memeorandum: Justice Lawyers Cleared in Voting Case (Charlie Savage/The Caucus)

2:38 AM ET, March 30, 2011

Top Items:

Jennifer Steinhauer / The Caucus:

On a Senate Call, a Glimpse of Marching Orders — Um, Senators, ever heard of the mute button? — Moments before a conference call with reporters was scheduled to get underway on Tuesday morning, apparently unaware that many of the reporters were already on the line, Charles Schumer of New York …

Susan Ferrechio / Washington Examiner:

BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL — Schumer coordinates Dem budget attack on GOP — Chief Congressional Correspondent Follow Us @Examinerpolitic — Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Democratic Senate leadership, got on a conference call with reporters Tuesday morning without realizing the reporters were already listening in.

Discussion: protein wisdom, Wizbang, The Lonely Conservative, Pajamas Media and Doug Ross

The Hill:

Cantor says, ‘Time is up’ to reach a spending deal for fiscal year 2011 — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on Tuesday ruled out another short-term measure to fund the government, raising pressure on both parties to reach a deal to avert a government shutdown after April 8.

Discussion: The Hill, Washington Post and FrumForum

David Rogers / The Politico:
Eric Cantor balks at short-term budget deal

Discussion: The Hill, The Page, Daily Kos, CNN and msnbc.com

JSOnline:

Judge again blocks GOP collective-bargaining plan — But Van Hollen assistant says law is in effect — By Patrick Marley, Bill Glauber and Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel — Madison - For the second time in less than two weeks, a Dane County judge Tuesday issued an order blocking …

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, Firedoglake, Hot Air, The Hill, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Balloon Juice, The Volokh Conspiracy, FREEDOM EDEN, HotAirPundit and Althouse

Eric Kleefeld / TPMDC:

Judge Blocks Wisconsin Anti-Union Law (Again) — Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi has just blocked — again — Gov. Scott Walker's (R-WI) new law curtailing public employee unions, after the state Republican leadership moved last Friday to circumvent her previous order that blocked the law on procedural grounds.

Discussion: The Nation, WisPolitics Budget Blog, Balloon Juice and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Marco Rubio / Wall Street Journal:

Why I Won't Vote to Raise the Debt Limit — Everyone in Washington knows how to cut spending. The time to start is now. — Americans have built the single greatest nation in all of human history. But America's exceptionalism was not preordained. Every generation has had to confront …

Discussion: Another Black Conservative, CNN and National Review

Eric Hananoki / Media Matters for America:

CRUISE SHIP CONFESSION: Top Fox News Executive Admits Lying On-Air About Obama — In newly uncovered audio, a Fox News executive boasts that he lied repeatedly during the closing days of the 2008 presidential campaign when he speculated on-air “about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism.”

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, The TrogloPundit, The Other McCain, Little Green Footballs, The Raw Story, Veracity Stew, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, CNN, Washington Monthly, Big Journalism, Mother Jones, National Review, The Agonist and ThinkProgress

Allahpundit / Hot Air:

Maher on Palin and Bachmann: I'm sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings, but no, I wasn't wrong — This may be the first time that this particular permutation of “apology” has been offered for dropping a C-bomb on someone. A forthright apology would be one thing, a “sorry if you were offended” …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, iOwnTheWorld.com, Mediaite, The Daily Caller and Moe Lane

George Zornick / ThinkProgress:

Sarah Palin Exaggerates Cost of Libya Intervention By 700% — Last night on Fox News, Greta van Susteren hosted former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) to discuss what Palin termed the “squirmish” in Libya. True to form, the former governor was reckless with basic facts and casually septupled the cost of U.S. intervention.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Democracy in America, The Moderate Voice, Political Correction RSS, Little Green Footballs, Prairie Weather, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Taylor Marsh, George's Bottom Line, The Jawa Report and Outside the Beltway

Karoli / Crooks and Liars:
Sarah Palin Wonders Aloud if Libya Action is a “Squirmish”

Discussion: Wonkette, The Moderate Voice, Little Green Footballs and Salon

The Note:

Take Two: Donald Trump Releases Official Birth Certificate — ABC News Michael Falcone reports: — Donald Trump learned the hard way this week that if you're going to call on the president to release his official birth certificate, you'd better do the same.

