Top Items:
The Politico:
The GOP's special failure — All the evidence pointing to monster Republican House gains this fall—the Scott Brown upset win in Massachusetts, the scary polling numbers in once-safely Democratic districts, the ever-rising number of Democratic seats thought to be in jeopardy—was contradicted Tuesday.
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Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
‘WHERE IS THE WAVE?’.... Arguably the most important election yesterday wasn't a primary race, but rather, the congressional special election in Pennsylvania's 12th — a contest to fill the vacancy left by the late Rep. Jack Murtha (D). — Observers in both parties considered the race something of a bellwether.
Discussion:
American Thinker, Hot Air, American Power, The Impolitic, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, CBS News, Discourse.net, The Note and Eschaton
New York Times:
Specter Defeat Signals a Wave Against Incumbents — WASHINGTON — Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who left the Republican Party a year ago in hopes of salvaging a 30-year career, was rejected on Tuesday by Democratic primary voters, with Representative Joe Sestak winning the party's nomination …
Discussion:
The Caucus, Felix Salmon, Time, The Faster Times, Boston Globe, The Note, Kentucky Politics, Politics Daily, Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, Washington Post, Associated Press, pa2010.com, Philly.com, Newsweek Blogs, Wall Street Journal, Left Coast Rebel, The Fix, The Politico, The BLT, DISSENTING JUSTICE, Main Justice, msnbc.com, Slate, Breitbart.tv, Outside The Beltway, Firedoglake, Plain Dealer, No More Mister Nice Blog, FrumForum, Bloggasm, ABCNEWS and BBC
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Resultsblogging II: PA-12 — Former John Murtha staffer Mark Critz's win in the PA-12 House election is just straight-up embarrassing for Republicans. The Democratic strategy was straight out of the 2006/2008 playbook. Find a moderately conservative House district and run a somewhat heterodox Democrat.
Reuters:
Activists seize control of politics — For any politician with the usual instincts for self-protection, the lessons of Tuesday's primaries could not be more clear: This could happen to you. — Arlen Specter lost in Pennsylvania even though the party-switching Democrat was recruited and backed by a sitting president.
Discussion:
The Swamp, Guardian, Washington Post, The Politico, Commentary, Associated Press and Taegan Goddard's …
Thomas M. Defrank / NY Daily News:
Sen. Arlen Specter's primary loss continues bad 2010 for President Obama, Democrats
Sen. Arlen Specter's primary loss continues bad 2010 for President Obama, Democrats
Discussion:
Washington Monthly
Robert Stacy McCain / The Other McCain:
PA-12 LIVE Election Results; UPDATE: Democrat Wins; Burns Concedes
PA-12 LIVE Election Results; UPDATE: Democrat Wins; Burns Concedes
Discussion:
National Review, Right Now, Big Government, Gateway Pundit, alicublog, Conservatives4Palin.com and American Spectator
Alexander Burns / The Politico:
Sestak, Paul score wins as Lincoln faces runoff — Upstart Senate candidates claimed two stunning victories in primary elections Tuesday night as Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak denied incumbent Democrat Arlen Specter renomination to a sixth term and Kentucky insurgent Rand Paul easily bested …
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Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Online:
Is Rand Ron's Son? Or the Most Powerful Republican in the Woooorld? — Rand Paul is in the spotlight tonight. He's enjoying Scott Brown-like status as the Most Powerful Republican In The World. And look: he says he represents the Tea Party movement. So that must be the end of it, right?
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
What Tuesday Really Meant — There were five races that we were tracking closely over the course of the evening — and I've already seen analysts drawing flimsy conclusions from each of them. — Pennsylvania — Democratic Senate primary — The results: Joe Sestak defeats Arlen Specter, 54-46.
