memeorandum: Oh please, oh please...well, not really (Attaturk/Firedoglake)

1:35 PM ET, August 25, 2009

Top Items:

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

What every American should be made to learn about the IG Torture Report — (updated below - Update II) — I wrote earlier today about Eric Holder's decision to “review” whether criminal prosecutions are warranted in connection with the torture of Terrorism suspects — that can be read here …

Stephen F. Hayes / Weekly Standard:

Cheney Statement on CIA Documents/Investigation — Former Vice President Dick Cheney gave The Weekly Standard a statement Monday night about the CIA documents and the coming Justice Department investigation.

Discussion: Politics Daily, The Washington Independent, Swampland, The Note, The Atlantic Politics Channel, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Hot Air, Washington Post, McClatchy Washington Bureau, The Daily Dish, Wall Street Journal, Taylor Marsh, Wake up America, Gateway Pundit, No More Mister Nice Blog, Atlas Shrugs, Flopping Aces and New York Times

Spencer Ackerman / The Washington Independent:

CIA Documents Provide Little Cover for Cheney Claims — Former Vice President Dick Cheney (Associated Press) — For months, former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that two documents prepared by the CIA, one from 2004 and the other from 2005, would refute critics of the Bush administration's torture program.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, CNN, ABCNEWS, Washington Monthly, The Daily Dish, Think Progress, The Plum Line, Newshoggers.com, Weekly Standard, The Politico, TPMMuckraker, Emptywheel, Delaware Liberal, The League of Ordinary …, ATTACKERMAN and Lawyers, Guns and Money

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:

King on Holder: 'You wonder which side they're on' — A “furious” Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a “disgraceful” Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO.

Discussion: Anne Schroeder's Blog and Salon

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
CIA docs: EITs worked

Discussion: Weekly Standard, theblogprof, Balloon Juice and Little Green Links

John / Power Line:
The CIA Report: What Does It Say?

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, New York Post, The Huffington Post, Associated Press, Roll Call, The Corner on National …, Salon, Wizbang, YID With LID, Betsy's Page, The Washington Independent and HotAirPundit

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
The ‘narrow’ CIA investigation

Discussion: The Plum Line and Salon

R. Jeffrey Smith / Washington Post:
Analysis: Bush, Obama Administrations Drew Different Lessons From CIA Report

Discussion: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The Washington Note, The Washington Independent, Jay Bookman, Docudharma, NO QUARTER, msnbc.com and The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Neil King Jr / Wall Street Journal:

GOP Offers Health Rights for Seniors — The Republican Party issued a new salvo in the health debate Monday with a “seniors' health care bill of rights” that opposed any moves to trim Medicare spending or limit end-of-life care to seniors. — Intended as a political shot at President Barack Obama …

Discussion: QandO

Jared Allen / The Hill:

Dems increase talk of moving healthcare without GOP — A leading House Democrat on Monday said Democrats are prepared to pass healthcare reform without Republican support, echoing comments made over the weekend by a leading Senate Democrat. — “I think that at some point everyone's …

Discussion: Scared Monkeys, YID With LID, Don Surber, Gateway Pundit and TPMDC

Chris Frates / The Politico:
Dems plan hundreds of reform rallies

Discussion: protein wisdom, Gateway Pundit, The Page and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Bloomberg:

Obama Increases 2010 Deficit Forecast 19% to $1.50 Trillion — Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) — U.S. unemployment will surge to 10 percent this year and the budget deficit will widen to $1.5 trillion next year, reflecting a “deeper recession” than previously expected, White House budget chief Peter Orszag said.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, The White House, Row 2, Seat 4, Dennis the Peasant, Don Surber, QandO, Hot Air, Pajamas Media, Gateway Pundit and Wake up America

Tim Fernholz / American Prospect:
RETURN OF THE BERN'. — This morning, President Obama …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Ezra Klein, The Daily Dish, Open Left, Taegan Goddard's …, Washington Post, Calculated Risk and Wake up America

Edmund L. Andrews / New York Times:
Obama to Nominate Bernanke to 2nd Term at Fed

Discussion: Real Time Economics, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Matthew Yglesias, Washington Post, Grasping Reality …, Politics Daily, Associated Press, The Caucus, The Stash, The Confluence, Mediaite, AMERICAblog News, Gothamist, MoJo Blog Posts, The Economic Populist, Gawker and The Big Picture

Matea Gold / Show Tracker:

UPDATED: Glenn Beck goes after Color of Change co-founder Van Jones — Glenn Beck used his popular Fox News show this afternoon to attack the background of Van Jones, a White House environmental advisor who co-founded an African American political advocacy group that organized an advertising boycott of his program.

Discussion: Atlantic Correspondents, Media Blog on National …, Gateway Pundit, News Hounds, Wake up America, The Swamp, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Delaware Liberal, Hot Air, Stop The ACLU, American Power, DailyFinance, Townhall.com, Firedoglake, Mediaite and The Reaction

Michael Lynch / New York Times:

‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy — REMEMBER “peak oil”? It's the theory that geological scarcity will at some point make it impossible for global petroleum production to avoid falling, heralding the end of the oil age and, potentially, economic catastrophe.

Discussion: Environmental Capital and theblogprof

Matt Corley / Think Progress:

Comparing Obama to ‘Hitler,’ Grassley constituent says he'd ‘take a gun to Washington’ if crowd supported him. — Earlier this month, police detained a man at a health care town hall meeting held by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) because he was carrying a sign declaring “Death to Obama” and “Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids.”

