Top Items:
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
EXCLUSIVE: White House asked Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about Senate run — Senior White House advisers asked former President Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about whether he was serious about running for Senate, and to feel out whether he'd be open to other alternatives, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars, Townhall.com, Maggie Haberman's Blog, Row 2, Seat 4, The Volokh Conspiracy, RedState, Top of the Ticket, Don Surber, Taylor Marsh, Wizbang, msnbc.com, Liberty Pundits Blog, Right Now, Hullabaloo, Ben Smith's Blog, NO QUARTER, Swampland, MyFox Philadelphia, The Corner on National …, Mother Jones, Flopping Aces, The Washington Independent, Balloon Juice, Verum Serum, Mediaite, The Eye and Washington Post
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Peter Baker / The Caucus:
White House Used Bill Clinton to Ask Sestak to Drop Out of Race — President Obama's chief of staff used former President Bill Clinton as an intermediary to see if Representative Joe Sestak would drop out of a Senate primary if given a prominent, but unpaid, advisory position, people briefed on the matter said Friday.
Paul Kane / Washington Post:
Sestak says his brother, White House met about alleged job offer — Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) said Thursday his brother has spoken with White House officials about the congressman's allegation that he was offered an Obama administration job if he would stay out of a Democratic Senate primary.
Discussion:
Commentary, Roll Call, Michelle Malkin, American Spectator, The Fix, Left Coast Rebel, JOSHUAPUNDIT, JustOneMinute, YID With LID, Right Now, Associated Press, Top of the Ticket, Liberty Pundits Blog, The New Republic, The Daily Caller, Political Punch, The Plum Line, Pundit & Pundette, Hot Air, USS Neverdock, FrumForum and NewsBusters.org
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Online:
Here's The Sestak Memo From The White House — Basically: the notion that the White House offered Rep. Joe Sestak the job of Secretary of the Navy is false. The President had already nominated Ray Mabus for the job BEFORE Arlen Specter switched parties. — The White House …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, Weekly Standard, OpenSecrets.org, PointOfLaw Forum, Right Now and Outside the Beltway
The Huffington Post:
White House Asked Bill Clinton To Talk To Joe Sestak About Senate Run — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? — Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Penn.) was offered a prominent but uncompensated, advisory position — in the national security/foreign policy area — if he declined to enter the Pennsylvania Senate primary race …
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
The Silence of the Sestak: The Big Me involved? ; Update: WH memo released; Update: Sestak corroborates — With the political world holding its breath for the Friday-afternoon document dump containing the Obama White House response to the Joe Sestak scandal, Greg Sargent gets a sneak peek at the possible defense.
Discussion:
The Strata-Sphere, NewsBusters.org, Weasel Zippers, Washington Post, Scared Monkeys, The Plum Line and Michelle Malkin
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
IS IMPEACHMENT ON THE TABLE FOR THE GOP?.... It's too soon to know if Republicans will re-take the House majority, but it's probably a good time to consider the consequences of a GOP majority. The obvious outcome is gridlock, with Republicans passing right-wing legislation …
Wall Street Journal:
He Was Supposed to Be Competent — The spill is a disaster for the president and his political philosophy. — I don't see how the president's position and popularity can survive the oil spill. This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office.
Discussion:
Firedoglake, No More Mister Nice Blog, JOSHUAPUNDIT, The Anchoress, Eunomia, Hot Air, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, Confederate Yankee, Jules Crittenden, USS Neverdock, Pajamas Media, Liberty Pundits Blog, JustOneMinute, The Moderate Voice, Think Progress, New York Times and The Atlantic Online
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Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
Noonan Unhinged — An incoherent tangle of prejudices and feelings wrapped up in hyperbole is the best Peggy Noonan can now muster. How else to describe this morning's column? It heralds nothing less than the end of the Obama presidency just a year and a half in: … Seriously? Her evidence for this?
