Top Items:
Washington Post:
Obama turns to his bipartisan deficit commission's blueprint for reducing debt — Video: White House press secretary Jay Carney reiterated Monday that President Obama “regrets” his vote in 2006 as a senator against raising the debt ceiling. (April 11) — President Obama plans this week …
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
President Open to Deal on Debt Cap — White House officials have opened the door to a deal with Republicans that would allow the U.S. to increase its ability to borrow, potentially easing worries in financial markets that the country might default on its debt.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Yglesias, Washington Post, TalkLeft, The Hill, The New Republic, FiveThirtyEight, The Page, Keith Hennessey, Wonk Room and Daily Kos
Peter Nicholas / Los Angeles Times:
Obama to draw sharp contrast with GOP over deficit — In a speech Wednesday, the president is expected to call for higher taxes on wealthier Americans, as opposed to Republican plans to slash Medicare and Medicaid. — Reporting from Washington — President Obama will call for shrinking …
Discussion:
Left Coast Rebel, Suburban Guerrilla and Alan Colmes' Liberaland
New York Times:
Republican Medicare Plan Could Shape 2012 Races — WASHINGTON — Just four months into their new majority, House Republicans face a potentially defining Medicare vote this week that is sure to become a centerpiece of Democratic efforts to recapture the House in 2012 and spill into the presidential and Senate campaigns as well.
Discussion:
The Politico, The Hill, Reuters, msnbc.com, The Caucus and The Page
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
TAKING ADVANTAGE OF GOP FEARS OVER RYAN PLAN.... Congressional …
TAKING ADVANTAGE OF GOP FEARS OVER RYAN PLAN.... Congressional …
Discussion:
The Politico
Noel Sheppard / NewsBusters.org:
Chris Matthews: Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan Will ‘Kill Half the People Who Watch My Show’
Chris Matthews: Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan Will ‘Kill Half the People Who Watch My Show’
Discussion:
theblogprof and Weasel Zippers
CBS News:
Budget deal details: Cuts that aren't quite cuts — $38B in savings agreed to by GOP and Democrats averted a government shutdown, but new details indicate some accounting sleight-of-hand — Details of the $38 billion worth of spending cuts factoring in last Friday's 11th-hour budget …
Discussion:
appropriations.house.gov, Associated Press, Sweetness & Light, The Reaction and AMERICAblog News
RELATED:
Andrew Taylor / Associated Press:
Obama prevents budget cuts to favorite programs — WASHINGTON - A close look at the government shutdown-dodging agreement to cut federal spending by $38 billion reveals that lawmakers significantly eased the fiscal pain by pruning money left over from previous years, using accounting sleight …
Roger Simon / The Politico:
Barack Obama faces problem on left, not right
Barack Obama faces problem on left, not right
Discussion:
Guardian and Betsy's Page
Erik Wasson / The Hill:
Six-month spending bill unveiled: What's cut and what's not
Six-month spending bill unveiled: What's cut and what's not
Discussion:
ABCNEWS and AMERICAblog News
Wall Street Journal:
Who's the Extremist Now? — The president would have shut …
Who's the Extremist Now? — The president would have shut …
Discussion:
AmSpecBlog and The Lonely Conservative
David Rogers / The Politico:
Budget deal isn't all about cuts
Washington Wire:
Trump Will ‘Probably’ Run as Independent If He Doesn't Win GOP Nomination — Donald Trump will “probably” run as an independent candidate for U.S. President in 2012 if he does not receive the Republican party's nomination, he told the Wall Street Journal in a video interview on Monday.
RELATED:
Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Trump says he'd ‘probably’ run as Independent if he loses GOP nod
Trump says he'd ‘probably’ run as Independent if he loses GOP nod
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland and GOP 12
New York Times:
France and Britain Urge Stronger NATO Action in Libya — PARIS —France and Britain urged NATO on Tuesday to intensify airstrikes against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's forces and called on the alliance to do more to shield noncombatants from loyalist attacks. — The remarks could well embolden rebels …
Discussion:
JustOneMinute, Outside the Beltway, Global Public Square and CNN
RELATED:
David E. Sanger / New York Times:
Possible Libya Stalemate Puts Stress on U.S. Policy
Possible Libya Stalemate Puts Stress on U.S. Policy
Discussion:
The Page
Washington Post:
Japan rates nuclear crisis at highest severity level — TOKYO — Japanese authorities raised Tuesday their rating of the severity of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis to the highest level on an international scale, equal to that of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Discussion:
Daily Kos, The Democratic Daily, Suburban Guerrilla, The Agonist and AMERICAblog News
BooMan / Booman Tribune:
Our Structural Disadvantage — The intertubes are clogged with the choral wailing of frustrated liberals. Digby provides a good example, but the same is available pretty much anywhere else you'd think to look. … This is exactly right. But what's strange is that it almost seems to come as a surprise to people.
