Top Items:
Steve Clemons / The Washington Note:
Communications Corruption at the White House — The communications team at the White House has an extremely difficult job — and I admire how hard Ben Rhodes, Bill Burton, Tommy Vietor, and of course Robert Gibbs and others work to connect the President's policy direction with a communications effort that furthers the Obama agenda.
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CNN:
Report: Actor to leave Obama administration — The White House wouldn't confirm a report Friday that actor Kal Penn is leaving the Obama administration. — Washington (CNN) - The White House isn't confirming a report that actor Kal Penn is leaving the Obama administration.
Discussion:
The Political Carnival
Nicole Sperling / Hollywood Insider:
Kal Penn returns from Washington for Christmas-themed ‘Harold & Kumar’ movie — Who needs Washington when you can have White Castle? Kal Penn's reps confirm that the actor will leave his post as Barack Obama's associate director of public engagement to return to his acting career.
Discussion:
Politics Daily, Ezra Klein, Washington Wire, Political Punch, Ben Smith's Blog, DCist, The Hill and Gawker
Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Limbaugh responds to Obama: ‘Never in my life have I seen a regime like this’ — In his new interview with CBS, President Obama refers to the “troublesome” talk and “vitriol” of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. “Keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out,” Obama says.
Discussion:
Mediaite, The Political Carnival, PoliBlog, The Hill, Taylor Marsh, Atlas Shrugs and protein wisdom
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Jordan Fabian / The Hill:
Obama stiffarms Limbaugh and Beck
Obama stiffarms Limbaugh and Beck
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, Riehl World View, Althouse, The Swamp, The Moderate Voice and Daily Kos
New York Times:
At Vatican Service, Persecution of Jews Is Invoked — ROME — A senior Vatican priest speaking at a Good Friday service compared the uproar over sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church — which have included reports about Pope Benedict XVI's oversight role in two cases …
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CBS News:
Obama's Approval Rating Hits New Low — Posted by Tucker Reals 15 comments - Share - - - Share - E-mail - Print - Font Last week, President Obama signed historic health care reform legislation into law — but his legislative success doesn't seem to have helped his image with the American public.
Javier C. Hernandez / New York Times:
U.S. Adds 162,000 Jobs in March; Rate Remains 9.7% — The American economy added 162,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department reported Friday, in a month when the government hired thousands of temporary census workers. — Multimedia — The unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent …
Discussion:
Economy Watch, FiveThirtyEight, The Moderate Voice, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Lynn Sweet, Newsweek Blogs, The Caucus, Firedoglake, The Plum Line, New Deal 2.0, Economix, Michelle Malkin, Questions and Observations, Wonkette, Taegan Goddard's …, PoliBlog and DISSENTING JUSTICE
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GOP.com:
Unacceptable — New Jobs Report Shows Disappointing Results …
Unacceptable — New Jobs Report Shows Disappointing Results …
Discussion:
Media Matters Action Network, ABCNEWS, Think Progress, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Climate Progress and The Gavel
Timothy R. Homan / Bloomberg:
U.S. Economy: Gain in Payrolls Shows Recovery More Entrenched
U.S. Economy: Gain in Payrolls Shows Recovery More Entrenched
Discussion:
Think Progress
ZIP / Weasel Zippers:
Black Dem Rep. Who Was Reportedly Spit on by Tea Party Protester: I Never Claimed to Have Been Spit on Intentionally, Others Are Making the Claim on My Behalf, Refuses to Confirm it Happened.. (Update) He's Full of S**t... More proof this claim is 100% bulls**t.
Discussion:
Power Line, YID With LID, Left Coast Rebel, RedState, Hot Air, The Lonely Conservative, Mudville Gazette and HotAirPundit
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Jack Cashill / American Thinker:
How Quickly Spread the Tea Party Smear — To make the racial smear of the Tea Party protestors at the Capitol clear to anyone with eyes to see, I have assembled this four-minute video. — In composing it, I checked with my source on the scene, Greg Farrell, to get a timeline on the passage …
Discussion:
Doug Ross, Big Government, Gateway Pundit, NewsBusters.org, Riehl World View and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion
Stephen Hudak / Orlando Sentinel:
Mount Dora doctor tells Obama supporters: Go elsewhere — (Photo by Deirdre Lewis / April 1, 2010) — MOUNT DORA — A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care “elsewhere.”
