Top Items:
Peter Baker / New York Times:
The Limits of Rahmism — AS A DOZEN or so top White House officials gathered in Rahm Emanuel's corner West Wing office one morning in early January, the president's political director, Patrick Gaspard, reported on the latest poll numbers in Massachusetts. With less than two weeks until …
Discussion:
Gawker, The Politico, ATTACKERMAN, Politics Daily, Michael Calderone's Blog, Lynn Sweet, Ezra Klein, Bloomberg, msnbc.com and DISSENTING JUSTICE
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RealClearPolitics Video Log:
Massa: Rahm Emanuel “Would Sell His Own Mother” For Votes — “Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn, Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) said. ” He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.
Jennifer Yachnin / Roll Call:
Massa Hints He Could Rescind Resignation — Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) suggested on a New York radio station Sunday that he could rescind his resignation — scheduled to take effect at 5 p.m. Monday — after asserting that an ethics investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed …
Tim Grieve / The Politico:
Massa: Dems ousted me for ‘no’ vote — He says leaders “got rid of” him to pass health reform.
Discussion:
RealClearPolitics Video Log, RedState, The Atlantic Online, theblogprof, Ben Smith's Blog and Joe. My. God.
David Weigel / The Washington Independent:
Eric Massa to Rip Democrats on Glenn Beck's Fox News Show
Eric Massa to Rip Democrats on Glenn Beck's Fox News Show
Reid Wilson / Hotline On Call:
Massa Implicates Emanuel, Dem Leaders
Massa Implicates Emanuel, Dem Leaders
Discussion:
TPMMuckraker, Swing State Project, Roll Call, drop.io, CNN, The Confluence, Political Fix, Talking Points Memo, Firedoglake, The Rachel Maddow Show, American Power, RedState, Mediaite, Indecision Forever, Gothamist, Taylor Marsh, YID With LID, QandO, DISSENTING JUSTICE, Open Left, NO QUARTER, Washington Wire, Sister Toldjah, Moonbattery, Left Coast Rebel, Swampland, Daily Kos, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Gawker, neo-neocon, AmSpecBlog and msnbc.com
Jason Markusoff / Inside Alberta Politics:
Sarah Palin heads north. Er, south. Er, to Calgary. - UPDATED — It was little surprise that Sarah Palin's first visit to our home and native land (of public health care and gay marriage) would be in Calgary. It also shouldn't be surprising that she was able to curry favour …
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Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Palin, as a child, went to Canada for care [CORRECTED] — Sarah Palin told a Canadian audience Saturday that, as a child in Alaska, her family brought her across the border for medical care under the single-payer Canadian system. — “We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada …
Geoffrey Dickens / NewsBusters.org:
Dan Rather: ‘Articulate’ Obama Couldn't Even ‘Sell Watermelons’ — HDNet's Dan Rather stepped on one mine after another in the racial minefield that exists when talking about the nation's first black President as the former CBS anchor, on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show over the weekend …
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Left Coast Rebel:
Updated: Dan Rather Said that Obama 'couldn't sell watermelons'? UPDATED, Video with Audio UPDATED Again: Transcript, Dan Rather/Watermelon Statement — Rush Limbaugh just mentioned that he has audio of Dan Rather saying that Obama 'couldn't sell watermelons' or some such thing.
Denis / GayPolitics.com:
Conservative California state senator comes out — California State Sen. Roy Ashburn, a conservative Republican with a solidly anti-gay voting record, came out as gay today on a Bakersfield radio station talk show. Ashburn's sexual orientation had been the talk of Sacramento since …
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Joseph Curl / Washington Times:
Poll shows Obama, Dems losing ground — A majority of Americans say the United States is less respected in the world than it was two years ago and think President Obama and other Democrats fall short of Republicans on the issue of national security, a new poll finds.
