Top Items:
James Fallows / The Atlantic Online:
‘Have You No Sense of Decency?’ The Wm. Cronon Story — BEIJING, China. I don't mean to keep butting in and have just a minute to type this out, but I think it's important to direct attention to a new abuse of power underway in Wisconsin. — William Cronon (right), whom I know very slightly …
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Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
My Worlds Collide — This is a bizarre, ugly turn of events. And for me it's a little weird because of the people involved. I just found out about it from TPM Reader AS. — Bill Cronon — or William Cronon, as I think of him — is a Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Weigel, Firedoglake, The Volokh Conspiracy, Grim's Hall, Scholar as Citizen, Washington Post, TPMDC, Paul Krugman and ACS Blog
Bill / Scholar as Citizen:
Abusing Open Records to Attack Academic Freedom
Abusing Open Records to Attack Academic Freedom
Discussion:
TPMDC, Althouse, Crooked Timber, Boing Boing, Outside the Beltway and AMERICAblog News
Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:
Huckabee Has Slight Edge, Palin Down, in GOP '12 Preferences — Romney, Palin would tie if Huckabee does not run — PRINCETON, NJ — Mike Huckabee tops a large list of potential GOP presidential candidates in current support for the party's 2012 nomination, with 19% of Republicans saying they are most likely to back him.
Discussion:
TPMDC, Hot Air, USA Today, CNN, Ballot Box, The Moderate Voice, Yglesias and HotAirPundit
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Sam Roecker / Iowa Democratic Party:
Grassley on the GOP Field: “Only two or three of them are qualified to be president”
Grassley on the GOP Field: “Only two or three of them are qualified to be president”
Discussion:
The Hill, Slate, Outside the Beltway and The Daily Beast
Kyodo News:
Fresh coolant injected, high-radiation water leaks in nuke crisis — Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday it has begun injecting freshwater into the No. 1 and No. 3 reactor cores at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to enhance cooling efficiency, although highly radioactive water …
Discussion:
National Review and Clusterstock
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Adam Serwer / American Prospect:
Does Pawlenty Have a Sharia Problem? — Pawlenty's effort to expand Muslim homeownership could hurt him in the GOP primary. — Abid Lakhani wanted to buy a home. — Unfortunately, as an observant Muslim, his options were limited. Many Muslims hold that the paying or charging of interest …
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, Yglesias, Washington Post, Sky Dancing, Swampland, No More Mister Nice Blog and Weasel Zippers
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Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Pawlenty shut down Islam-friendly mortgage program — Adam Serwer wrote today about a Minnesota program that offered mortgages compliant with Islamic law, structured to avoid interest payments. The program was a response to then-Governor Tim Pawlenty's push to increase minority home-ownership …
Discussion:
Wonkette
Sarah Palin / Facebook:
Lamestream Media: Reload or White Flag? — “Let's keep pivoting around media bias, and not get distracted with the vulgar personal shots. Call out lies and set the record straight, but always keep the ball moving. No one ever won a game only playing defense.”
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The Daily Dish, GOP 12, Mediaite, Outside the Beltway, Big Journalism, Wonkette and The Gateway Pundit
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Shane D'Aprile / Ballot Box:
Sarah Palin hits back at ‘annoying little mosquito’ Bill Maher
Sarah Palin hits back at ‘annoying little mosquito’ Bill Maher
Discussion:
iOwnTheWorld.com and Weasel Zippers
David Kocieniewski / New York Times:
G.E.'s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether — General Electric, the nation's largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010. — The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. — Its American tax bill?
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, ThinkProgress, The Foundry, Wonkette, Clusterstock, The Gateway Pundit, Outside the Beltway, Daily Loaf, The Reaction, nancynall.com, No More Mister Nice Blog, Hot Air, Oliver Willis, naked capitalism, The Big Picture, This Just In, LewRockwell.com Blog, National Review, Weasel Zippers, The Lonely Conservative, Shakesville and Philly.com
Pete Kasperowicz / The Hill:
CBO: Taxing mileage a ‘practical option’ for revenue enhancement — The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs …
CBC News:
Election looms as government falls — Beginning of Story Content — It's official — the government has fallen from power, clearing the way for a spring election. — The opposition Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois came together Friday afternoon in a historic vote …
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice
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Reuters:
Canadian government falls, election set for May
Canadian government falls, election set for May
Discussion:
Yglesias, Globe and Mail and FP Passport
Charles Krauthammer / Orange County Register:
The professor's war … President Obama is proud of how he put together the Libyan operation. A model of international cooperation. All the necessary paperwork. Arab League backing. A Security Council resolution. (Everything but a resolution from the Congress of the United States …
Discussion:
Fausta's Blog, protein wisdom and Betsy's Page
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Steven Hayward / Power Line:
The Libya Farce Goes to 11
The Libya Farce Goes to 11
Discussion:
The Politico, Reuters, Hot Air, Pundit & Pundette and National Review
Adam C. Smith / St. Petersburg Times:
Connie Mack will NOT run for U.S. Senate — U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV won't run for U.S. Senate. — “I've got two small children and it's hard enough to get to spend a lot of good quality time now. I have a wife. They are all very important to me and at the end of the day family has to be number one …
Discussion:
The Politico, CNN, Swing State Project, Washington Post, Ballot Box, The Caucus, Crowley Political Report, Hotline On Call and TPMDC
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
The Austerity Delusion — Portugal's government has just fallen in a dispute over austerity proposals. Irish bond yields have topped 10 percent for the first time. And the British government has just marked its economic forecast down and its deficit forecast up. — What do these events have in common?
