Top Items:
Fox News:
U.S. Attorney Steps Down From O'Keefe Case — James O'Keefe, accused of trying to tamper with the phones of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, was “framed” by the media and the U.S. attorney's office, Andrew Breitbart, publisher of BigGovernment.com, told Fox News Monday.
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Justin Elliott / TPMMuckraker:
Breitbart Claim: Jailed O'Keefe Couldn't Access Attorney For Hours — Interviewed on Fox just moments ago, Andrew Breitbart claimed that alleged Landrieu phone tamperer James O'Keefe “sat in jail for 28 hours without access to an attorney.” — Breitbart, who has been on a public campaign defending O'Keefe …
Discussion:
Emptywheel, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Main Justice, skippy the bush kangaroo, Raw Story and Nice Deb
David E. Sanger / New York Times:
Huge Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power — WASHINGTON — In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power. — The first is the projected deficit in the coming year …
The Huffington Post:
Frank Luntz Pens Memo To Kill Financial Regulatory Reform — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? — Nine months after he penned a memo laying out the arguments for health care legislation's destruction, Republican message guru Frank Luntz has put together a playbook to help derail financial regulatory reform.
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Fred Pearce / Guardian:
Leaked climate emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws — Exclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures — • How the location of weather stations in China undermines data — • How the ‘climategate’ scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies
Discussion:
Andrew Bolt, The Corner on National …, Watts Up With That?, The Independent, Vox Popoli, Don Surber, EU Referendum, Jay Currie and Tim Blair
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Stephen Ohlemacher / Associated Press:
Obama Budget Would Impose Host of Tax Increases — Obama budget plan would imposes host of tax increases on businesses, wealthy families — While President Barack Obama is proposing to cut some taxes for companies that hire workers, his budget would raise a host of other taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals.
Discussion:
Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Lonely Conservative, TaxVox, CBS News and ProfessorBainbridge.com
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Eric Kleefeld / TPMDC:
Poll: Republicans Think Obama Is A Socialist, And Palin More Qualified To Be President — A new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, conducted among 2,000 self-identified Republican respondents nationwide, gives an interesting peek into the psyche of the minority party's base.
Discussion:
The Washington Independent
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John Campanelli / Plain Dealer:
Bill Watterson, creator of beloved ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ comic strip looks back with no regrets — This marks the 15th year since “Calvin and Hobbes” said goodbye to the comics pages. Creator Bill Watterson, who grew up in Chagrin Falls and still makes Greater Cleveland his home …
Ezra Klein:
Getting real about Congress — “No single vote by any single senator could possibly illustrate everything that is wrong with Washington today,” writes Fred Hiatt. “No single vote could embody the full cynicism and cowardice of our political elite at its worst, or explain by itself why problems do not get solved.”
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David Neiwert / Crooks and Liars:
Bill Kristol agrees that Obama's ‘been doing all kinds of crazy stuff that risks destroying America’ — One of the key points President Obama made in his back-and-forth with House Republicans seems to be really sticking in the craw of the right-wing pundit class: … Bill Kristol, yesterday on Fox News Sunday:
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Senate Aides Identify Key Roadblock To Passing Reform Via Reconciliation — Senate leadership aides have identified what they see as a key roadblock to passing a fix to their bill via reconciliation — and parliamentarians in the Senate and House are hard at work trying to identify a solution, aides say.
Ken Shepherd / NewsBusters.org:
Chris Matthews Compares Conservative Republicans to Murderous Khmer Rouge Regime — Appearing on the January 29 “Rachel Maddow Show,” fellow MSNBCer Chris Matthews compared Republican conservatives to the Khmer Rouge, the murderous Communist regime that racked up a body count of some two million during its reign of terror:
Rasmussen Reports:
Election 2010: Florida Republican Primary for Senate — Florida GOP Senate: Rubio 49%, Crist 37% — Former state House Speaker Marco Rubio has now jumped to a 12-point lead over Governor Charlie Crist in Florida's Republican Primary race for the U.S. Senate.
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CBC News:
Danny Williams going to U.S. for heart surgery — Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams is set to undergo heart surgery this week in the United States. — CBC News confirmed Monday that Williams, 59, left the province earlier in the day and will have surgery later in the week.
Discussion:
QandO
Yochi J. Dreazen / Wall Street Journal:
Iraq Veteran Leads 'Don't Ask' Push — The Obama administration's staunchest ally in the uphill fight to allow gays to openly serve in the nation's military is a little-known Democratic congressman named Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war veteran who has written the only legislation that would repeal the “don't ask, don't tell” restrictions.
