — 
Associate Editor - Aviation, TN — 
Assistant Editor - Digital, NC — 
Video Producer - YouTube, NY — 
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Editor, MA — 
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Retail Reporter, MN — 
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Sports Reporter, ME — 
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Data Editor, NY — 
