memeorandum: NCSL: Texas relied most heavily on stimulus (Jason Embry/First Reading)

7:25 AM ET, July 24, 2009

Top Items:

Cop who arrested black scholar is profiling expert … CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - The white police sergeant criticized by President Barack Obama for arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Massachusetts home is a police academy expert on racial profiling.

Discussion: The Confluence, Patterico's Pontifications, American Thinker, theblogprof, Pajamas Media, MyFox Boston, JammieWearingFool and DISSENTING JUSTICE

Jimmy Orr / Christian Science Monitor:

Bill Cosby ‘shocked’ at Obama's statement on Harvard prof's arrest — On a Boston radio program this morning, Bill Cosby suggested that President Obama spoke too soon on the controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. — “I've heard about five different reports …

Discussion: Top of the Ticket, Don Surber, Associated Press, Wilshire & Washington, JustOneMinute, Stop The ACLU, Hot Air, Washington Post, Gateway Pundit, Kausfiles and PostPartisan

Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:

Bias, Racism, Being a Jerk, and Abuse of Power — Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (wikimedia) — One of the biggest reasons why it's extremely difficult to have a real conversation about race in the United States is that every imputation of a racial dynamic immediately becomes a defensive spat …

Discussion: Althouse, QandO, DailyHowler.com, Obsidian Wings, American Power and The Caucus

Booman Tribune:
Tired of the Stupid — The Village's desire, almost a demand really …

Discussion: D-Day

Mark Preston / CNN:
First on the CNN Ticker: GOP questions Obama's police criticism

Discussion: Boston Globe, The Fix, In The Agora, Ben Smith's Blog and The Hill's Pundits Blog

Boston Weather, Breaking News and Sports from WBZ-TV:
Gates Arresting Officer: Obama ‘Way Off Base’

Discussion: WEEI Online Audio …, The Atlantic Politics Channel, CBS News, Taylor Marsh, The Politico, ABCNEWS, Los Angeles Times, The Swamp, The Gun Toting Liberal, Mediaite, dot.comments, VDARE.com, Newsweek Blogs, The Other McCain, Little Green Footballs, Maggie's Farm and Weekly Standard

ABCNEWS:

Exclusive: President Obama Pushes Forward on Health Care Pitch — Despite Setback, Obama Warns Against ‘Scare Tactics,’ Says ‘America Has to Win it Here’ — President Obama continued to push forward on health care reform today, despite suffering a setback with news that a health care reform bill …

Discussion: The Politico, The Note, Newshoggers.com, Political Punch and The Page

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:

Pawlenty blasts Obama plan — On Fox just now, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty blasted away at Obama's health care plans. — “This whole health care proposal by president Obama is really quite a joke on a number of levels,” Pawlenty told Neil Cavuto. “I think he is scamming the American people.

Discussion: Viking Pundit, The Page and GOP 12

New York Times:

As Health Bill Is Delayed, White House Negotiates — WASHINGTON — White House officials negotiated furiously on Thursday to keep major health care legislation on track after the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said his chamber would not vote on a health measure until after Congress returned from its summer recess.

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight, CREW and The Moderate Voice

Glenn Thrush / Glenn Thrush's Blog:
Public option “dead,” Scott predicts

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Campaign Silo and Taylor Marsh

CNN:
Reid: No Senate health care vote before recess

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, HotMES, D-Day, The TrogloPundit and Campaign Silo

Ann Althouse / Althouse:

“The guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house... if I was trying to jigger into...” — I've already written about what Obama said about racism, Skip Gates, and the “stupidity” of the police. You can find the context of the issue there, including the whole text of Obama's remarks.

Discussion: The Confluence and VDARE.com

David M. Halbfinger / New York Times:

44 Charged by U.S. in New Jersey Corruption Sweep — A two-year corruption and international money-laundering investigation stretching from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn to Israel and Switzerland culminated in charges against 44 people on Thursday, including three New Jersey mayors …

Discussion: MyDD, NY Daily News, The Daily Politics, DownWithTyranny!, Latest Open Salon Blog, New York Magazine, Associated Press, LewRockwell.com Blog, RedState, NBC New York and JammieWearingFool

Joe Ryan / New Jersey Online:
N.J. officials, N.Y. rabbis caught in federal money laundering, corruption sweep

Discussion: Associated Press, Law Blog, CNN, Macsmind, Moe Lane, Wall Street Journal, Democracy in America, Above the Law, NewsBusters.org, Redhot, On Deadline, The Campaign Spot and The Moderate Voice

Time:

Inside Bush and Cheney's Final Days — Hours before they were to leave office after eight troubled years, George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney had one final and painful piece of business to conclude. For over a month Cheney had been pleading, cajoling, even pestering Bush to pardon …

Mark Murray / msnbc.com:
CHENEY: SCOOTER ‘DESERVED A PARDON’

Discussion: Salon and TBogg

Daily Show Videos:

The Born Identity — Barack Obama is not only the United States' first black president — he's also the first not-American president.

