Top Items:
Terri Cullen / Reuters:
Backdoor taxes to hit middle class — NEW YORK (Reuters.com) —The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, Left Coast Rebel, Hyscience, Outside The Beltway, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Riehl World View
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Gillian Reagan / The Wire:
Reuters Withdraws ‘Backdoor Taxes To Hit Middle Class’ Story Linked By Drudge Report — The lead story at DrudgeReport.com as of 11:30 a.m. this morning was “**REUTERS: Backdoor taxes to hit middle class.” But Reuters withdrew the article last night. Drudge noted the change and wrote …
Christina Bellantoni / TPM LiveWire:
White House Gets Reuters To Pull Budget Story — Obama administration aides appealed to the Reuters White House reporting team to kill a story by another reporter of the news service that suggested the president's new budget blueprint included “backdoor” tax hikes.
Discussion:
Gawker
Reuters:
Advisory: Backdoor taxes to hit middle class — Buzz up! — The story Backdoor taxes to hit middle class has been withdrawn. A replacement story will run later in the week. — Related Searches: — Buzz up!
Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:
Blanche Lincoln Poll — John Boozman will enter the Arkansas Senate race this weekend as the frontrunner. He leads incumbent Blanche Lincoln by an amazing 56-33 margin in our first poll of the race. — Lincoln's approval rating has sunk to just 27%, with 62% of voters in the state disapproving of her.
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Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Poll Finds Dropping Health Care Plan Doesn't Help Dems. So Pass The Bill!
Poll Finds Dropping Health Care Plan Doesn't Help Dems. So Pass The Bill!
Discussion:
Hit & Run
Elisabeth Bumiller / New York Times:
Top Defense Officials Seek to End 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' — WASHINGTON — The nation's top two Defense officials called for an end on Tuesday to the 16-year-old “don't ask, don't tell” law, a major step toward allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the United States military for the first time in its history.
Discussion:
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Michael D. Shear / Washington Post:
McCain appears to shift stance on 'don't ask, don't tell' policy — Three years ago, Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) was pretty clear about his stand on the military's “don't ask, don't tell” policy. — A former war hero, McCain said he would support ending the ban once the military's top brass told him they were okay with it.
John Aravosis / AMERICAblog News:
John McCain on DADT in 2006
John McCain on DADT in 2006
Discussion:
ATTACKERMAN, Wonkette, Abu Muqawama, Think Progress, Wonk Room, AMERICAblog Gay and Towleroad News #gay
Kos / Daily Kos:
The 2010 Comprehensive Daily Kos/Research 2000 Poll of Self-Identified Republicans — As I've mentioned before, I'm putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world.
Discussion:
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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.
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Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Emanuel apologized for ‘retarded’ remark
Emanuel apologized for ‘retarded’ remark
Discussion:
Washington Post, theblogprof, RedState, Confederate Yankee, Raw Story and Gateway Pundit
Rahm Apologizes / Political Punch:
Rahm Apologizes for Privately Calling Liberal Activists “Retarded”
Rahm Apologizes for Privately Calling Liberal Activists “Retarded”
Discussion:
JammieWearingFool
Ezra Klein:
Rep. Paul Ryan's daring budget proposal — The White House's 2011 budget is only the second-most interesting budget proposal released recently. First prize goes to Congressman Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, who's released a budget proposal that actually erases the massive long-term deficit.
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Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Paul Ryan's Budget Alternative: Massive Rationing
Paul Ryan's Budget Alternative: Massive Rationing
Discussion:
The League of Ordinary …
Sally Jenkins / Washington Post:
Tebow's Super Bowl ad isn't intolerant; its critics are — I'll spit this out quick, before the armies of feminism try to gag me and strap electrodes to my forehead: Tim Tebow is one of the better things to happen to young women in some time. I realize this stance won't endear me to the …
National Post:
N.L. Premier Williams set to have heart surgery in U.S. — ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States. — Deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news conference Tuesday …
Jordan Fabian / The Hill:
Obama takes another dig at Las Vegas — President Barack Obama on Tuesday took another dig at Las Vegas at his New Hampshire town hall Tuesday after similar remarks got him into hot water last year. — Obama said that people should now “blow a bunch of cash in Vegas” during a tough recession.
