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 …
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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.
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:
Daily Kos, Left Coast Rebel, Suburban Guerrilla, Balloon Juice and Alan Colmes' Liberaland
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
New York Times:
Republican Medicare Plan Could Shape 2012 Races
Republican Medicare Plan Could Shape 2012 Races
Discussion:
The Politico, Reuters, msnbc.com, The Caucus, Washington Post and The Page
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
Russell Berman / The Hill:
House GOP grapples with its transparency oath on budget deal
House GOP grapples with its transparency oath on budget deal
Discussion:
The Note, msnbc.com, Washington Post and The Hill
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.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, CNN, The Hill, New York Magazine, USA Today, Outside the Beltway, Hot Air, Comments from Left Field, YID With LID, The Daily Caller, Pajamas Media, Patterico's Pontifications, MoJo Articles, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, GOP 12, The Reality-Based Community, Taylor Marsh and HotAirPundit
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Lauraklairmont / CNN:
CNN Poll: Trump tied for first in GOP horserace — Washington (CNN) - Donald Trump is now tied with Mike Huckabee for first place when Republicans are asked who they support for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, according to a new national poll. — But while a CNN/Opinion Research …
Discussion:
GOP 12, Washington Post, Right Wing Watch, Oliver Willis, Balloon Juice, Political Punch, National Review and Indecision Forever
Roger Simon / The Politico:
Barack Obama faces problem on left, not right — I don't think Barack Obama will have a hard time defeating his Republican opponent in 2012, barring a financial meltdown or a major foreign crisis. It's a Democratic opponent he should worry about. — Obama continues to anger progressives …
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Wonkette, Guardian, Betsy's Page and Washington Wire
Maggie Haberman / The Politico:
Mike Huckabee says he met with Donald Trump in New York last weekend — Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump had a one-on-one meeting last weekend, after a month where the former Arkansas governor has been quietly meeting with donors in New York as he weighs a run.
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:
The Atlantic Online, appropriations.house.gov, Sweetness & Light, The Reaction and AMERICAblog News
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Andrew Taylor / Associated Press:
Budget tricks helped Obama save programs from cuts — WASHINGTON (AP) - The historic $38 billion in budget cuts resulting from at-times hostile bargaining between Congress and the Obama White House were accomplished in large part by pruning money left over from previous years …
Discussion:
The Foundry, New York Times, The Gateway Pundit, InvestmentWatch, The Politico, Sweetness & Light and Associated Press
Wall Street Journal:
Who's the Extremist Now? — The president would have shut down government over Planned Parenthood funding. — The senior senator from New York was on to something when he complained about ideology getting in the way of spending cuts. Just not in the way he would have us believe.
Discussion:
AmSpecBlog and The Lonely Conservative
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, protein wisdom and AMERICAblog News
Andrew Restuccia / The Hill:
Spending bill cuts EPA funding, delists wolves, limits funding for Interior ‘wild lands’ policy
Spending bill cuts EPA funding, delists wolves, limits funding for Interior ‘wild lands’ policy
Discussion:
Pirate's Cove
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 Agonist, The Democratic Daily, Suburban Guerrilla and AMERICAblog News
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Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
AOL, Arianna Huffington Hit with Class Action Suit — Jonathan Tasini. Image via Wikipedia — Huffington Post bloggers who think they ought to get paid for their volunteer writing have been litigating their case in the court of public opinion. Now they're taking it to a real one.
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, Mediaite and The Agitator, more at Mediagazer »
Carrie Lukas / Wall Street Journal:
There Is No Male-Female Wage Gap — A study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30 found that women earned 8% more than men. — Tuesday is Equal Pay Day—so dubbed by the National Committee for Pay Equity, which represents feminist groups including the National Organization …
Discussion:
protein wisdom and The Lonely Conservative
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, Booman Tribune, Global Public Square and CNN
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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, The Mahablog, Hullabaloo, Outside the Beltway, Zandar Versus The Stupid and odd time signatures
Myglesias / Yglesias:
Ask Not What Your Country Could Do To Reduce Health Care Costs — As a fan of the school nurse I think there's a lot to be said in favor of Paul Krugman's idea of launching a government administered public health service (or “civilian VA” as he puts it) but I also think it's a bit of a misframing …
Discussion:
Paul Krugman and Eschaton
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's revenues?
Discussion:
LewRockwell.com Blog and Poynter, more at Mediagazer »
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 …
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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
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.
Discussion:
Firedoglake and Capital Soup
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.
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
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:
Budget Negotiations in a Word - “Ridiculous” — All Sides Blamed After Close Call on Government Shutdown — OVERVIEW — The public has an overwhelmingly negative reaction to the budget negotiations that narrowly avoided a government shutdown. A weekend survey by the Pew Research Center …
Discussion:
Washington Wire and Weasel Zippers
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
Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Gang of Six closes in on deficit deal — Gang of Six negotiators are close to striking a deal on a deficit-reduction package, according to Senate sources. — White House officials and Democrats are pressing for the six negotiators to wrap up their talks by the Easter recess beginning on April 16.
Discussion:
Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog and ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*