Top Items:
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Medicare and Mediscares — Yes, Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, is a sore loser. Why do you ask? — To be sure, Mr. Ryan had reason to be upset after Tuesday's special election in New York's 26th Congressional District. It's a very conservative district …
Discussion:
NewsBusters.org, The Confluence, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Prairie Weather
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The Hill:
McConnell: Saying Medicare is off the table is ‘silly talk’ and ‘nonsense’ — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Friday that Medicare reform must be part of an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, despite indications that changing the entitlement will be politically unpopular.
Discussion:
The Politico, The Note, TalkLeft and FrumForum
David Brooks / New York Times:
Medicare Survival Guide — Sometime this summer, the Democrats and the Republicans will go toe-to-toe over whether to raise the debt ceiling. At the height of the confrontation, President Obama may well address the country and say that even though he has offered the Republicans …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, The New Republic, No More Mister Nice Blog and DailyHowler.com
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
McConnell puts Medicare in the ransom note
McConnell puts Medicare in the ransom note
Discussion:
Balloon Juice
Brian Beutler / TPMDC:
McConnell: I Won't Agree To Raise The Debt Limit Without Medicare Cuts
McConnell: I Won't Agree To Raise The Debt Limit Without Medicare Cuts
Discussion:
Balloon Juice and The Raw Story
David Kurtz / Talking Points Memo:
A Cornered Animal Is A Dangerous Animal
A Cornered Animal Is A Dangerous Animal
Discussion:
Booman Tribune
Wall Street Journal:
Mediscare: The Surprising Truth
Mediscare: The Surprising Truth
Discussion:
Pajamas Media, Wonk Room, National Review and Doug Ross
Kenneth P. Vogel / The Politico:
Judge strikes down corporate donations ban — A federal court in Alexandria, Va. on Thursday struck down a federal ban on corporate campaign contributions, in a case with potentially dramatic ramifications for a campaign finance regulatory system under siege by legal and regulatory attacks.
RELATED:
Matthew Barakat / Associated Press:
US judge rules against corporate contribution ban
US judge rules against corporate contribution ban
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Patterico's Pontifications and Hot Air
Ian Millhiser / ThinkProgress:
BREAKING: Republican Judge Strikes Down Ban On Corporate Contributions Directly To Candidates
BREAKING: Republican Judge Strikes Down Ban On Corporate Contributions Directly To Candidates
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars, Associated Press and OpenSecrets.org
Rick Hasen / Election Law Blog:
Federal District Court, in Criminal Case, Holds That Ban on Direct Corporate Contributions …
Federal District Court, in Criminal Case, Holds That Ban on Direct Corporate Contributions …
Aaron Gould Sheinin / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Federal judge strikes down ban on corporate giving to candidates
Federal judge strikes down ban on corporate giving to candidates
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway
Gschwarzcnn / CNN:
CNN Poll: GOP 2012 field still up in the air — Washington (CNN) - Call it a sign of how unsettled the GOP presidential field remains: Two of the three people at the top of new national poll in the battle for the Republican nomination may not even run for the White House.
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Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Palin creates buzz but rivals bet she won't run — Chief Political Correspondent Follow Him @ByronYork — “The bottom line is Sarah Palin is not going to run for president,” says a Republican adviser close to front-runner Mitt Romney. “She's making money, she's moved on, she's kind of an entertainer rather than a politician.
Discussion:
Conservatives4Palin, Althouse, The Daily Caller, The Note, Pundit & