Top Items:
Sam Youngman / The Hill:
Obama blasts GOP leader's ‘ant’ comment as ‘out of touch’ — President Barack Obama has attacked House GOP Leader John Boehner for comparing the financial crisis to an ant. — Obama struck out at Boehner (R-Ohio) during a town hall meeting in Racine, Wis., for saying the Wall Street reform bill …
Discussion:
The White House, Wonkette, skippy the bush kangaroo, Althouse, Raw Story and Mother Jones
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Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Boehner and Cantor back efforts to repeal entirety of healthcare reform — The top two House Republicans signed onto two petitions to force votes to repeal Democrats' healthcare reform law in its entirety. — House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor …
Discussion:
Think Progress, CNN, The Politico, Wonk Room, RedState, Weasel Zippers and The Political Carnival
Jake Sherman / The Politico:
Scarborough: Boehner a bar hopper — MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said House Minority Leader John Boehner “is not a hard worker” and cuts out of the Capitol early for bar-hopping evenings in Washington. — On his “Morning Joe” show Wednesday morning, the former Florida Republican congressman described Boehner …
John / Power Line:
A Smoking Gun in the Kagan Case? — Shannen Coffin was a deputy attorney general during the Bush administration, and was charged with defending the federal partial-birth abortion act in court. At National Review, he writes that documents released by the Clinton White House show Elena Kagan's …
Discussion:
The Corner on National …, New Zeal, RedState, Cassy Fiano, theblogprof, The Other McCain, The Volokh Conspiracy, Wizbang, Gateway Pundit, Confederate Yankee, Human Events, Nice Deb, Pundit & Pundette, Liberty Pundits Blog, Riehl World View, Weasel Zippers, AmSpecBlog and Patterico's Pontifications
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Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Slick Elena? Kagan evades questions on abortion memo — Before the Senate Judiciary Committee a short time ago, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan appeared reluctant to admit that she wrote a 1996 Clinton White House memo aimed at altering a key medical group's opinion of whether partial birth abortion is medically necessary.
National Review:
Kagan's Abortion Distortion — When President Obama promised in his inaugural address to “restore science to its rightful place,” he never explained what that rightful place would be. Documents recently released in connection with the Supreme Court nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan suggest …
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Stabilizing the Debt By Doing Nothing — Here's a shocking chart from the Congressional Budget Office's latest long term budget outlook showing that unless Congress acts decisively, our debt situation will be totally fine: — See that line where the debt:GDP ratio is stable?
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Douglas Elmendorf / Director's Blog:
Long-Term Budget Outlook
Long-Term Budget Outlook
Discussion:
Politics Daily, Grasping Reality …, PERRspectives, The Foundry, Free exchange and Angry Bear
National Enquirer:
NEW EVIDENCE REVEALED: GORE SEX SCANDAL VICTIM TELLS ALL!!! — AL GORE SEX SCANDAL ACCUSER reveals shocking NEW EVIDENCE — ONLY to the NATIONAL ENQUIRER in a bombshell world exclusive interview! — “AL GORE is a pervert and sexual predator,” declares MOLLY HAGERTY, 54 …
Discussion:
JustOneMinute, Don Surber, Left Coast Rebel, Cold Fury, Say Anything, Big Journalism, The TrogloPundit, TalkLeft, JammieWearingFool and Riehl World View
Anjeanette Damon / Las Vegas Sun:
Sharron Angle retreats a bit, but mostly stands ground — Republican candidate for Senate gives first interview to mainstream medium — U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle breaks her silence toward the mainstream media Tuesday by talking to Jon Ralston on “Face to Face.” — 2 a.m.
Discussion:
Think Progress, msnbc.com, Washington Monthly, The Fix, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Page and NewsReal Blog
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Kathleen Parker / Washington Post:
Obama: Our first female president — If Bill Clinton was our first black president, as Toni Morrison once proclaimed, then Barack Obama may be our first woman president. — Phew. That was fun. Now, if you'll just keep those hatchets holstered and hear me out. — No, I'm not calling Obama a girlie president.
Discussion:
Taylor Marsh, Mediaite, Right Wing News, Prairie Weather, Indecision Forever and Shakesville
Michael Gerson / Washington Post:
The Ugly Party vs. the Grown-Up Party — My political friendships and sympathies are increasingly determined not by ideology but by methodology. One of the most significant divisions in American public life is not between the Democrats and the Republicans; it is between the Ugly Party and the Grown-Up Party.
New York Times:
In U.S. Bailout of A.I.G., Forgiveness for Big Banks — Federal regulators ignored recommendations to force banks that did business with A.I.G. to accept losses.
David Leonhardt / New York Times:
Economic Scene: Betting That Cutting Spending Won't Derail Recovery — The world's rich countries are now conducting a dangerous experiment. They are repeating an economic policy out of the 1930s — starting to cut spending and raise taxes before a recovery is assured …
Allan H. Meltzer / Wall Street Journal:
Why Obamanomics Has Failed — Uncertainty about future taxes and regulations is enemy No. 1 of economic growth. — The administration's stimulus program has failed. Growth is slow and unemployment remains high. The president, his friends and advisers talk endlessly about the circumstances …
Gabriel Sherman / The New Republic:
After The Fall — John Edwards parties on. — five days before John Edwards's mistress Rielle Hunter sat down with Oprah to talk about the by-then-infamous sex tape and other embarrassments that had destroyed his political career, the former presidential candidate showed up at the West End Wine Bar …
Discussion:
Taegan Goddard's …
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Dan Savage / The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper:
Doctor Treating Pregnant Women With Experimental Drug To Prevent Lesbianism — That's not fair, as Hanna Rosin at Slate will shortly point out. Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New—of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University—isn't just trying to prevent lesbianism …
kff.org:
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — June 2010 — The start of summer finds Americans remain divided on the health reform law, but favorable views of the new law increased seven percentage points over the past month to 48 percent, compared to 41 percent who have “generally unfavorable” …
Josh Gerstein / The Politico:
Kagan's half-answer on eat-your-veggies law — Republicans are pouncing on the less-than-crystal-clear answer Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan gave late in Tuesday's confirmation hearing to a question from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) about whether the government has the right to micromanage Americans' diets.
Joe Klein / Swampland:
Vacation Interruptus — Sorry, but I can't let this pass. Glenn Greenwald has been conducting one of his patented vile, intellectually dishonest jihads against the Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg and he has now truly gone berserk. I should say that Jeff is a friend of mine, one with whom I sometimes disagree …
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
New Expectations Estimates From the Cleveland Fed — The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland has put together some interesting new data on market expectations, including the following model of 10-year inflation expectations: — As you can see, it makes sense for policymakers to be more worried …
Discussion:
The Cleveland Fed
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Biden Claims Republican Party is Being Sensible — Some interesting remarks from Vice President Joe Biden: … I have no idea whether or not this is true (the RNC's communications director seems to have issues a not-quite-denial) but what I find striking about it is what a sensible notion …
Sen. Russ Feingold / The Huffington Post:
Standing Up to the Unholy Alliance Between Washington and Wall Street — Wall Street and its allies have been calling the shots in Congress for decades, so they must be glad to see how things are shaping up on financial regulatory reform. Congress is about to vote on a final bill that fails …
Jake Sherman / The Politico:
Oil spill visits get partisan — Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) wanted to fly 10 lawmakers down to the Gulf of Mexico to see the damage caused by BP's gigantic oil spill first hand. — House Democrats said no. — Scalise's trip was rejected for a variety of bureaucratic and logistical reasons …
CNN:
White House to let McChrystal retire with 4 stars — Washington (CNN) — President Barack Obama has agreed to waive a Pentagon rule and let outgoing Gen. Stanley McChrystal retire at his full four-star rank, a White House spokesman said Tuesday — While the general is short of the time needed …
Discussion:
Reuters, Democracy in America, Politics Daily, The Daily Beast, New York Magazine, Truthdig and The Hill
Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:
Son of Hamas on Fox News, Trial Starts Today — Fox News last night did a spot on Mosab Hassan Yousef: — As the video explains, Yousef was an Israeli agent embedded in the terrorist group Hamas — and his father was a founding member and high ranking official in Hamas.
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Gay soldiers subpoena Obama — The gay soldiers arrested outside the White House protesting “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” will annouce today that they're demanding that President Obama testify in their trial on minor civil disobedience charges. — Their novel argument: Obama himself called …