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REAPING WHAT ONE SOWS ON THE CENSUS.... Prominent right-wing voices decided last year that the U.S. census was not to be trusted. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said the process could lead to “internment camps.” Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) called the census “invasive.”
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Census Returns Way Down in Republican Parts of Texas — File this under “problems that we really should have seen coming”: conservatives, egged on by the likes of Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), declining to return census forms and possibly shrinking the political power of states like Texas.
Discussion:
The Agonist


Sarah Palin To Host First Fox News Show Thursday - With LL Cool J — This is not an April Fool's joke. Sarah Palin will take her first stab at television hosting when she fronts a new Fox News series, Real American Stories, premiering Thursday April 1 at 10pmET.
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Together At Last: Palin To Debut New Fox Show With Guest, L.L. Cool J — Sarah Palin will host her first episode of “Real American Stories” Thursday April 1 at 10 p.m., with a line-up of celebrity guests and the story of a Medal of Honor recipient. — Guests will include country singer Toby Keith …
Discussion:
The Political Carnival


Obama Prepared to Move Agenda Forward With or Without GOP — ABC News' David Chalian Reports: In the aftermath of President Obama's health care victory without a single Republican vote, White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod still holds out hope for some bipartisan agreement on future policy proposals …
Discussion:
msnbc.com
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CNN Fails to Stop Fall in Ratings — CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year. — The trend in news ratings for the first three months of this year …
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Still Surging: Fox News Has Best Quarter In Network History
Discussion:
Gawker

The Numbers Don't Lie — A Democratic senator I can't name, who reluctantly voted for the health-care bill out of loyalty to his party and his admiration for Barack Obama, privately complained to me that the measure was political folly, in part because of the way it goes into effect …
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Americans Remain Concerned About Costs of Healthcare Bill
Discussion:
USA Today, Politics Daily, Weekly Standard, Hot Air, Washington Post and Wake up America

Rove Gets Branded ‘War Criminal’ At Book Signing — BEVERLY HILLS (CBS) ― About 100 fans came out to hear Karl Rove at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills Monday night to discuss his book “Courage and Consequences: My Life As a Conservative In The Fight,” — but the fight wasn't contained to his book.

The Hutaree militia and the rising risk of far-right violence — The arrests of members of a Michigan-based “Christian” militia group should convince doubters that there is good reason to worry about right-wing, anti-government extremism — and potential violence — in the Age of Obama.
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For Hutaree, Militia Ethos Extended To Family Life
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Los Angeles Times, Indecision Forever, First Draft, Blogs and Stories, slacktivist, Talking Points Memo and Wonkette

RNC Fires “Young Eagles” Director — The RNC has fired the director of its young donors program after she approved an expense for a risque L.A. nightclub, multiple sources tell Hotline OnCall. — Allison Meyers, director of the RNC's “Young Eagles” program, was terminated yesterday …
Discussion:
Washington Post, The Hill, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The Washington Independent, TBogg, TPM LiveWire and Truthdig
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RNC fires staffer behind controversy
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CNN, The Hill, Washington Post, Hot Air, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Fix, Mediaite, Althouse, Riehl World View, The Atlantic Online, The Moderate Voice, Wonkette, TPM LiveWire, Salon, The Note and Night Light

The Sandra Bullock Trade — Two things happened to Sandra Bullock this month. First, she won an Academy Award for best actress. Then came the news reports claiming that her husband is an adulterous jerk. So the philosophic question of the day is: Would you take that as a deal?
Discussion:
The Daily Dish, pandagon.net, Hullabaloo, Feministe, Gawker, Mediaite, The Huffington Post and Outside The Beltway
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Henry Waxman's War on Accounting — Accounting basics: when a company experiences what accountants call “a material adverse impact” on its expected future earnings, and those changes affect an item that is already on the balance sheet, the company is required to record the negative impact …