Ian Schmit / Messenger News:
Tempers flare at Grassley meeting

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:

STEELE REDISCOVERS HIS OPPOSITION TO MEDICARE.... I really don't understand how Michael Steele is in a position to head a major political party. — Yesterday, the confused RNC chairman wrote an op-ed insisting that Democrats are trying to undermine Medicare.

Discussion: TPMDC, The Atlantic Politics Channel and Media Matters Action Network

Matt Corley / Think Progress:
Medicare Defender Michael Steele Says Medicare 'Is A Very Good Example …

Discussion: TPMDC, D-Day and Talking Points Memo

Danny Hakim / New York Times:

Giuliani, Seeing Opening, Mulls a Governor Bid — ALBANY — Nineteen months after ending his disastrous run for the presidency, Rudolph W. Giuliani is clearing a path for a possible race for governor in 2010, believing public anger at an ineffectual Albany and unease over the economy …

Discussion: Scorecard's Blog, Politics Daily, NY Daily News, New York Post, Hot Air, Democratic Strategist, Gawker and Gothamist

Rebecca Camber / Daily Mail:

Foreign GPs who commute to Britain: £100-an-hour Poles and Lithuanians fly in for shifts our doctors won't do — The huge extent to which the NHS needs foreign doctors to treat patients out of hours is revealed today. — A third of primary care trusts are flying in GPs from as far away as Lithuania …

Discussion: BizzyBlog, QandO, NewsBusters.org and Don Surber

Mark Pittman / Bloomberg:

Court Orders Federal Reserve to Disclose Emergency Loan Details — Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve must for the first time identify the companies in its emergency lending programs after losing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. — Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled …

Discussion: Rolfe Winkler, The Confluence, Law Blog and Reason

Amie Parnes / The Politico:

Obama's pet peeves — It was one of those nonstop days: President Barack Obama was flying back to Washington from Los Angeles to meet President Mahmoud Abbas, then he was scheduled to tape an interview for “The Colbert Report” and sit down for his regular briefing with advisers.

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's … and The Page

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:

‘DESECRATING’ 9/11?.... As the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, the White House has designated Sept. 11, 2009 as a “National Day of Service.” It seems like an appropriate way to honor the tragedy. — But not to everyone. Matthew Vadum has a piece in the far-right American Spectator …

Discussion: Dennis the Peasant, Indecision Forever, The Greenroom, pandagon.net, Moonbattery and Balloon Juice

Wall Street Journal:

Saving the Obama Presidency — Obama needs to move to the right. — Printer — Friendly — On this day in 1994, Bill Clinton's presidency was saved. — It didn't look that way at the time. After threatening to keep Congress in session until a health-care bill was passed …

Discussion: Hot Air, Commentary, Blue Crab Boulevard and Balloon Juice

Fouad Ajami / Wall Street Journal:

Obama's Summer of Discontent — The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long. — Printer — Friendly — So we are to have a French health-care system without a French tradition of political protest.

Discussion: Pajamas Media, Commentary, The Jawa Report and RADAMISTO

Washington Wire:

Rhetoric Fails to Sway Voters on Health — Jonathan Weisman reports on the health-care debate. — In the rhetorical battle over health care, the forces backing President Barack Obama's overhaul have spent years polling and using focus groups to find the precise language that would win over voters …

Discussion: MoJo Blog Posts

Kevin Sack / New York Times:

Calm, but Moved to Be Heard on Health Care — MONTEZUMA, Ga. — Until Thursday evening, nothing in Bob Collier's 62 years had stirred in him the slightest desire to take a stand — about anything — in public. — He skipped the antiwar protests of his college years, took a job …

Discussion: MoJo Blog Posts, BAGnewsNotes and AMERICAblog News

David Hanners / Austin American-Statesman:

Woman accused of threatening bomb-plot informant — Trial could begin in Austin next week. — A Texas woman faces trial this month in Austin on charges she threatened to kill a government informant who infiltrated an Austin-based group that planned to bomb the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., last fall.

Discussion: The Jawa Report and Moe Lane

James M. Peaslee / Wall Street Journal:

Tax Penalties and the Health-Care Bill — Under the House legislation, taxpayers will be fined for honest mistakes. — Printer — Friendly — Two tax provisions in the health-care bill voted on by the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this summer have gained significant attention.

Attaturk / Firedoglake:

Oh please, oh please...well, not really — 2012 may just be the most awesome (and most frightening) sociological experiment ever: … That's also Sarah Palin's response. So God might have quite a sense of humor (and he's a bit of a dick). — Seriously, Palin, Hannity, Huckabee …

Discussion: Whiskey Fire

Ben Smith / The Politico:

Groups target GOP on cap-and-trade — Four independent groups are launching more than $1 million in attack ads Tuesday targeting five House Republicans who voted against energy legislation in June, spokespeople for the groups said. — The ads from the League of Conservation Voters …

Discussion: Scorecard's Blog, Fired Up! Missouri and Wonk Room

Stanley Fish / New York Times:

What Should Colleges Teach? — A few years ago, when I was grading papers for a graduate literature course, I became alarmed at the inability of my students to write a clean English sentence. They could manage for about six words and then, almost invariably, the syntax (and everything else) fell apart.

Jamie Satterfield / Knoxville News-Sentinel:

Torture-slaying trial, Day 8: Cobbins guilty; jurors to consider death penalty — The jury will now consider the death penalty in the Channon Christian, Chris Newsom torture slayings. — KNOXVILLE - Jurors this morning convicted Letalvis Cobbins of first-degree murder in the torture-slaying …

Discussion: Michelle Malkin

CBS News:

Group Runs Facebook Ad Asking Palin to “Stop Lying” — Posted by Stephanie Condon Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin set off a frenzied debate about health care reform when she accused President Obama of planning to establish “death panels” via health care reform.