Top Items:
James O'Keefe / Big Government:
Statement from James O'Keefe — The government has now confirmed what has always been clear: No one tried to wiretap or bug Senator Landrieu's office. Nor did we try to cut or shut down her phone lines. Reports to this effect over the past 48 hours are inaccurate and false.
Discussion:
New York Times, JustOneMinute, The Atlantic Politics Channel, Hot Air, Big Journalism, Washington Post, The Hill, Left Coast Rebel, Emptywheel, Michael Calderone's Blog, At-Largely, Another Black Conservative, USA Today, 24Ahead, TPMMuckraker, Mediaite, Wonkette, Talking Points Memo, Instapundit, Swampland, The Washington Independent, The Daily Caller, The Jawa Report, The Lonely Conservative, GayPatriot and TPM LiveWire
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Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
O'Keefe's defense — He posts a statement on Big Government: — I learned from a number of sources that many of Senator Landrieu's constituents were having trouble getting through to her office to tell her that they didn't want her taking millions of federal dollars in exchange for her vote on the health care bill.
Ezra Klein:
Rahm Emanuel makes me very pessimistic about health-care reform — According to the New York Times, the “White House on Thursday signaled the outlines of its strategy for breaking the partisan logjam holding up President Obama's agenda.” And that outline is the most depressing thing I've read on the chances for health-care reform.
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New York Times:
Health Bill Stalled, Obama Juggles an Altered Agenda — WASHINGTON — The White House on Thursday signaled the outlines of its strategy for breaking the partisan logjam holding up President Obama's agenda, saying Democrats would move quickly to underline their commitment to fixing …
Washington Post:
After Obama speech, Democrats confused about path ahead — A day after President Obama called on them to renew efforts to pass his ambitious agenda, congressional Democrats remained in disarray Thursday about how to move forward, with at least some pointing at the White House as the cause …
Discussion:
The Politico, Wall Street Journal, Washington Monthly, Washington Times, New York Times, The Caucus, The Note, Riehl World View, TPMDC and USA Today
Patrick O'Connor / The Politico:
Obama rumbles with House GOP — BALTIMORE — President Barack Obama told House Republicans Friday that Washington can't break through partisan gridlock “if we can't move past the politics of no” — then engaged with them in an extraordinary back-and-forth straight out of the House of Commons.
Discussion:
The Swamp, c-spanarchives.org, The Caucus, The Hill, The Lonely Conservative, TalkLeft and The Page
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Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
Obama's Question Time: An Amazing Moment — The moment President Obama began his address to Republicans in Baltimore today, I began to receive e-mails from Democrats: Here's an except from one of them: “I don't know whether to laugh or cry that it took a f$$@&$* year for Obama to step …
Robin Abcarian / Los Angeles Times:
Scott Roeder convicted of murdering abortion doctor George Tiller — A jury in Wichita deliberates for just over a half-hour before finding Roeder guilty. He had admitted that he shot Tiller, who performed late-term abortions, at a church in May. — Reporting from Wichita, Kan. …
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars, Politics Daily, Hit & Run, culturekitchen, Indecision Forever and News Hounds
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U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis:
GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT: FOURTH QUARTER 2009 (ADVANCE ESTIMATE) — Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, (that is …
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Catherine Rampell / New York Times:
U.S. Economy Grew at Fastest Pace in 6 Years Last Quarter — The United States economy grew at its fastest pace in over six years at the end of 2009, but a sluggish job market is still souring economists on the sustainability of the recovery. — Gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate …
Megan McArdle:
Dude, Where's My Job? — The initial estimate is that fourth quarter GDP grew at a blistering 5.7% annual pace. With the usual caveats—third quarter GDP estimates started high and then were revised down to a much more modest level—that's great news. — But man cannot live by GDP alone.
Salah Nasrawi / Associated Press:
Bin Laden blasts US for climate change — CAIRO — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday.
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Ben Armbruster / Think Progress:
Palin On Whether She Will Still Speak At ‘Scammy’ Tea Party Convention: ‘You Betcha!’ — Tea Party activists and loyalists have recently criticized the National Tea Party Convention set to take place in Nashville, TN next month, balking at the expensive ticket prices and the fact that the “scammy” event is for-profit.
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Bruce Bartlett / Forbes:
More Goo-Goo Than Gipper — A number of pollsters have noted that Barack Obama's approval rating is about the same as Ronald Reagan's at a similar stage of his presidency. Yet it feels that Obama is in far worse shape politically. I think a key reason for the difference is that Reagan …
Discussion:
Matthew Yglesias, The Atlantic Business Channel, Cato @ Liberty and The League of Ordinary …
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Linda Greenhouse / Opinionator:
The Next Time — Three years ago, after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. led the Supreme Court to the brink of overturning a few precedents but then blinked, a frustrated Justice Antonin Scalia accused the chief justice of “faux judicial restraint.” — It was foreseeable then that something …
RELATED:
Z. Byron Wolf / ABCNEWS:Democrats Declare Rhetorical War on the Supreme Court
Discussion:
JammieWearingFool
Randy E. Barnett / Wall Street Journal:Obama Owes the High Court an Apology
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times, CBS News, New York Times, Political Punch, SCOTUSblog, Hit & Run and The Hill
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Brown on Romney: 'He's changed' — One Washington habit Scott Brown doesn't seem to be adopting is message control. — Some highlights from his wide-ranging interview,with the Globe, in which he seems to stake quite a bit on his and others' personal qualities, include a description …
Discussion:
GOP 12
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Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Has Obama become bored with being president? — This is about the time Barack Obama becomes bored with his job. — He's in his second year as president, and he's discovered that even with all the powers of office, he can't do everything he wants to do, like remake America. Doing stuff is hard.
Discussion:
Moe Lane
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Chris Frates / The Politico:
Snowe talking to Dems — Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said Friday that she has been in conversation with Democrats and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus about a way forward on health care reform. — “I have talked with several of my Democratic colleagues, including the chairman …
WISH-TV:
Congressman Buyer won't seek reelection — 24-Hour News 8 has learned Indiana Congressman Steve Buyer (R-4th District) will announce he will not seek reelection during a news conference Friday. — Buyer is perhaps best known for his 1998 role as a prosecutor in President Clinton's impeachment hearings.
Discussion:
The Fix, The Hill, The Page, Ben Smith's Blog, Hotline OnCall, Politics Nation and TPMDC
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
March of the Peacocks — Last week, the Center for American Progress, a think tank with close ties to the Obama administration, published an acerbic essay about the difference between true deficit hawks and showy “deficit peacocks.” You can identify deficit peacocks, readers were told …
Discussion:
PERRspectives, QandO, Daily Kos, Pacific Views, Dennis the Peasant, The Business Insider and Prairie Weather
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
What Killed Obama's Approval Numbers? — If we look back at the trajectory of Barack Obama's approval ratings, which began at about 65 at the time of his inauguration and have fallen to about 48 now, there were two periods that account for most of the decline.
Discussion:
The Monkey Cage
Karina Grazina / Reuters:
Pork better for sex than Viagra? — Buzz up! — BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina's president recommended pork as an alternative to Viagra Wednesday, saying she spent a satisfying weekend with her husband after eating barbecued pork. — “I've just been told something I didn't know …
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Video: Stewart rips Matthews on “forgot Obama was black” moment — Jon Stewart calls Chris Matthews “a Scotch away from becoming Ron Burgundy,” and that's not the best line in this clip from Mediaite, where Stewart and Wyatt Cenac tear into Chris Matthews and his “big thinking” on race after the State of the Union speech.
Discussion:
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