Top Items:
Matea Gold / Show Tracker:
Fox News yanks Sean Hannity from Cincinnati Tea Party rally he was set to star in — Angry Fox News executives ordered host Sean Hannity to abandon plans to broadcast his nightly show as part of a Tea Party rally in Cincinnati on Thursday after top executives learned that he was set to headline the event …
Discussion:
Instapundit, The Huffington Post, Crooks and Liars, WLWT-TV, Cincinnati.com, Firedoglake, Another Black Conservative, Hullabaloo, The Moderate Voice, Mediaite, Media Matters for America, HotAirPundit, Newshoggers.com, Liberal Values, Wonkette, The Huffington Post, Don Surber, WXIX-TV and New York Times
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Sam Youngman / The Hill:
Obama ‘amused’ by Tea Party rallies — President Barack Obama struck a hyperpartisan note Thursday, telling Democrats that he was “amused” by the Tax Day Tea Party rallies. — Obama, addressing a Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraiser in Miami, did little to endear himself …
Washington Post:
How the Democrats can avoid a November bloodbath — Media reports suggest that President Obama is turning his attention toward the midterm congressional elections. There are a few things it is imperative he understand if he is to, at the least, minimize Democratic losses in November.
Michelle Malkin:
Obama mocks, we remember — President Obama derided the Tea Party activists at a Miami fund-raiser tonight. You keep laughing, chump: … Yeah? Thanks a lot: … Like the Tea Party sign says: “We'll remember in November.” — I like this one even better: “We can see November from our house.”
Discussion:
Hot Air
Michael D. Shear / Washington Post:
Obama orders hospitals to grant same-sex couples visitation rights — President Obama on Thursday signed a memorandum requiring hospitals to allow gays and lesbians to have non-family visitors and to grant their partners medical power of attorney. — The president ordered the Department …
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Sheryl Gay Stolberg / New York Times:
Obama Widens Medical Rights for Same-Sex Partners — WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday ordered his health secretary to issue new rules aimed at granting hospital visiting rights to same-sex partners. — The White House announced the rule changes, which will also make it easier …
CNN:
Obama orders hospital visitation rights for gays, lesbians — Washington (CNN) — President Obama has asked the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a rule that would prevent hospitals from denying visitation privileges to gay and lesbian partners.
Mark Mazzetti / New York Times:
C.I.A. Document Details Destruction of Tapes — WASHINGTON — Porter J. Goss, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in 2005 approved of the decision by one of his top aides to destroy dozens of videotapes documenting the brutal interrogation of two detainees, according to an internal C.I.A. document released Thursday.
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
The Fire Next Time — On Tuesday, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, called for the abolition of municipal fire departments. — Firefighters, he declared, “won't solve the problems that led to recent fires. They will make them worse.” The existence of fire departments …
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Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
McConnell lacks support to block Wall Street reform bill
McConnell lacks support to block Wall Street reform bill
Discussion:
The Politico, TPMDC, Washington Monthly, The Huffington Post, The New Republic, ABCNEWS and The Washington Independent
Rob Blackwell / American Banker:
Bair Says Reform Bill Will Make Bailouts ‘Impossible’
Bair Says Reform Bill Will Make Bailouts ‘Impossible’
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, The Plum Line, Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias, Washington Monthly and Balloon Juice
Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:
White House complains about CBS News blog post saying that possible Supreme Court nominee is gay — The White House ripped CBS News on Thursday for publishing an online column by a blogger who made assertions about the sexual orientation of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, widely viewed as a leading candidate for the Supreme Court.
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Clark Hoyt / The Public Editor's Journal:
Dueling Columnists — A surprising disagreement has broken out between two Times columnists, with Paul Krugman demanding an apology from Andrew Ross Sorkin and Sorkin so far refusing to back down. — The argument is over what approach Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who writes …
Brent Kallestad / MiamiHerald.com:
Former Sen. Mack withdraws as Crist campaign chair — TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Charlie Crist's political mentor, former U.S. Sen. Connie Mack, resigned Thursday as Crist's campaign chairman in his race for the U.S. Senate. — Mack wrote a terse, two-paragraph letter to his one-time protege …
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Laura Myers / Las Vegas Review-Journal:
U.S. SENATE RACE: Poll: Reid loses full ballot test — Third-party, nonpartisan candidates have little impact — U.S. Sen. Harry Reid must pick up far more support from crossover Republicans and independents to win re-election, according to a new poll that shows him losing to the GOP front-runner …
Marcus Walker / Wall Street Journal:
Graft Feeds Greek Crisis — ATHENS—Behind the budget crisis roiling Greece lies a riddle: Why does the state spend so lavishly but collect taxes so poorly? Many Greeks say the answer needs only two words: fakelaki and rousfeti. — Fakelaki is the Greek for “little envelopes,” …
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Victor Zapanta / Think Progress:
Steve King Blows Up, Physically Grabs TP Blogger When Asked About His Justification Of IRS Attack — In February, a software engineer named Joseph Stack flew a small aircraft into an IRS building in Texas, killing two people and leaving another two hospitalized.
John P. Martin / Philly.com:
Lawyer: Laptops took thousands of images — The system that Lower Merion school officials used to track lost and stolen laptops wound up secretly capturing thousands of images, including photographs of students in their homes, Web sites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats …
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland
Norm Eisen / White House.gov Blog Feed:
President Obama and Vice President Biden's Tax Returns — Today, the President released his 2009 federal income and gift tax returns. He and the First Lady filed their income tax return jointly and reported an adjusted gross income of $ 5,505,409. The vast majority of the family's 2009 income …
Discussion:
Washington Post, The Caucus, Hot Air, Lynn Sweet, Vanity Fair, Clusterstock, OpenSecrets.org, POWIP, Politics Daily, The Atlantic Online, Wonkette, Washington Wire and TPM LiveWire
Carl Hulse / New York Times:
Recalling '95 Bombing, Clinton Sees Parallels — WASHINGTON — With the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing approaching, former President Bill Clinton on Thursday drew parallels between the antigovernment tone that preceded that devastating attack and the political tumult of today …
Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
Dobbs-Mania Explodes Over Manhattan — TPM's Versha Sharma was minding her own business walking down 8th Avenue when she stumbled upon a Manhattan Tea Party event featuring Lou Dobbs. — Versha reports in by iPhone: “Lou dobbs was just introduced as the brave man who left CNN when it got too liberal.
Associated Press:
Obama Sees Manned Missions to Mars — CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — President Barack Obama predicted Thursday his new space exploration plans would lead American astronauts to Mars and back in his lifetime, a bold forecast relying on rockets and propulsion still to be imagined and built.
Discussion:
msnbc.com, Newshoggers.com, Hot Air, Below The Beltway, New York Times, Mediaite and Associated Press
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William D. Cohan / Fortune:
Merrill Lynch's $50 billion feud … (Fortune) — For Stan O'Neal, late August 2007 was a period of great anxiety. The chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch was vacationing at his home on Martha's Vineyard and, as the world would later learn, playing a lot of golf.
CNN:
Massive fireball reported across Midwestern sky — (CNN) — Authorities in several Midwestern states were flooded Wednesday night with reports of a gigantic fireball lighting up the sky, the National Weather Service said. — The fireball was visible for about 15 minutes beginning about 10 p.m. …