memeorandum: Ex-Army chief's fears over plan for mosque next to Sandhurst (Simon Walters/Daily Mail)

11:45 PM ET, April 10, 2011

Top Items:

Jackie Calmes / New York Times:

Obama to Offer Debt-Cutting Plan as Fiscal Fight Broadens — WASHINGTON — President Obama will call this week for Republicans to join him in writing a broad plan to raise revenues and reduce the growth of popular entitlement programs, as the battle over the nation's financial troubles moves …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, The Daily Dish, Paul Krugman and Booman Tribune

Joshua Miller / ABCNEWS:

Obama Advisor David Plouffe: Budget Cuts Both ‘Draconian’ and ‘Historic’ — Plouffe Lauds Bipartisanship and Slams Trump — Senior Advisor to the President David Plouffe conceded this morning that some of the cuts the White House agreed to in order to avoid a government shutdown were draconian.

Discussion: USA Today, Washington Monthly, Los Angeles Times, Crooks and Liars, Riehl World View, PERRspectives, CNN, That Mr. G Guy's Blog and Taylor Marsh

Tanya Somanader / ThinkProgress:
Cantor Sees Current Medicare and Medicaid Programs As A ‘Safety Net’ For 'People Who Frankly Don't Need One'

Discussion: Crooks and Liars and Hullabaloo

Abby Phillip / The Politico:
Obama to make major budget address

Discussion: Reuters, Outside the Beltway, CNN, MyDD, Pirate's Cove, TalkLeft and Associated Press

Jamie Klatell / The Hill:
Plouffe: Obama to speak on long-term deficit reduction

Discussion: The Lonely Conservative and Doug Ross

Michael Isikoff / msnbc.com:

Comments follow statements by Donald Trump questioning legitimacy of president's birth record — Below: — The Hawaiian state health official who personally reviewed Barack Obama's original birth certificate has affirmed again that the document is “real” and denounced “conspiracy theorists” …

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Mediaite, Outside the Beltway, CNN, The Reality-Based Community, Cubachi and Proof Positive

James Poulos / Ricochet.com:

Trump is Final Proof that the Political Class Has Failed — There are two main theories cooperating to explain the Trump phenomenon: — Donald Trump is today's best self-promoter and professional opportunist. — The Republican field of presumptive candidates for president is lame.

Discussion: Pajamas Media, Shot in the Dark and PoliPundit.com

Jon Wiener / The Nation:

NPR Station in LA Suspends Planned Parenthood Spots — One of two NPR stations in the Los Angeles area, KPCC-FM, suspended its regularly-scheduled Planned Parenthood spots on Friday, in response to Republican demands that Congress eliminate federal funding for the family planning group.

Discussion: Pajamas Media, Weasel Zippers, LA Observed and RHRealityCheck.org

Chris Buckley / Reuters:

China tells U.S. to quit as human rights judge — (Reuters) - The United States is beset by violence, racism and torture and has no authority to condemn other governments' human rights problems, China said on Sunday, countering U.S. criticism of Beijing's crackdown.

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Gawker and Truthdig

Elise Foley / The Huffington Post:

Mike Pence: Spending Deal ‘Probably Not Good Enough’ To Vote For … WASHINGTON — Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), a leading conservative House Republican, said Sunday he will likely vote against a budget deal to cut about $38 billion from federal spending levels because the compromise bill does not eliminate subsidies for Planned Parenthood.

Discussion: Yglesias

The Hill:
Spending cuts, not policy riders, held up a deal, GOP aides say

Discussion: protein wisdom

Washington Post:
Can Obama cut the budget and keep Democrats happy?

Discussion: The Politico, Prairie Weather, New York Times, Fox News, CNN and The Caucus

New York Times:
Concessions and Tension, Then a Deal

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Politico and The Note

Claire Ellicott / Daily Mail:

BNP man ‘videoed burning Koran in garage’ arrested and charged — A senior member of the British National Party has been arrested for allegedly burning a copy of the Koran in his garage. — Sion Owens, a BNP candidate in the forthcoming Welsh Assembly elections, was charged under the Public Order Act.

Discussion: The Jawa Report and Weasel Zippers

Robert Kuttner / American Prospect:

Keynes' Ghost — I'm blogging from Bretton Woods, NH, site of the 1944 conference that reconstructed the rules for the global financial, monetary and trading system and the postwar recovery. This weekend, the world's leading critics of the current economic mess have gathered here to discuss measures …

Discussion: Yglesias

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:

Blowin' in the Idiot Wind — Bob Dylan may have done the impossible: broken creative new ground in selling out. — The idea that the raspy troubadour of '60s freedom anthems would go to a dictatorship and not sing those anthems is a whole new kind of sellout — even worse than Beyoncé …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Tom Watson, The Independent, That Mr. G Guy's Blog, Booman Tribune, Pajamas Media and Financial Times

David S. Cloud / Los Angeles Times:

Anatomy of an Afghan war tragedy — U.S. Predator teams and a special operations unit on the ground studying a suspicious convoy make a series of fateful missteps as they try to distinguish friend from foe. — Nearly three miles above the rugged hills of central Afghanistan …

Discussion: Firedoglake and Unqualified Offerings

Simon Walters / Daily Mail:

Ex-Army chief's fears over plan for mosque next to Sandhurst — A former head of the Armed Forces has warned that plans for a mosque overlooking Sandhurst could lead to attacks on the Royal Military Academy. — In a letter, Lord Guthrie says he is worried about the 'security …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and Jihad Watch

John Thompson / New York Times:

The Prosecution Rests, but I Can't — I SPENT 18 years in prison for robbery and murder, 14 of them on death row. I've been free since 2003, exonerated after evidence covered up by prosecutors surfaced just weeks before my execution date. Those prosecutors were never punished.