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Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Key Republican wants more answers on Christmas bomber — Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is calling for answers about the status of the Obama administration's new interrogation unit amid growing concerns about the way the Christmas Day bombing suspect was questioned by authorities.
Discussion:
The Politico
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Richard Cohen / Washington Post:
Obama administration is tone-deaf to concerns about terrorism
Obama administration is tone-deaf to concerns about terrorism
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars, Salon, TPMCafe, TalkLeft, Hit & Run, NewsBusters.org, Wonkette, Firedoglake, Commentary, Prairie Weather, The Poor Man Institute and JustOneMinute
Stuart Schwartz / American Thinker:
The Fat Lady Sings for Keith Olbermann — “It ain't over until the fat lady sings.” — The fat lady is doing more than singing for Keith Olbermann. And, like most of the other women in the life of MS-NBC's premiere leftist sexist, she's not interested in dating him.
Mary Pilon / Wall Street Journal:
What's a Degree Really Worth? — A college education may not be worth as much as you think. — For years, higher education was touted as a safe path to professional and financial success. Easy money, in the form of student loans, flowed to help parents and students finance degrees …
Garance Franke-Ruta / Washington Post:
Sarah Palin magazine hits newsstands and convenience stores — One of the things Sarah Palin has sought to do since stepping down from the governor's office in Alaska is seize control of her image. So it is perhaps a sign of how difficult a task that remains for the GOP's former vice presidential nominee …
Discussion:
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Edward Colimore / Philly.com:
Early draft of the Constitution found in Phila. — Researcher Lorianne Updike Toler was intrigued by the centuries-old document at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. — On the back of a treasured draft of the U.S. Constitution was a truncated version of the same document, starting with the familiar words: “We The People. . . .”
David Rogers / The Politico:
Murtha in intensive care — Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha was in intensive care at a Virginia hospital Tuesday because of serious complications related to gall bladder surgery last week. — Murtha's congressional office confirmed that he underwent scheduled laparoscopic surgery to remove …
Martin Kaste / NPR:
Tea Party Star Leads Movement On Her Own Terms … text sizeAAA — The National Tea Party convention is on Thursday — though it's probably more accurate to call it a Tea Party convention, not the Tea Party convention. — But despite the convention, questions remain for the fledgling movement: Where is it heading?
Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Limbaugh ‘thanks God every day’ for Obama's political problems — Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh said that he “thank[s] God every day” for the political difficulties facing President Barack Obama. — Limbaugh told Fox News in an interview to air on “Fox and Friends” …
New York Times:
The 82nd Annual Oscar Nominations — By THE NEW YORK TIMES — Below is the full list of the 82nd Annual Oscar Nominations, which were announced Tuesday morning: — Best Picture — “Avatar” — “The Blind Side” — “District 9″ — “An Education” — “The Hurt Locker”
Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Durbin and Schumer prepare for fight with donations to Senate colleagues — The second- and third-ranking Senate Democratic leaders are doling out huge sums of cash, laying the groundwork for a leadership race should Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lose reelection.
Washington Post:
Rising FHA default rate foreshadows a crush of foreclosures — The share of borrowers who are falling seriously behind on loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration jumped by more than a third in the past year, foreshadowing a crush of foreclosures that could further buffet an agency vital to the housing market's recovery.
Mike Allen / The Politico:
Shoe bomber was read Miranda rights — Republicans may have a hard time keeping up their talking point about how reading Miranda rights to the Christmas Day bomber represented a dangerous new direction under President Barack Obama. — It turns out that that back in December 2001 …
Christopher Hitchens / Slate:
Kim Jong-il's regime is even weirder and more despicable than you thought. — Visiting North Korea some years ago, I was lucky to have a fairly genial “minder” whom I'll call Mr. Chae. He guided me patiently around the ruined and starving country, explaining things away by means of a sort …
David Brooks / New York Times:
The Geezers' Crusade — We like to think that in days gone by, the young venerated the elderly. But that wasn't always so. In “As You Like It,” Shakespeare's morose character, Jaques, calls old age “second childishness and mere oblivion.” Walt Whitman hoped that the tedium and pettiness …
Michelle Malkin:
Gitmo-bashing judge rebuked; lax sentence for millenium bomber rejected — Hell has frozen over. Pigs are sprouting wings. The left-leaning 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has removed a moonbat judge from the botched LAX millenium bomber case and ruled that his sentence was too short …