Top Items:
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Schumer: Obama's ‘counter-productive’ Israel policy ‘has to stop’ — New York Senator Chuck Schumer harshly criticized the Obama Administration's attempts to exert pressure on Israel today, making him the highest-ranking Democrat to object to Obama's policies in such blunt terms.
Discussion:
Think Progress, NachumSegal.com, Commentary, The Washington Note, Scared Monkeys, Hot Air, The Corner on National …, The Note, CNN and Israel Matzav
Daniel Wagner / Associated Press:
SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed — WASHINGTON - Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were being paid to police the financial system, an agency watchdog says.
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Jonathan Karl / ABCNEWS:
SEC Officials Surfing Porn During Financial Crisis, Report Finds — SEC Employees Exposed Downloading, Uploading Pornography at Work — The Securities and Exchange Commission is the sheriff of the financial industry, looking for crimes such as Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme …
Jonathan Karl / ABCNEWS:
SEC Officials Surfed Porn, Ignored Fraud — Gov't Report Finds Securities and Exchange Commission Employees Surfing Pornographic Websites at Work — On a day when President Obama argued for more government regulation over the financial industry, a new government report reveals …
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Don't Cry for Wall Street — On Thursday, President Obama went to Manhattan, where he urged an audience drawn largely from Wall Street to back financial reform. “I believe,” he declared, “that these reforms are, in the end, not only in the best interest of our country, but in the best interest of the financial sector.”
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NBC Chicago:
Redactions Revealed: The Six Secrets You Need to Know From the Obama Subpoena Request — Former governor Rod Blagojevich's defense team asked Thursday to issue a trial subpoena to the President of the United States of America. — The motion, intended to be heavily redacted …
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Carol D. Leonnig / Washington Post:
Potential Supreme Court pick Garland could find foes on left — Unlike several other possible candidates to succeed retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Merrick B. Garland probably won't face conservative opposition. Instead, it could be liberals lining up against him.
Discussion:
DC Dicta
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Lee Fang / Think Progress:
VIDEO: Bank Lobbyists Huddle For Another Secret Meeting With GOP Senators — Earlier today, President Obama traveled to New York to tell the nation's most influential bankers to call off their “battalions of financial industry lobbyists” and embrace a new regulatory structure meant to avert another economic crisis.
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The Corner on National Review Online:
Liberty, Tyranny, and the Globe — By: NRO Staff — I don't know Jim Manzi, but given his out-of-nowhere rant, you'd think I ran over his dog or something. Feel free to read my book, and the chapter Manzi distorts and cherry-picks, yourself. You don't need Manzi to interpret it.
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Matt Corley / Think Progress:
Cheney: Telling Leahy to ‘f*ck’ himself was ‘sort of the best thing I ever did.’ — In 2004, then-Vice President Dick Cheney had a “frank exchange of views” with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on the Senate floor over Cheney's ties to Halliburton and President Bush's judicial nominees.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The Other McCain, Washington Post and Daily Kos
Fox News:
Franklin Graham Regrets Army's Decision to Rescind Invite to Pentagon Prayer Service — Evangelist Franklin Graham said Thursday that he regrets the Army's decision to rescind its invitation to him for the Pentagon's National Day of Prayer service on May 6, but expressed “strong support” for the U.S. military.
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Roland Watson / Times of London:
David Cameron edges second leaders' debate, according to Times poll — David Cameron scored a narrow victory over Nick Clegg in the second leaders' debate last night after an impassioned contest turned personal. — The Tory leader scraped a win — on 37 per cent to Mr Clegg's 36 per cent — according to a Populus poll for The Times.
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Joe Gandelman / The Moderate Voice:
Democrat “Outs” Another Democrat For Being Straight — If you've been looking for further proof that American politics is going thoroughly bonkers as partisans claw for increasingly personal labels to hurl at and discredit foes or those who don't agree — it's a lot easier doing …
US News:
Hoyer Sees Election Trouble for House Democrats — Nationally-recognized election prognosticator Charlie Cook isn't the only one who sees the majority for House Democrats slipping away. Today, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer agreed, but said that he and others will mount a strong campaign …
Timothy P. Carney / Washington Examiner:
Alcoa's loves green, but not the environment — Earth Day is no longer about planting a tree or learning about conservation as much as it's about lobbying for government policy. That's because, frankly, government policy is where the money is — as aluminum giant Alcoa made clear in its latest quarterly report.
Discussion:
Townhall.com
Susan Pulliam / Wall Street Journal:
Probe Turns to Buffett Deal — Government Suspects Goldman Director Told Galleon of Berkshire's 2008 Investment — A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. director tipped off a hedge-fund billionaire about a $5 billion investment in Goldman by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. before a public announcement …
Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Comedy Central censors all references to Mohammed on “South Park”; Update: Parker and Stone issue statement — As InstaGlenn says, this is actually the perfect ironic conclusion to the media's post-Tax Day binge of hyperventilating about tea party extremism.
Discussion:
ArtsBeat, Another Black Conservative, Instapundit, DaTechguy's Blog and The Other McCain
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Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar / Associated Press:
Report says health care will cover more, cost more — WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law is getting a mixed verdict in the first comprehensive look by neutral experts: More Americans will be covered, but costs are also going up. — Economic experts at the Health …
David Brooks / New York Times:
The Government War — In these columns I try to give voice to a philosophy you might call progressive conservatism. It starts with the wisdom of Edmund Burke — the belief that the world is more complex than we can know and we should be skeptical of handing too much power to government planners.
Ben Smith / Reuters:
Spitzer slated for red-carpet rebirth — The documentary's buzzy premiere is slated for the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend, and the publicists say the main character himself might show up — not some rock star or heiress, but Eliot Spitzer, the fallen former governor of New York.
Discussion:
Taegan Goddard's …