Discussion: Another Black Conservative, Mediaite, Top of the Ticket, Right Pundits, CNN, The Politico, Iowa Independent, Washington Post and The Wire

Ian Sample / Guardian:

Japan ‘has lost race’ to halt meltdown — Fukushima meltdown fears rise after radioactive core melts through vessel - but ‘no danger of Chernobyl-style catastrophe’ — • In pictures: Fukushima nuclear emergency - week three — • Interactive: Japan earthquake: Ian Sample on efforts to contain the nuclear accident

Discussion: Climate Progress

Frank Newport / Gallup:

Huckabee Continues to Lead in GOP Positive Intensity Tracking — Little-known Herman Cain generates strong enthusiasm among those who recognize him — PRINCETON, NJ — Mike Huckabee continues to generate the strongest favorable reactions from Republicans who recognize him, with a Positive Intensity Score of 26.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, GOP 12 and The Daily Caller

Alex Seitz-Wald / ThinkProgress:
Pawlenty: ‘Every One Of Us’ Running For President Has Flip-Flopped On Climate Change

Discussion: msnbc.com, Mother Jones and Climate Progress

Ross Douthat:

Not All Choices Are False — One of President Obama's recurrent rhetorical tropes during the 2008 campaign was the “false choice” maneuver, in which he would distance himself from straw men of the left and right to better sell himself as a post-partisan figure.

Discussion: FrumForum, The Caucus and Democracy in America

Erica Hill / CBS News:
Obama: Qaddafi regime's “days are numbered”

Discussion: Hot Air, Weasel Zippers and msnbc.com

Tom Tomorrow / This Modern World:

Tom Tomorrow: — A period of transition — I don't really remember the exact date, but at some point in late 1994 or early 1995, I met my editor from the SF Examiner, David Talbot, for lunch at the Rincon Center food court in San Francisco. Over some cheap take-out …

Discussion: Daily Kos and Hullabaloo

Dallas Voice:

Bill Maher at the Winspear on Sunday night: 'Your new theater isn't gonna be clean for long' — I've seen Kathy Griffin perform live, and Joan Rivers and Lisa Lampanelli and Chris Rock — and they are all hilarious and edgy and daring comics who say outrageous things and go places that scare …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Mediaite, The Wire, Shakesville, Maggie's Notebook, Snark And Boobs, alicublog, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, NewsBusters.org blogs, Pirate's Cove, Conservatives4Palin, Weasel Zippers and Oliver Willis

Jim Treacher / The Daily Caller:
...how much overtime would the drones at Media Matters rack up?

Discussion: Brutally Honest, The Underground Conservative, The New Editor and Weasel Zippers

Charlie Savage / The Caucus:

Justice Lawyers Cleared in Voting Case — The Justice Department's internal ethics watchdog on Tuesday told Congress that it had cleared all department lawyers of wrongdoing in relation to a much-disputed voter-intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party, a black-nationalist fringe group.

Discussion: Pajamas Media, Left Coast Rebel and JammieWearingFool

Marc Lynch / Foreign Policy:

Why Obama had to act in Libya — “We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi - a city nearly the size of Charlotte - could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world. It was not in our national interest to let that happen.

Discussion: Eunomia, democracyarsenal.org and The Daily Dish

Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:

Scott incredibly unpopular — You could say Rick Scott's honeymoon is over...but that would suggest he had one in the first place. A December PPP poll shortly before Scott took office found that only 33% of Florida voters had a favorable opinion of their new Governor to 43% who viewed him negatively.