Discussion: Gawker, The Huffington Post, CANNONFIRE, Ben Smith's Blog and The Impolitic

Washington Post:

Palin's Favorability Rating Drops as She Prepares to Leave Office, Poll Finds — As Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin prepares for the next stage of her political career, a majority of Americans hold an unfavorable view of her, and there is broad public doubt about her leadership skills and understanding …

Discussion: Top of the Ticket, Firedoglake and The Page

Kleinheider / Post Politics:

Stanley's First Wife Swore Out A Restraining Order In 1994 — While Sen. Paul Stanley tries desperately to hang on to his current marriage amid reports of a TBI confirmed admission of an extramarital affair with an intern and subsequent blackmailing by her boyfriend, allow Post Politics to take you on a trip down memory lane.

Discussion: TPMMuckraker, The Other McCain and Talking Points Memo

Pew Global Attitudes Project:

Confidence in Obama Lifts U.S. Image Around the World — Most Muslim Publics Not So Easily Moved — Overview — View Slideshow (w/Andrew Kohut commentary) — The image of the United States has improved markedly in most parts of the world, reflecting global confidence in Barack Obama.

Discussion: Israel Matzav, Hotline On Call, Daniel W. Drezner, Salon, Boston Globe, New York Magazine and PERRspectives

Brian Knowlton / New York Times:
Global Views of U.S. Helped by Obama, Survey Says

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Costs and Compassion — The talking heads on cable TV panned President Obama's Wednesday press conference. You see, he didn't offer a lot of folksy anecdotes. — Shame on them. The health care system is in crisis. The fate of America's middle class hangs in the balance.

Charles Duhigg / New York Times:

Traders Profit With Computers Set at High Speed — It is the hot new thing on Wall Street, a way for a handful of traders to master the stock market, peek at investors' orders and, critics say, even subtly manipulate share prices. — It is called high-frequency trading …

Discussion: TPMCafe and MoJo Blog Posts

Carlotta Gall / New York Times:

Serious Challenger Emerges in Afghan Race — HERAT, Afghanistan — When Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the main election challenger to President Hamid Karzai, arrived here to campaign last weekend, thousands of supporters choked the six-mile drive from the airport. Cars were plastered with his posters.

Discussion: Registan.net and PrairiePundit

Amanda Carpenter / Washington Times:

Hot Button — More ethics claims — The Associated Press claims that outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be found guilty of violating her state's ethics rules, citing a report leaked from the State Personnel Board on one of the 19 ethics complaints filed against her.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, palingates, The Mudflats, Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis, SHANNYN MOORE, Progressive Alaska and Firedoglake

Jason Embry / First Reading:

NCSL: Texas relied most heavily on stimulus — NCSL report says state closed gap with stimulus dollars ... Sharp puts in another big loan ... White camp says he's not running for governor — Austin weather: High of 96, possible thunder showers. — (If you want a link to First Reading directly …

Discussion: Off the Kuff, Daily Kos and Prairie Weather

Business Wire:

Nation's ENT Surgeons Respond to President Obama's Press Briefing Remarks on Tonsillectomy Procedures — ALEXANDRIA, Va.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—The American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS), which represents 12,000 ear, nose, and throat surgeons in the U.S. …

Discussion: Hot Air

Philip P. Pan / Washington Post:

Biden Says Russia Used ‘Pretext’ to Invade Georgia in 2008 — Breaking with the cautious tone the Obama administration has adopted toward the Kremlin, Vice President Biden told a room of Georgian children Thursday that Russia “used a pretext to invade your country” in the hope of wrecking …

Discussion: Commentary and The Page

Marc Benjamin / Fresno Bee:

Drug czar: Feds won't support legalized pot — The federal government is not going to pull back on its efforts to curtail marijuana farming operations, Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Wednesday in Fresno.

Discussion: NORML, TalkLeft, Raw Story and Reason

Media Matters for America:

Mainstreaming the fringe: Lou Dobbs fuels birther bonfire — If James von Brunn weren't in a locked security ward at Southeast General Hospital in Washington, D.C., and awaiting trial for the murder of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the 88-year-old racist and neo-Nazi might …