Obama hopes for UN sanctions against Iran within weeks — President Barack Obama said Tuesday he hopes to move forward with sanctions against Iran in a matter of weeks, not months. — The president, during an availability with visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy …
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Lo, the Mideast Moves — BRUSSELS — The passage of the U.S. health care bill is a major foreign policy victory for President Barack Obama. — It empowers him by demonstrating his ability to deliver. Nowhere is that more important than in the Middle East.
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Just Say “No”: I Get Personally Invited to Help the Obama …
Discussion:
The Jawa Report

Obama ropes in Romney on healthcare — President Obama tied his own healthcare reform law to Romneycare today, a growing theme that isn't helping the former Massachusetts Governor in his early positioning for 2012. — “I think that the Republican Party made a calculated decision …
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Obama: My Plan Is Like Romneycare
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online, The Daily Dish, TPM LiveWire, Talking Points Memo and Des Moines Register

Marine's father ordered to pay Westboro's court costs — Church members had conducted anti-gay protests at the funeral of Marine who died in Iraq — From Baltimore Sun staff and wire reports — Lawyers for the father of a Marine who died in Iraq and whose funeral was picketed …

Beck guest host Doc Thompson: Tanning salon tax makes health care reform a ‘racist law.’ — The recently passed health care reform act includes a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning salons to help pay for expanded insurance coverage for millions of Americans. Radio host Doc Thompson …
Discussion:
Media Matters for America, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Vanity Fair, Wonkette and Washington Monthly

Companies Push to Repeal Provision of Health Reform — An association representing 300 large corporations urged President Obama and Congress on Monday to repeal a provision of the health care overhaul that prompted AT&T, Caterpillar and other companies to announce substantial charges for the current quarter.
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Maggie's Farm, The Politico, The Powers That Be, Wonk Room and Prairie Weather

Insurance industry agrees to fix kids coverage gap — WASHINGTON — After battling President Barack Obama's health care overhaul the better part of a year, the insurance industry said Monday it won't try to block his efforts to fix a potentially embarrassing glitch in the new law.

Ehrlich announces run for governor — Decision to challenge O'Malley comes after months-long ‘listening tour’ — Former Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. confirmed Tuesday that he will challenge Gov. Martin O'Malley this fall. — Ehrlich, the state's only Republican governor in a generation …

Large Hadron Collider Finally Smashing Properly — PASADENA, Calif. — After 16 years and $10 billion — and a long morning of electrical groaning and sweating — there was joy in the meadows and tunnels of the Swiss-French countryside Tuesday: the world's biggest physics machine …


Half of Commercial Mortgages to Be Underwater: Warren — By the end of 2010, about half of all commercial real estate mortgages will be underwater, said Elizabeth Warren, chairperson of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, in a wide-ranging interview on Monday.
Discussion:
Firedoglake, The Huffington Post, The Washington Independent, WalletPop Blog and Newshoggers.com


Searchlight vs. L.A.: Rival Rallies Reveal Stark Right/Left Divide — On March 27, 2010, thousands of people gathered in the small town of Searchlight, Nevada, for a political rally. — Just 250 miles away and seven days earlier, there was another political rally of similar size in Los Angeles on March 20, 2010.

“How Should Conservatives Deal with the Left's Disrespect and Lack of Empathy?” [UPDATED] — Dr. Helen: … [my emphasis] — Good stuff. And not just because some of it sounds eerily familiar. — Of course, to be fair, the “right” exhibits its share of intolerance — which …

Time's Tumulty joins WaPo — Time magazine's Karen Tumulty will soon be joining The Washington Post as the paper's national political correspondent, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO. — Tumulty has spent the past 16 years at Time, writing cover stories and regularly contributing to the magazine's “Swampland” blog.
Discussion:
The Wire


The Rich Can't Pay for ObamaCare — The president intends to squeeze an extra $1.2 trillion over 10 years from a tiny sliver of taxpayers who already pay more than half of all individual taxes. It won't work. — President Barack Obama's new health-care legislation aims to raise $210 billion …


Asset Forfeiture Report — “This tightly reasoned document is a call for action by legislatures, citizens and, in the last resort, the Supreme Court.” — Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture — Jefferson E. Holcomb, Ph.D. Tomislav V. Kovandzic, Ph.D. — Scott Bullock
Discussion:
Instapundit