Discussion: Daily Kos, The Lonely Conservative, Washington Monthly, Orlando Sentinel and Oliver Willis

David Weigel / Weigel: Poll: Rick Scott Joins the Ranks of the New Republican Governors Who've Torqued Everybody Off

Meredith Shiner / The Politico:

House votes to end HAMP — The House Tuesday voted to eliminate the last of four Obama administration housing programs, in an effectively symbolic vote to end the controversial Home Affordable Modification Program 218 to 109. — The loan program launched at the beginning …

Discussion: The Note and CNN

Spencer Ackerman / Danger Room:

NATO Chief Opens The Door to Libya Ground Troops — The mantra, from President Obama on down, is that ground forces are totally ruled out for Libya. After all, the United Nations Security Council Resolution authorizing the war explicitly rules out any “occupation” forces.

Discussion: The Raw Story, Pajamas Media, Guardian, Saideman's Semi-Spew, Hot Air, Wonkette, Israel Matzav, The Lonely Conservative, Firedoglake, CNN, National Review and cnas.org

PolitiFact:

Greater Wisconsin Committee says Supreme Court Justice David Prosser mishandled allegation of sex abuse by priest — A new TV ad claims that in 1978, when Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser was a district attorney, he didn't ask police to investigate an abuse case involving …

Discussion: Hot Air, Instapundit and JSOnline

Michael Yon / Online Magazine:

Calling BULLS**T on Rolling Stone — Seldom do I waste time with rebutting articles, and especially not from publications like Rolling Stone. Today, numerous people sent links to the latest Rolling Stone tripe. The story is titled “THE KILL TEAM, THE FULL STORY.” It should be titled: “BULLS**T, from Rolling Stone.”

Discussion: RealClearWorld, Weasel Zippers, Hot Air, The Jawa Report, Fausta's Blog and iOwnTheWorld.com

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:

CAN'T ANYBODY HERE PLAY THIS GAME?.... At face value, congressional Republicans went into budget talks playing a strikingly weak hand. They're an unpopular party, pushing unpopular spending cuts, going up against a more popular president. Of the three main players — the House, the Senate …

Discussion: New York Times

Alex Roarty / NationalJournal.com:

Howard Dean: Democrats Should Be ‘Quietly Rooting’ for Shutdown — Speaking at the National Journal Insiders Conference on March 29, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said that a government shutdown would be bad for the country but good for Democrats.

Discussion: Don Surber, Hot Air, TPMDC and AmSpecBlog

Evan McMorris-Santoro / TPMDC:

Conservative Think Tank Seeks Michigan Profs' Emails About Wisconsin Union Battle ... And Maddow — A free enterprise think tank in Michigan — backed by some of the biggest names in national conservative donor circles — has made a broad public records request to at least three in-state universities …

Discussion: New York Times, Mother Jones, AlterNet, The Raw Story, Veracity Stew and The Maddow Blog

Andy Thibault / Washington Times:

Anti-genocide advocate credits Obama for Libyan uprising — White House aide Samantha Power, a former news reporter turned anti-genocide advocate, said President Obama's two-year campaign to promote human rights helped trigger the uprising in Libya against Col. Moammar Gadhafi's rule.

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blog, TPMCafe, Pajamas Media and LewRockwell.com Blog

Tanya Somanader / ThinkProgress:

Graham: Those Engaged In Anti-Muslim Hate Speech Are ‘Putting Our Soldiers At Risk’ — Today, Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) convened a hearing on “Protecting the Civil Rights of American Muslims” — the “first of its kind for Congress.” A counterweight to House Homeland Security …

Discussion: Washington Post and Fox News

Richard E. Cohen / The Politico:

Dem losers still blaming Nancy Pelosi — As victims of the House Democratic election massacre speak out about what caused their ouster last November, they are pointing their fingers squarely at a Washington duo: Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. — Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) …

Discussion: The Other McCain and Weasel Zippers

Jeff Poor / The Daily Caller:

Levin takes on Ron Paul supporters: ‘I promise you his followers are the biggest a-holes of them all’ — There's no doubt that 2008 Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul of Texas has some dedicated followers, and they're especially ambitious in using the Internet to spread their message.

Discussion: LewRockwell.com Blog, Mediaite and American Power