Top Items:
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.
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Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
What every American should be made to learn about the IG Torture Report — (updated below - Update II - Update III) — I wrote earlier today about Eric Holder's decision to “review” whether criminal prosecutions are warranted in connection with the torture of Terrorism suspects …
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
The Evidence Mounts Still Further — I'll write at more length when I'm back off my summer bloggatical, but the question of torture - and the United States' embrace of inhumanity as a core American value under the presidency of George W. Bush - remains, in my view, the pre-eminent moral question in American politics.
Discussion:
New York Times
US News:
‘Blue Dog’ Democrat: Pelosi Is Too Divisive to Be Speaker — In a statement likely to intensify the GOP assault on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's reign, a first-term Democratic “blue dog” congressman said that he would not vote to make her the top House Democrat again.
Discussion:
Open Left
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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:
American Prospect, The Opinionator, The Plum Line, Hot Air, Think Progress, TPMMuckraker, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The League of Ordinary …, Weekly Standard, The Atlantic Politics Channel, CNN, MoJo Blog Posts, Hullabaloo, Ben Smith's Blog, The Moderate Voice, Newshoggers.com, The Mahablog, Delaware Liberal, Washington Monthly and Taylor Marsh
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Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
CNN Gets Snookered By Cheney's Masterful Obfuscation — I've noted this before, but Dick Cheney is as masterful as any Washington hand at using precise languate to obfuscate. And today the old master completely had his way with poor, hapless CNN. — Look at how CNN is now reporting Cheney's claims of vindication today:
Bloomberg:
Nemazee Is Arrested in $74 Million Citibank Fraud — Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) — Hassan Nemazee, chairman of Nemazee Capital Corp. and a fundraiser for President Obama and Hillary Clinton, was arrested on charges that he tricked Citigroup Inc. into lending him as much as $74 million using phony documents.
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Chris Harris / Media Matters Action Network:
Sen. Grassley On Health Care: “I Don't Think It's Going To Be Possible To Work It Out With The Administration” … ALL OVER THE BALL PARK — During a conference call with Iowa reporters, Sen. Chuck Grassley was asked: … Grassley's response is almost incomprehensible: … You read that right.
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Glenn Thrush / Glenn Thrush's Blog:
Grassley: Health deal may not be ‘possible’
Grassley: Health deal may not be ‘possible’
Discussion:
Senator Chuck Grassley
Faiz Shakir / Think Progress:
Angry right boos John McCain for stating that Obama ‘respects the Constitution of the United States.’ — Today in a town hall forum in Arizona, an elderly woman asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) whether President Obama knows “that we still live under a Constitution.”
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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:
The Huffington Post, JustOneMinute, Blue Crab Boulevard, Balloon Juice, MoJo Blog Posts, Swampland, Corrente, BAGnewsNotes and AMERICAblog News
Josh Margolin / New Jersey Online:
Federal prosecutor who took loan from GOP governor candidate Chris Christie resigns — TRENTON — The federal prosecutor at the center of the controversy over a loan made by New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie has resigned. — In her resignation letter dated today …
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Wally Edge / politickernj.com:
Poll: Christie leads Corzine by three points
Poll: Christie leads Corzine by three points
Discussion:
TPMDC, Swing State Project, Hotline On Call, Politics Nation, Daily Kos, Real Clear Politics and MyDD
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.”
Discussion:
Vanity Fair
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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:
James Pethokoukis, Washington Post, Row 2, Seat 4, The White House, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Hot Air, The Greenroom, Commentary, Don Surber, Blue Crab Boulevard, Pajamas Media, Right Wing News, Dennis the Peasant, Gateway Pundit, Pundit & Pundette, The TrogloPundit and Wake up America
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Zaid Jilani / Think Progress:
Coburn tells weeping victim of broken health care system that government isn't the solution. — Yesterday CNN's Rick Sanchez aired a segment from a health care town hall where a weeping constituent explained to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that her husband's health insurer refuses to cover his treatment for a traumatic brain injury.
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.
Founding Bloggers:
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Political Terrorism In The Heartland - Inside the Quincy Tea Party Cell — Recently, Founding Bloggers was tipped off to the existence of a regional “political terrorist” cell calling itself the Quincy Tea Party. — When we learned that this group of Tea Party fundamentalists …
Discussion:
American Power
Jonah Goldberg / The Corner on National Review Online:
Will There Be Outrage? — By: Jonah Goldberg — I haven't read the IG report yet, I've just seen a few write ups and excerpts around here and other places. Without getting into the substance of the controversy, I'm doubting that there will be a lot of popular outrage over any of the allegations of abuse.
James Fallows:
Will it never end? McCaughey v. Ezekiel Emanuel — Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel should need no introduction to Atlantic readers. Among his many pursuits is writing a number of interesting articles for our “Food Channel,” under Corby Kummer's auspices. He should need no introduction to anybody …
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:
NY Daily News, New York Post, Mediaite, Politics Daily, msnbc.com, Hot Air, Scorecard's Blog, The Daily Politics, Democratic Strategist, D-Day, Gawker and Gothamist
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Obama Admin Fires Back At Right Wing With Detailed Rebuttal Of “Death Book” Claim — In a sign of real concern about the right wing's latest lurid health care tale, the Obama administration's veterans agency is hitting back at conservative media with a detailed factual rebuttal of the claim …
Charles Murray / The Enterprise Blog:
The White House and the Pauline Kael Syndrome — The late New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael famously said after Nixon's landslide reelection, “How can he have won? Nobody I know voted for him.” My proposition for today is that the entire White House suffers from the Kael syndrome.
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
The Burdens of Accountability — You can put long articles on the internet. But Josh Tyrangiel, Managing Editor of Time.com says it doesn't really work and he has a sensible explanation of why. If you look at the traffic statistics for any newsish website you'll see that people are reading when they're supposed to be at work.
Stephen Roach / Financial Times:
The case against Bernanke — Barack Obama has rendered one of his most important post-crisis verdicts: Ben Bernanke will be nominated for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. This is a very shortsighted decision. While America's head central banker deserves credit …
Paul Demko / Minnesota Independent:
Bachmann: Prayer and fasting will help defeat health care reform — On Wednesday Rep. Michele Bachmann was part of a star-studded “teletownhall” meeting to discuss health-care reform. The event, billed “Keeping Faith with the Unborn,” was sponsored by the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group.
Wall Street Journal:
How Facebook Ruins Friendships — Notice to my friends: I love you all dearly. — But I don't give a hoot that you are “having a busy Monday,” your child “took 30 minutes to brush his teeth,” your dog “just ate an ant trap” or you want to “save the piglets.”
The Hill:
Obama's FCC to enforce ‘net neutrality’ — The Obama administration's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to keep the Internet free of increased user fees based on heavy Web traffic and slow downloads. — Julius Genachowski, the FCC chairman, told The Hill that his agency will support …
Discussion:
On Deadline