Top Items:
Tucker Reals / CBS News:
Obama: GOP tried to “sneak” agenda into budget — In what he thought was a private chat with campaign donors Thursday evening, President Obama offered the most revealing behind-the-scenes account to date of his budget negotiations with GOP leaders last week.
Discussion:
CBS News, The Hill, New York Times, Political Punch, Washington Post, Hot Air, Patterico's Pontifications, The Lonely Conservative, Swampland, Pajamas Media, The Gateway Pundit, Mediaite, The Raw Story, The New Republic, JammieWearingFool, Little Green Footballs, The Caucus, Weasel Zippers, The Moderate Voice, TPMDC, Washington Wire, The Impolitic, Lynn Sweet, Moe Lane, FrumForum and Associated Press
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Brian Beutler / TPMDC:
Pandemonium! Dems Jam Republicans With Even More Conservative Budget — What was supposed to be a routine vote in the House — to knock down an amendment authored by conservative Republicans — turned into pandemonium on the House floor Friday, as Democrats tried to jam the plan through, and hang it around the GOP's necks.
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars, Guardian, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Talking Points Memo, Hullabaloo, Weigel, The Impolitic, The Awl and Balloon Juice
Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Drama erupts on House floor as conservative budget goes down — House lawmakers defeated a proposal by conservative Republicans to make deeper cuts to spending and tax rates than those proposed in the Republican budget, but only after last-minute maneuvering by Democrats on the House floor.
Carl Hulse / New York Times:
House Passes G.O.P. Budget; No Democrats Vote in Favor — WASHINGTON — House Republicans forced through a partisan budget blueprint on Friday that, if enacted into law, would pare federal spending by an estimated $5.8 trillion over the next decade while reshaping Medicare, a proposal certain to instigate a fierce clash with Democrats.
Discussion:
Wonk Room and Outside the Beltway
Ian Millhiser / ThinkProgress:
BREAKING: House Republicans Overwhelmingly Vote To Phase Out Medicare — When President Obama proposed ensuring affordable health care to all Americans, Congress spent a year hashing out how best to achieve this goal. Yet when Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) decided that he wanted to phase out Medicare …
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland and cbpp.org
Political Punch:
Obama Uncensored: President Caught on Open Mic at Fundraiser — President Obama had a candid, private conversation with campaign donors last night in Chicago. — Except, as it turns out, it wasn't so private. The microphone in the room that was on for the part of his remarks that reporters …
Discussion:
Mediaite, The Hill, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Daily Kos, Washington Post and Wonkette
Ed Hornick / CNN:
Political Circus: Barney Frank in Playboy — Washington (CNN) — Politics is serious business — but not all the time. — He's baring it all — in interview — Rep. Barney Frank, the openly gay Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, is featured in the May edition of Playboy.
Discussion:
Washington Post and Mediaite
The Hill:
House passes Ryan's '12 budget; conservatives want more cuts
Discussion:
National Review, The Hill, Ballot Box and Cubachi
Pete Kasperowicz / The Hill:
Chaos on House floor as Democrats try to unsettle GOP budget
Discussion:
TPMDC
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Who's Serious Now? — Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, sounds upset. And you can see why: President Obama, to the great relief of progressives, has called his bluff. — Last week, Mr. Ryan unveiled his budget proposal, and the initial reaction of much of the punditocracy …
Discussion:
The New Republic, NewsBusters.org, The Mahablog, Prairie Weather, Daily Kos, Outside the Beltway, neo-neocon and Connecting.the.Dots
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David Brooks / New York Times:
Ultimate Spoiler Alert — President Obama and Paul Ryan are two of the smartest, most admirable and most genial men in Washington. It is sad, although not strange, that in today's Washington they have never had a serious private conversation. The president has never invited Ryan over even for lunch.
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Washington Post, The New Republic, National Review, Washington Monthly, Balloon Juice and Shakesville
Benjy Sarlin / TPMDC:
Will Anyone Even Insure Seniors if Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan Passes? — At first glance, Paul Ryan's plan to send millions of seniors into the free market with dwindling vouchers in hand might seem a boon to the private insurance industry. But would companies even want to participate?