Discussion:
Prairie Weather, Sky Dancing and Clusterstock
Alex Seitz-Wald / ThinkProgress:
Woops, Newt Did It Again: Trying To Defend Libya Flip-Flop, Gingrich Reverses Himself On Air Power — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich went on Fox News last night to “attempt[] to clarify [his] stance on Libya,” as Fox itself put it, but only ran into more trouble.
Discussion:
Indecision Forever, The Note, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The Impolitic, The Daily Beast, Blogcritics, Daily Kos and Yglesias
Washington Post:
Number of black D.C. residents plummets as majority status slips away — Graphic: View how demographics in your neighborhood have changed over time. — The number of African Americans residing in the District plummeted by more than 11 percent during the past decade, with blacks on the verge …
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online, Yglesias, National Review, Weigel and Political Insider
New York Times:
Allies Are Split on Goal and Exit Strategy in Libya — WASHINGTON — Having largely succeeded in stopping a rout of Libya's rebels, the inchoate coalition attacking Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's forces remains divided over the ultimate goal — and exit strategy — of what officials acknowledged Thursday …
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
Against The F-Word — During a debate over neoconservatism, Damon Linker insists that the ideology isn't fascistic: … Agreed (but one needs to recall Leo Strauss's early love affair with Mussolini and his contempt for what he saw as decadent liberal democracy).
Discussion:
Prairie Weather
John Amato / Crooks and Liars:
Arizona Sheriff Arpaio and Steven Seagal send in the tanks to bust up chickens — America has gone crazy! Well, Arizona certainly leads the way to bizzaro land with the actions of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And is there such a thing as Action Star Steven Seagal anymore?
Discussion:
The Impolitic and Mediaite
Michael Slackman / New York Times:
Islamist Group Is Rising Force in a New Egypt — CAIRO — In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals.
Charles Forelle / Wall Street Journal:
A Nation of Dropouts Shakes Europe — LISBON—Isabel Fernandes, a cheery 22-year-old with a constellation of stars tattooed around her right eye, isn't sure how many times she repeated fifth grade. Two, she says with a laugh. Or maybe three. She redid seventh grade as well.
Discussion:
Economix
Jeffrey Goldberg / The Atlantic Online:
And While We're on the Subject of Reuters... This is from a just-released Reuters news analysis of President Obama's alleged travails: … This, of course, is wildly inaccurate and misleading. Say what you will about the second Iraq war, but George W. Bush made partnerships with many nations …
Discussion:
NewsBusters.org blogs, Reuters, The Gateway Pundit, RedState and PoliPundit.com
Wall Street Journal:
The Speech Obama Hasn't Given — What are we doing in Libya? Americans deserve an explanation. — It all seems rather mad, doesn't it? The decision to become involved militarily in the Libyan civil war couldn't take place within a less hospitable context.
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Pajamas Media, Don Surber and Betsy's Page
Sam Youngman / The Hill:
Obama tries to bring Congress in on Libya, will speak publicly — After days of intense criticism for not effectively communicating his goals in Libya, President Obama reached out to lawmakers by conference call Friday to “update” them on the operations and will speak publicly about the mission soon.
Discussion:
CNN
New York Times:
F.B.I. Memorandum — Below is the text of an unsigned, internal F.B.I. memorandum, obtained by The New York Times, that provides guidance to agents about when, in the course of interrogating a terrorism suspect, they should advise the suspect of his so-called Miranda rights to remain silent …
Discussion:
The Volokh Conspiracy, TalkLeft and Wall Street Journal
James Joyner / Outside the Beltway:
Ford Stops Making Black Vehicles (Briefly) — Natural disasters in Japan have lessened the supply of pigments necessary to make black paint. — WSJ ("Reverse Model T: Some Fords Won't Be Painted Black"): … The DC area will be particularly hard hit, as being in a large …
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online