Noah Shachtman / Danger Room:
Gates Sacks Stealth Jet Chief, Blasts ‘Troubling Record’ of Crucial Plane — If the Pentagon doesn't get its Joint Strike Fighter just right, the U.S. military is screwed. Which is why its a such serious, serious problem this stealthy, all-purpose jet has had such a “troubling performance record …
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Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:
Arkansas Poll Preview — We are going to have Blanche Lincoln-John Boozman numbers tomorrow and they aren't pretty for Lincoln. — If I had to name one reason Lincoln is in so much trouble it's that voters are no longer differentiating her from national Democrats.
Discussion:
Moe Lane
Rachel Slajda / TPMDC:
Specter To Sestak: Imma Let You Finish ... At a Pennsylvania Progressive forum this Saturday, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) were supposed to be doing separate Q&As, one after the other. — But Specter apparently jumped the gun and climbed onstage while Sestak was giving …
Discussion:
RedState, Firedoglake, Right Pundits, Hot Air, Talking Points Memo and Another Black Conservative
Walter Russell Mead / Walter Russell Mead's Blog:
The Death of Global Warming — The global warming movement as we have known it is dead. Its health had been in steady decline during the last year as the once robust hopes for a strong and legally binding treaty to be agreed upon at the Copenhagen Summit faded away.
Facebook:
Are You Capable of Decency, Rahm Emanuel? — The newly-released mind-boggling, record-smashing $3,400,000,000,000 federal budget invites plenty of opportunity to debate the merits of incurring more and more debt that will drown the next generation of Americans. Never has it been possible to spend your way out of debt.
Jeffrey Mervis / ScienceInsider:
UPDATED AGAIN: Science Triumphs in Obama's 2011 Budget Request — Wow. A first, quick look at what President Barack Obama wants to spend next year on science shows across-the-board increases for research and training. Those gains come despite the president's plan to freeze domestic discretionary programs …
Associated Press:
College tuition hikes in double digits — State budget deficits contribute to higher education costs — SEATTLE - As students around the country anxiously wait for college acceptance letters, their parents are sweating the looming tuition bills at public universities.
Discussion:
Big Brass Blog
Los Angeles Times:
Officials OKd Miranda warning for accused airline plotter — At least four U.S. agencies were involved in a decision to read Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab his rights, sources say, after it was clear that he had stopped sharing information. — Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair …
David Adams / Rand Paul 2010:
Sarah Palin endorses — National political icon and conservative leader Sarah Palin has endorsed Dr. Rand Paul in his bid for United States Senate from Kentucky. The Paul campaign has received a generous donation from Governor Palin's PAC. — Sarah Palin has clearly seen that Rand Paul supports smaller …
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, Another Black Conservative, Coop's Corner, Firedoglake, Blogcritics, Hotline OnCall, Scorecard's Blog, Politics Nation, The Caucus, Washington Post, Washington Wire, The Hill, The Huffington Post, Conservatives4Palin.com, Indecision Forever, Riehl World View, The Eye, The Washington Independent, Wonkette, The Page, TPMDC, The Other McCain and The Atlantic Politics Channel
Robert Stacy McCain / AmSpecBlog:
Limbaugh Endorses Andrzejewski — “Holy mackerel!” Adam Andrzejewski said when I called him just now after learning that he'd been endorsed by Rush Limbaugh this afternoon on the nation's No. 1 radio program. — “We're gonna win this race . . . That's got to be the closer,” said Andrzejewski …
John Rosenthal / Pajamas Media:
Climategate: WWF, the ‘Para-Governmental Organization’ at the Center of the Storm — This is no NGO. The “conservation organization” is not as independent as you might think. — What exactly is WWF? The mission of the self-described “conservation organization” is so nebulous …
Discussion:
EU Referendum
John B. Judis / The New Republic:
The Quiet Revolution — Obama has reinvented the state in more ways than you can imagine. — These days, liberals don't know whether to feel betrayed by or merely disappointed with Barack Obama. They have gone from decrying his willingness to remove the public option from his health care plan …
Charles Krauthammer / Heritage Foundation:
The Age of Obama: Anno Domini 2 — Abstract: In the real world, as opposed to what French President Nicolas Sarkozy calls President Barack Obama's “virtual world,” America faces the reality of Iran's intransigence and aggressiveness; China's headlong pursuit of its own national, regional …