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Hot Air, Yglesias and FrumForum
CEPR:
Brooks Bemoans the Lack of a Free Lunch for Representative Ryan
Discussion:
Firedoglake, TalkLeft and Hullabaloo
Myglesias / Yglesias:
The David Brooks Lunch Date Plan For Solving America's Hard-Fought Fiscal Policy Dilemmas
Travis Waldron / ThinkProgress:
Ellison Stumps Republican On House Floor By Asking Him When Paul Ryan's Plan Would Balance The Budget
Discussion:
News Hounds, Daily Kos, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/* and The Huffington Post
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
The grand compromise
Discussion:
Sadly, No!, Don Surber, Betsy's Page and Bloomberg
Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:
Trump takes the lead — Only 38% of Republican primary voters say they're willing to support a candidate for President next year who firmly rejects the birther theory and those folks want Mitt Romney to be their nominee for President next year. With the other 62% of Republicans- 23% of whom …
RELATED:
Charlie Cook / NationalJournal.com:
The Cook Report: Trump's a Joke
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online and Pundits Blog
Mira Oberman / Agence France Presse:
Republicans will make US ‘Third World’ nation: Obama
Discussion:
The Gateway Pundit, Ironic Surrealism and Vox Popoli
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Foolish poll finding of the day
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway and Wake up America
Jon Terbush / TPMDC:
Poll: Donald Trump Beating Entire GOP Field By 9 Points
Discussion:
No More Mister Nice Blog, Towleroad News #gay, Mediaite, Weasel Zippers, Fox Nation, Swampland, DownWithTyranny! and Fox News
Roger Ebert / Chicago Sun Times:
Atlas Shrugged — I feel like my arm is all warmed up and I don't have a game to pitch. I was primed to review “Atlas Shrugged.” I figured it might provide a parable of Ayn Rand's philosophy that I could discuss. For me, that philosophy reduces itself to: “I'm on board; pull up the lifeline.”
Discussion:
Reason, Time, Wake up America, Weigel, Ideas Market, Dean's World, Outside the Beltway, TalkLeft, Shakesville, Hit & Run, The Huffington Post, LewRockwell.com Blog, American Power and Althouse
RELATED:
Megan McArdle / The Atlantic Online:
Atlas Winced — Ayn Rand's work has been described as …
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway
Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:
Obama Job Approval at 41%, Tying His Low — Independents' approval rating down to 35% — PRINCETON, NJ - The latest Gallup Daily tracking three-day average shows 41% of Americans approving of the job Barack Obama is doing as president. That ties his low as president …
Discussion:
The Hill, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, Pajamas Media, Mediaite, The Atlantic Online, theblogprof, JammieWearingFool and The TrogloPundit
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
Obama Is Likely to Lose — But Republican unseriousness may be his trump card. — Suppose everything we think we know about the president's political position is wrong? That's what I think became clear this week. — You know the conventional wisdom.
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Don Surber and The Daily Caller
RELATED:
The Daily Caller:
Jon Huntsman's love letters — Jon Huntsman, President Obama's outgoing ambassador to China, is considering running against his boss in 2012 as a Republican. — But two handwritten letters from Huntsman obtained by The Daily Caller raise the question of why he's not campaigning for Obama instead.
CNN:
Security griping a red flag for TSA — Washington (CNN) — Don't like the way airport screeners are doing their job? You might not want to complain too much while standing in line. — Arrogant complaining about airport security is one indicator Transportation Security Administration officers consider …
Discussion:
The Consumerist, Runnin' Scared, Shakesville, ProfessorBainbridge.com, Pajamas Media and Ron Paul 2012
New York Times:
This Lady Liberty Is a Las Vegas Teenager — As if further proof were needed that New York is not the center of the universe. — The United States Postal Service has issued a new stamp featuring the Statue of Liberty. Only the statue it features is not the one in the harbor …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, The Consumerist, Gothamist, TPM LiveWire, AOL News, Boing Boing, Reuters, nancynall.com and National Review
Free exchange:
Not yet time to worry about inflation — SHOULD the Fed be worried about rising inflation? With new consumer price figures out, a handful of Fed officials are arguing that the central bank is at risk of falling behind the curve. Tim Duy discusses comments from Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker here …
Discussion:
Yglesias, Real Time Economics and Economist's View
Jeffrey Kluger / Ecocentric:
How the Ice in Your Drink is Imperiling the Planet — Want to save the Earth? Easy, just buy a couple of ice trays. To the long list of human inventions that are wrecking global climate—the internal combustion engine, the industrial era factory—add the automatic ice maker.
Discussion:
Don Surber and Pirate's Cove
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