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, The Daily Dish, Hot Air, Wake up America, Los Angeles Times, THE WEEK News & Opinion, Wizbang, 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.
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 …
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.
John Amato / Crooks and Liars:
Please welcome Speaker Nancy Pelosi to C&L for a live chat about the new Health Care Reform Bill — You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player! — DOWNLOADS: (84) — PLAYS: (287) — I'm very pleased to have Rep. Nancy Pelosi …
Discussion:
The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, The Moderate Voice, EdLabor Journal and Speaker Nancy Pelosi
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.
Washington Post:
House Democrats Propose Surtax on Wealth to Fund Health-Care Plan
House Democrats Propose Surtax on Wealth to Fund Health-Care Plan
Discussion:
Bloomberg, The New Republic, Gawker, The Strata-Sphere, Blog entry, Donklephant, msnbc.com, The BLT, Connecting.the.Dots and The World Newser
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
HEALTH CARE REFORM AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.... At this point …
HEALTH CARE REFORM AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.... At this point …
Discussion:
Zandar Versus The Stupid
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 …
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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 …
Discussion:
The Politico, Opinion L.A., Christian Science Monitor, The Confluence, pandagon.net, No More Mister Nice Blog, Confederate Yankee, The Moderate Voice, The Opinionator, Right Wing News, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Wire, The Atlantic Politics Channel, Newshoggers.com and Politics Daily
Dahlia Lithwick / Slate:
At Sotomayor's hearing, the abortion protestors are the only ones telling the truth.
At Sotomayor's hearing, the abortion protestors are the only ones telling the truth.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Latest Open Salon Blog, ACS Blog, The Mahablog, Balkinization, Capital Journal and PostPartisan
Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Republicans don't believe Sotomayor's stories
Republicans don't believe Sotomayor's stories
Discussion:
Hot Air, Washington Post, Associated Press, IBDeditorials.com, New York Times, NewsBusters.org, American Power, Time, The Note, Sister Toldjah and Power Line
Randy Barnett / The Volokh Conspiracy:
Mike Seidman on Sotomayor: On the Federalist Society Online Debate …
Mike Seidman on Sotomayor: On the Federalist Society Online Debate …
Discussion:
Pajamas Media, Bench Memos, PostPartisan, Althouse, NewsBusters.org, The Foundry, theblogprof, Don Surber and Vox Popoli
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.
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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 …
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Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
Palin: All Tail, No Head — Sarah Palin's political action committee — SarahPAC — raised $733,000 in the first half of the year and is set to push past $1 million in the wake of the recent attention she's gotten herself. On the one hand, this isn't that impressive. Mitt Romney, for instance, has raised twice as much.
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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 …
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, TPMDC, Wonk Room, The Daily Dish, Salon, Washington Monthly, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Wonkette, Balloon Juice and Pam's House Blend
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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.
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Michael Calderone / Michael Calderone's Blog:
Media pushed for Sanford access; Tapper on ‘slimy’ email
Media pushed for Sanford access; Tapper on ‘slimy’ email
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:
Rasmussen Reports:
Election 2009: Virginia Governor Election — 2009 Virginia Governor: McDonnell 44%, Deeds 41% — Republican candidate Robert F. McDonnell has rebounded to take a narrow lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds in the race for governor in Virginia, highlighting the expected closeness of that contest right up to November.
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David Harsanyi / Reason:
Science Fiction ‘Czar’ — Dr. John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy—better known as the “science czar”—has been a longtime prophet of environmental catastrophes. Never discouraged but never right. — And thanks to resourceful bloggers …
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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.”
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 …
Paul Krugman:
Deficits saved the world — Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs has a new note (no link) responding to claims that government support for the economy is postponing the necessary adjustment. He doesn't think much of that argument; neither do I. But one passage in particular caught my eye:
Gen. Lee Wright / Breitbart.tv:
‘COMINSKEY FIELD’? PRESIDENT OBAMA BOTCHES NAME OF HOME OF HIS BELOVED WHITE SOX — “I do think that there's a different quality to what used to be Cominskey Field vs. Wrigley,” President Obama told Bob Costas during an interview that aired during Tuesday night's MLB All-Star Game.