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars, TPM LiveWire, Hot Air, Don Surber, The Monkey Cage, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Mediaite, The Jawa Report, Fausta's Blog, The Lonely Conservative, Left Coast Rebel, The Impolitic, The Political Carnival, NewsBusters.org, Gateway Pundit, American Power, HotAirPundit, Washington Monthly, Scared Monkeys, JammieWearingFool, Joe. My. God., Babalú Blog, Washington Post, Ruby Slippers, Another Black Conservative, Shakesville and Weasel Zippers
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Matt Corley / Think Progress:
Erickson: I'll 'pull out my wife's shotgun' if someone comes to my door for the American Community Survey. — Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted that Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) took to the conservative blog RedState to call out “blatant misinformation coming from otherwise well-meaning conservatives” about this year's Census.
Bill Liss / WXIA-TV:
Anti-Obama Billboards Appear on Metro Highways — ATLANTA — One group is taking freedom of speech and freedom of expression to the limits in a series of Metro Atlanta highway billboards voicing strong opinions against President Barack Obama. — The billboards are the latest move to sway public opinion …
Dan Quayle / Washington Post:
Don't let the tea party go Perot — Like many influential causes before it, the “tea party” movement appeared on the scene uninvited by the political establishment. Democrats in the White House and in Congress recognize it for what it is — a spontaneous and pointed response to the Obama agenda …
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Hullabaloo, Questions and Observations, Gawker, Mediaite, The Hill, Balloon Juice, Swampland and The Washington Independent
Ta-Nehisi Coates / The Atlantic Online:
An Absurdist Take On “Both Sides” — Charles Lane compares the radicalism of white supremacists with the radicalism of escaped slaves: … Lane is referencing, in rather disrespectful fashion, the awesome Shadrach Minkins. A Norfolk-area slave, Minkins' unthinking extremism deluded him into believing that he was a human being.
Byron York / Associated Press:
Obamacare was mainly aimed at redistributing wealth — It hasn't attracted much notice, but recently some prominent advocates of Obamacare have spoken more frankly than ever before about why they supported a national health care makeover. It wasn't just about making insurance more affordable.
the CNN Wires / CNN:
Extremist group demands governors resign, FBI says — Washington (CNN) — A domestic extremist group has sent letters to more than 30 U.S. governors demanding they resign, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI said in an intelligence note. — The note, dated Monday …
Discussion:
Little Green Footballs
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Felix Gillette / New York Observer:
Inside the CNN Stockroom: Network Recently Shot Pilot Staring MSNBC's Shuster and NPR's Martin — Amid the recent news of CNN's rough first quarter, there's been much speculation about what CNN U.S. chief Jon Klein should do to revitalize the cable news network's line up.
Discussion:
Mediaite, NewsBusters.org, Michael Calderone's Blog, Media Decoder and The Political Carnival
Calculated Risk:
Employment-Population Ratio, Part Time Workers, Unemployed over 26 Weeks — Here are a few more graphs based on the employment report ... Employment-Population Ratio — The Employment-Population ratio ticked up slightly to 58.6% in March, after plunging since the start of the recession.
Lindsay Beyerstein / AlterNet.org:
Trendy Fashion Buys Reimbursed as “Office Supplies” to RNC Finance Officials — For one Republican National Committee official, a spin through a trendy clothing boutique racked up hundreds in “office supplies,” all billed to party donors. And there's more.
John McCormack / Weekly Standard:
Sen. Corker Clarifies: Repeal Isn't Going to Happen after “This Election Cycle” — John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and most Republicans say that the GOP platform is to repeal Obamacare (or “repeal and replace it with real reform"). Yuval Levin argues in this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD that …
Blazing Cat Fur:
Palestine House Thugs Screams “You need another Holocaust” — Update: Frumpy has the video - “We love jihad. We love killing you.” — Partial transcript: — JDL Guy: “No more jihad.” — Palestine House Guy: “We love jihad. We love killing you.” — JDL Guy: “Peace, education, not jihad.
Jonathan Martin / Ben Smith's Blog:
Payback — Remember when Rudy Giuliani was counting on Gov. Charlie Crist's endorsement in the GOP prez primary? As Mark Halperin and John Heilemann recounted in “Game Change,” it was a big f'ing deal at the time and the Rudy folks had a plan mapped out on how they would maximize their expected get.
Bill Hutchinson / NY Daily News:
Birthday bash for ‘dying’ Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi sickens crash victims' kin — The Lockerbie bomber celebrated his 58th birthday on Thursday at a Libyan mansion, defying the imminent death Scottish officials predicted when they compassionately freed him from prison nearly eight months ago.
Associated Press:
Eugene Allen, White House Butler, Dies at 90 — Longtime White House Butler Served For 34 Years Under 8 Presidents, From Truman to Reagan — (AP) This story was written by shington Post Staff Writer Wil Haygood. — Eugene Allen, who endured a harsh and segregated upbringing …