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
CONCERN TROLLING GONE AWRY (AGAIN).... You know who's really looking out for congressional Democrats' electoral fortunes? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). While you and I might think, “Wait, isn't that the guy trying to destroy Democrats as part of his drive for power?” …
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Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:
Crist Poll Preview — We are going to have absolutely brutal numbers out on Charlie Crist tomorrow. — Here's a little preview: among Republican primary voters 19% would like to see him as Governor a year from now, 14% want him in the Senate, and 56% want him out of elected office.
Reid Wilson / Hotline On Call:
The Health Care Whip Count — Dems are aiming to pass health care legislation, once and for all, by Easter recess. But for all their optimistic talk, one thing remains clear: They don't have the votes just yet. Then again, they don't have a bill yet, either.
Discussion:
AmSpecBlog
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Spencer Ackerman / The Washington Independent:
Cheneyites Lose Stimson, Rivkin, Casey in al-Qaeda Shark-Jump — David Rivkin and Lee Casey are an op-ed-writing team of former GOP legal officials who defend practically every terrorism-related policy pushed by the Bush administration. Here they are saying that warrantless surveillance “has always been on firm legal ground.”
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Kbh / KeithHennessey.com:
Health care reform CPR — Can Speaker Pelosi bring health care reform back from the dead? Did it ever really die? … In addition to my last health care post, Nate Silver summarizes well the forces pushing in both directions. John Podhoretz also has a good strategic overview.
Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs:
United Arab Emirates to Follow Third Reich Policies against Jews — So now it comes to this. — It is natural that the Muslim world would follow the policies of the Third Reich, as they were the allies of Hitler. The Muslim world was the only member of the axis to walk away unpunished …
Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:
Senate Approval Ratings — The conventional wisdom has typically been that a politician's in trouble if their approval rating's below 50%. We may need to rethink that assumption in this political climate though because the average approval rating of the 38 Senators we've polled …
Mark Halperin / Time:
Obama-Bush Same Mistakes: President Repeats Stumbles — Who would have thought that one of Barack Obama's biggest missteps as President would be repeating some of the bad habits of George W. Bush? No single factor was more instrumental in Obama's 2008 victory than his pledge to completely reverse …
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Wall Street Journal:
That Other Government Takeover — What else may go into ‘reconciliation.’ — Everyone knows Democrats are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to get ObamaCare through the Senate. Less well known is that Democrats are plotting add-ons to that bill to get other liberal priorities enacted …
Jonathan Chait / The New Republic:
Health Care Reform And Our Myopic Polity — One day, I hope, we will look back at the health care debate as a low point in our national political psyche. The Obama administration and its allies in Congress are on the cusp of bringing some measure of reason to the health care system …
Kerry Lauerman / Salon:
The story behind Oscar's “Kanye moment” — We talk to the two filmmakers whose personal fight became one of the ceremony's weirdest moments … People are already saying you “pulled a Kanye.” What happened? — BURKETT: What happened was the director and I had a bad difference …
Jonathan D. Salant / Bloomberg:
Business Lobbyists Push to Revive Estate Tax They Tried to Kill — Lobbyists for small businesses, construction companies, manufacturers and other trade groups are racing the clock to convince Congress to reinstate the federal estate tax they've fought for years to abolish.
Fox News:
ACORN Registration Workers Charged With Felony Voter Fraud — Five Wisconsin residents, including two who worked for community organizing group ACORN, were charged Monday with election fraud relating to the 2008 presidential election.
Ezra Klein:
Health-care reform is progressive — Reading Chris Bowers's excellent list of the progressive priorities fulfilled or partially fulfilled by the health-care bill's sidecar amendments is a reminder of how peculiar the framing of this debate has been. There's no doubt that progressives …
Kbh / KeithHennessey.com:
Déjà vu all over again … A Republican on Capitol Hill points out that we're going through a health care press coverage time warp. In each of the following four headline pairs, one is from this morning. The other is from last year. See if you can guess which is which.
Discussion:
Townhall.com
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Obama To Dems: Reform Will Kick In This Year. This Year. This Year. — One striking thing about the speech Obama just gave at the big health care rally in Pennsylvania is how many times he stressed that if reform passes, voters will begin enjoying the benefits this year.