Washington Post:
Sen. Arlen Specter loses Pennsylvania primary; Rand Paul wins in Kentucky
Sen. Arlen Specter loses Pennsylvania primary; Rand Paul wins in Kentucky
Discussion:
msnbc.com, Ezra Klein, PostPartisan, Washington Monthly, The Hill, What's New, The Plum Line, USA Today, Courier-Journal, The Faster Times and Wall Street Journal
Katharine Q. Seelye / New York Times:
After 30 Years and Party Switch, Career Curtain for Specter
After 30 Years and Party Switch, Career Curtain for Specter
Discussion:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
New York Times:
Blumenthal's Vietnam Claims Grew in Time, Colleague Says — Former Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut found it puzzling: over time, his friend Attorney General Richard Blumenthal kept revising how he talked about his military service during the Vietnam War. At first, in the 1980s, he was humble.
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Larry Pressler / New York Times:
The Technicality Generation
The Technicality Generation
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, Questions and Observations, Newsweek Blogs, Vox Popoli, The Daily Beast and NPR
Jim Oliphant / The Swamp:
Elena Kagan: Money in the bank? — White House staffers deliver Elena Kagan's questionnaire responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday. (AP/Harry Hamburg) — by David G. Savage — Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan says she has $1.76 million in assets …
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Jane Horwitz / Washington Post:
Theater J pulls Madoff play after objections from activist Elie Wiesel — Bowing to objections from Elie Wiesel, the author, human rights activist and Holocaust survivor, Theater J has canceled its first production of the coming season — a play in which Wiesel is a character.
Alex Rodriguez / Los Angeles Times:
Pakistan arrests army officer linked to Times Square bomb suspect — The major's involvement with Faisal Shahzad remains unclear, but authorities say the two met in Islamabad and were in cellphone contact. — Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan — Investigators have arrested …
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Patrick Gavin / The Politico:
HOUSE PASSES BEER RESOLUTION — While most of Washington was focused on Tuesday's election results, the House was busy doing something else: Passing a resolution about beer. — House Resolution 1297, sponsored by Rep. Betsy Markey, supports “the goals and ideals of American Craft Beer Week.”
Chris Bowers / Open Left:
Crotchety Progressive Rant — I am outraged by this, because this is outrageous. — And yet, where are the street protests in response to this outrage? No, not those protests—we need bigger ones. There should be hundreds of thousands of people out there protesting this. Every day.
Bloomberg:
Conspiracy of Banks Rigging States Came With Crash — A telephone call between a financial adviser in Beverly Hills and a trader in New York was all it took to fleece taxpayers on a water-and-sewer financing deal in West Virginia. The secret conversation was part of a conspiracy stretching across …
Discussion:
naked capitalism, Booman Tribune, Balloon Juice, Clusterstock, The Glittering Eye, Suburban Guerrilla and DealBook
Michael Barone / Beltway Confidential:
Republican lesson from Pennsylvania 12 special — In Pennsylvania 12, so far the state shows 77,410 votes cast in the Democratic primary for Congress and 43,614 in the Republican primary—43% of them for 2008 Republican nominee William Russell, who pointedly did not endorse special election Republican candidate Tim Burns.
Nick Gillespie / Hit & Run:
Why We're Having an Everybody Draw Mohammed Contest on Thursday May 20 — The deadline for submitting work to Reason's Everybody Draw Mohammed contest has passed; winners will be shown on Thursday, May 20. — All that remains is anticipation, both of the artwork that will be displayed …
Discussion:
Balloon Juice
Ben Raines / Breaking News from the Press-Register:
BP told feds it could handle oil spill 60 times larger than Deepwater Horizon … In its 2009 exploration plan for the Deepwater Horizon well, BP PLC states that the company could handle a spill involving as much as 12.6 million gallons of oil per day, a number 60 times higher than its current estimate of the ongoing Gulf disaster.
Reuters:
Obama rebukes Republicans for trying to block him — (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday accused Republicans of trying to score political points by attempting to block his economic policies but insisted that his agenda was working. — With public anxiety over high unemployment …
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