Top Items:
The Politico:
Under fire, Obama shifts strategy — Aides to President Barack Obama are putting the final touches on a new strategy to help Democrats recover from a brutal August recess by specifying what Obama wants to see in a compromise health care deal and directly confronting other trouble spots, West Wing officials tell POLITICO.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Firedoglake, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, Power Line, The Plum Line, Politics Daily, TalkLeft, The Note, George's Bottom Line, AMERICAblog News, Outside The Beltway, DISSENTING JUSTICE, Riehl World View, Raw Story, The Caucus, Pajamas Media, The Washington Independent, Gawker, Open Left, The Strata-Sphere, RedState, TPMDC, National Review Online, JammieWearingFool, Dennis the Peasant, The Reaction, Weasel Zippers, Associated Press and Salon
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Jackie Calmes / Prescriptions:
Obama Plans More Hands-On Health Advocacy
Obama Plans More Hands-On Health Advocacy
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Raw Story, Firedoglake, Needlenose, The Atlantic Politics Channel and Washington Post
Ken Boehm / National Legal and Policy Center:
Obama White House Has Secret Plan To Harvest Personal Data From Social Networking Websites — NLPC has uncovered a plan by the White House New Media operation to hire a technology vendor to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites.
Vanity Fair:
Levi Johnston: “Me and Mrs. Palin” — Left, photograph by Nigel Parry/CPi Syndication. Right, photograph by Mark Seliger. — Three days after Sarah Palin was announced as the Republican vice-presidential candidate, the McCain campaign released a statement saying that her 17-year-old unwed daughter, Bristol, was pregnant.
Discussion:
The Daily Dish, Ben Smith's Blog, Talking Points Memo, Michael Calderone's Blog, Mediaite, TPMDC, Taegan Goddard's … and Wonkette
Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Pelosi will let Rangel hold post despite latest allegations — Speaker Nancy Pelosi will let Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) keep his chairmanship despite his failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets on federal disclosure forms, according to Democratic aides.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Conservative Dallas, A Blog For All, protein wisdom and Neptunus Lex
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Karen DeYoung / Washington Post:
Taliban Surprising U.S. Forces With Improved Tactics — The Taliban has become a much more potent adversary in Afghanistan by improving its own tactics and finding gaps in the U.S. military playbook, according to senior American military officials who acknowledged that the enemy's resurgence this year has taken them by surprise.
Discussion:
At-Largely, The Washington Independent, New York Times, USA Today, Associated Press and democracyarsenal.org
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Katherine Tiedemann / The AfPak Channel:
From COIN to containment — After eight years of war …
From COIN to containment — After eight years of war …
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias, The Washington Independent, democracyarsenal.org, Washington Post and ATTACKERMAN
Mark Sherman / Associated Press:
Justice Stevens slows his hiring at high court — WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has hired fewer law clerks than usual, generating speculation that the leader of the court's liberals will retire next year. — If Stevens does step down, he would give President Barack Obama …
Valerie Bauerlein / Wall Street Journal:
Shamed Governor Battles to Save Job — ORANGEBURG, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, stung by political attacks over his extramarital affair with an Argentine woman, said in his first extended interview since June that he no longer wants to “crawl into a cave” and will fight to keep …
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Ralph Z. Hallow / Washington Times:
Gov. Sanford says God on his side
Gov. Sanford says God on his side
Discussion:
Taegan Goddard's …
Carl Hulse / New York Times:
Conservative Democrats Expect a Health Deal — WASHINGTON — Like her colleagues, Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, a South Dakota Democrat and leader of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, has been weathering the summer of health care discontent.
Major Tom / Media Matters for America:
Why Glenn Beck, and Fox News, can't escape the “racist” trap — Have so many blue-chip advertisers ever fled a program as quickly as the who's who of corporate America that's sprinted away from Glenn Beck in recent weeks? I certainly cannot recall ever seeing a mass exodus of this scale.
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Julian E. Barnes / Los Angeles Times:
U.S. to boost combat force in Afghanistan — Support units will be replaced by up to 14,000 ‘trigger-pullers,’ and noncombat posts will be contracted out, Defense officials say. The swap will allow the U.S. to keep its troop level unchanged. — U.S. troops patrol in Kunar province.
Discussion:
The Mahablog, PostPartisan, Neptunus Lex, The Page, MoJo Blog Posts, Dennis the Peasant and Washington Post
Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:
Guest list for Obama's White House Ramadan dinner — (UPDATE: 5:48 p.m. The president's dinner remarks — sans teleprompter — have been added to the end of this item.) — The other day President Obama issued a special message to the Muslim world for the annual Ramadan holiday.
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Rory Cooper / The Foundry:
Obama's Team Crosses the Rhetorical Line — (Update: The website cited below has been suspended by barackobama.com. The screenshot to the right is the original page, but the embedded links will no longer work. Click on the picture to the right for a full-screen view.)
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Nissan Ratzlav-Katz / Arutz Sheva:
Ahmadinejad's Imam: Islam Allows Raping, Torturing Prisoners — Follow Israel news on and . — (IsraelNN.com) A highly influential Shi'a religious leader, with whom Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regularly consults, apparently told followers last month that coercion by means of rape …
Tim Nudd / AdFreak:
WWF condemns 9/11 print ad by DDB Brazil — [NOTE: The WWF says it never approved this ad and is condemning it. See the updates below.] Just in time for the anniversary of 9/11 comes this tasteless, nightmarish print ad for the World Wildlife Fund, showing dozens of planes headed for lower Manhattan.
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Deborah Solomon / Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Economy Gets Lift From Stimulus — WASHINGTON — Government efforts to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into the U.S. economy appear to be helping the U.S. climb out of the worst recession in decades. — But there's little agreement about which programs are having the biggest impact.
Ace / Ace of Spades HQ:
Hey, Obama, Can We See the Text of Your Speech to Every Schoolkid Before You Deliver It? — Suggested Activity: Students can “Write Letters to Themselves About What They Can Do To Help the President” — Update: Ed at Hot Air catches the suggestion in the teachers' materials that students …
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Steven Greenhouse / New York Times:
Low-Wage Workers Are Often Cheated, Study Says — Low-wage workers are routinely denied proper overtime pay and are often paid less than the minimum wage, according to a new study based on a survey of workers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. — The study, the most comprehensive examination …
Los Angeles Times:
Hostages of the Hermit Kingdom — Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two American journalists released last month after being imprisoned in North Korea, tell their story — and remind people of the story they wanted to cover. — We arrived at the frozen river separating China and North Korea at 5 o'clock on the morning of March 17.
Peter Baker / New York Times:
A Real Fairy-Tale Wedding — WASHINGTON - Here's a newsflash: Chelsea Clinton did not get married last month in a swank, celebrity-laden wedding on Martha's Vineyard attended by the president of the United States. — For four months, the Clintons have told anyone who would listen …
Discussion:
Michael Calderone's Blog
Nick Timiraos / Wall Street Journal:
Industry Seeks Fannie, Freddie Overhaul — A mortgage-industry trade group is calling for Congress to transform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into several smaller privately held companies that would issue mortgage securities carrying an explicit government guarantee.