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice
Laura Myers / Las Vegas Review-Journal:
OPINION POLL: U.S. SENATE RACE: Survey shows Lowden gives GOP best chance of winning in fall — Lowden would attract more independent voters than Reid — Republican Sue Lowden has the best chance of defeating U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, according to a new poll for the Review-Journal that also suggests …
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Erick Erickson / RedState:
Naming Names — Without a guilty plea for beating a woman, but with a Devil May Care attitude, RedState.com's fearless editor, Erick Erickson, endeavoring to write about himself in the third person, though omniscient or limited is still up for grabs, will now proceed to dish out the dough …
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Yvonne Wenger / postandcourier.com:
Folks' data shows 600 Haley calls
Folks' data shows 600 Haley calls
Discussion:
Charleston City Paper, Talking Points Memo, TPMMuckraker, TPMDC, Erick's blog, New York Magazine and RedState
Jillian Rayfield / TPM LiveWire:
Rand Paul Suggests Children Of Illegal Immigrants Should Not Be U.S. Citizens (VIDEO) — Here's another one for the list of out-there Rand Paul statements... Paul recently suggested to a Russian TV station that the U.S. should abandon its policy of granting citizenship to the children …
Discussion:
Left Coast Rebel, Washington Monthly, BuzzFlash.org, No More Mister Nice Blog, TPMDC and Daily Kos
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William A. Jacobson / Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion:
The Atlantic Has A Mess On Its Hands — The Atlantic Magazine thought it would be able to speak poetic historical justice, by splashing the headline that the original reviled one, Kenneth Starr of Monica and Bill and Blue Dress and Impeachment fame, had been arrested for running a Ponzi Scheme.
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway, Rough Sketch, Pajamas Media, Althouse, FT Alphaville and JammieWearingFool
New York Times:
Oil Flow Is Stemmed, but Could Resume, Official Says — HOUSTON — By injecting solid objects as well as heavy drilling fluid into the stricken well leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico overnight, engineers appeared to have stemmed the flow of oil, Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard …
Discussion:
TalkLeft, Grist, Daily Kos, Washington Monthly, Climate Progress, Dot Earth and The Daily Beast
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
A disaster with many fathers — Here's my question: Why were we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place? — Many reasons, but this one goes unmentioned: Environmental chic has driven us out there. As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep …
msnbc.com:
U.S. official: Flow of oil from spill has stopped — But BP says it will be 48 hours before success of ‘top kill’ will be known — WASHINGTON - BP kept pumping heavy mud into its blown-out well beneath the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, but the company's chief executive cautioned …
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Daniel Lamothe / Battle Rattle:
Marine's cheeky Sarah Palin tattoo the butt of jokes — Gunnery Sgt. Benjamin Lepping, an explosive ordnance disposal technician currently deployed to Afghanistan, says former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is “the hottest cougar in the Republican Party.” (Left photo by the AP.
New York Times:
House Votes to Allow 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repeal — WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as “don't ask, don't tell.”
Discussion:
CNN, Hot Air, The Politico, Wonk Room, Ben Smith's Blog, Democracy in America, PostPartisan, The Swamp, Cassy Fiano, Washington Monthly, The Daily Dish, Shakesville, Washington Post, Towleroad News #gay, Human Rights Campaign, The Political Carnival, AmSpecBlog, MyDD, Outside the Beltway, The Hill, Liberty Central, Taylor Marsh, Mediaite, The Note, TPMDC, Joe. My. God., TalkLeft, FrumForum, The Volokh Conspiracy and Weekly Standard
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Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
The Chinese Economic Model — Something that emerges quite quickly and a bit unexpectedly from being taken around on an economics-focused tour of China is that the Chinese economic miracle is really a great deal less of a “free market” miracle than the conventional understanding in the United States would suggest.
Discussion:
Ezra Klein
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Online:
Friday Thought: Has The Tea Party Done Anything For The GOP? — With the exception of Scott Brown's miraculous Senate race victory in Massachusetts — and even there, one can question the premise — has the Tea Party movement really done anything to help the Republican Party this cycle?
Discussion:
Washington Monthly
Molly K. Hooper / The Hill:
GOP moves to repeal healthcare law — House Republican leaders introduced a bill Thursday to repeal and replace the sweeping healthcare law adopted in late March. — According to Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the measure would repeal the current law and replace it with the alternative …