Discussion:
Taylor Marsh, Outside the Beltway, odd time signatures, Zandar Versus The Stupid and Hullabaloo
Jake Wagman / St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Koster files brief opposing mandatory health coverage — ST. LOUIS • Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, a Republican-turned-Democrat facing re-election next year, is delicately stepping into the contentious battle over federal health care reform.
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog
RELATED:
Ben Parr / Mashable!:
What Impact Has The New York Times Paywall Had on Traffic? [STATS] — The New York Times' paywall has now been up for two weeks. What impact has it had on the popular website's traffic? More importantly, is the paywall working as intended, or is it taking a bite out of The New York Times' revenues?
Discussion:
LewRockwell.com Blog and Poynter, more at Mediagazer »
Daniel Strauss / The Hill:
House liberal DeFazio: Obama should start acting like a Democrat — President Obama needs to start acting like a Democrat by not caving for a second time and allowing the George W. Bush-era tax rates on the wealthy to expire, according to a founding member of the House Progressive Caucus.
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers and JammieWearingFool
New York Times:
Pakistan Tells U.S. It Must Sharply Cut C.I.A. Activities — ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan has demanded that the United States steeply reduce the number of Central Intelligence Agency operatives and Special Operations forces working in Pakistan, and that it put on hold C.I.A. drone strikes aimed …
RELATED:
David Blaska / Isthmus:
Blaska Blogs the smoking gun of the teachers union's illegal sick-out — Only a fool would think that the sick out that closed down Madison schools for five days in February was anything but an illegal, union-coordinated, illegal strike. — But there are a lot of fools in Madison, aren't there?
Discussion:
Chicago Boyz
Liz Goodwin / Yahoo! News:
Chicago school bans homemade lunches, the latest in national food fight — Students who attend Chicago's Little Village Academy public school get nothing but nutritional tough love during their lunch period each day. The students can either eat the cafeteria food—or go hungry.
Kasie Hunt / The Politico:
Michele Bachmann takes on heckler in Iowa — IOWA CITY, Iowa — Michele Bachmann said again Monday that the American intervention in Libya was a mistake — but this time she had to talk over a heckler who shouted vulgarities at her. — Jenny Watkins, 22, shouted at Bachmann …
Discussion:
Wonkette, Fox Nation, CNN and Cubachi
Catholic Culture:
1,000 attack non-Muslim village in Nigeria — Armed with machetes and guns, 1,000 militants attacked the village of Bar Arewa in the northern Nigerian state of Bauchi on April 7. “Almost every home in the village was destroyed, and some elderly people were reported to have been burnt …
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers and Atlas Shrugs
Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
Obama's High-Speed Rail Project Gets $1.5 Billion Slashed In Budget Deal … WASHINGTON — As part of the final budget deal formally agreed to on Friday night, the Obama administration signed off on a big cut to a closely held transportation policy priority.
The Politico:
D.C. Mayor Vince Gray arrested and released — Washington Mayor Vincent Gray and other top city officials were arrested on Capitol Hill on Monday during a protest of the budget deal House Republicans cut with President Barack Obama. — Gray and six city council members were released early Tuesday morning.
Discussion:
TBD All News, The Caucus, Weasel Zippers and InvestmentWatch
Erin Einhorn / NY Daily News:
NY Democrats criticize Obama's budget compromise, with Rep. Rangel calling it ‘immoral’ — Rangel went so far as to call the deal ‘irresponsible’ and ‘immoral.’ — New York's congressional delegation trashed President Obama's budget compromise Monday, calling it “irresponsible,” “dangerous” and “immoral.”
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers
Rand Simberg / Washington Examiner:
Opinion Zone — Half a century of human spaceflight — Tomorrow will be the fiftieth anniversary of the first time a human orbited the earth, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin rocketed into space, made almost a complete circuit around the planet, entered the atmosphere, and returned to terra firma.
Discussion:
Moe Lane
Washington Post:
$38 billion in cuts in budget deal will cover various domestic areas — J. Scott Applewhite/ AP - Although pain from cuts that lawmakers agreed to last week in would be felt across virtually the entire government, Republicans were able to focus the sharpest cuts on areas they have long targeted.
Discussion:
Oliver Willis
James S. Robbins / Washington Times:
Koran Burned in Iran (video) — Two anonymous young men in Iran, one Iranian and one Afghan, have burned a Koran in protest. This seven-and-a-half minute long video shows the two men, their faces obscured, holding the Muslim holy book and reading prepared statements.
Discussion:
Israel Matzav, The Jawa Report, The TrogloPundit and Moonbattery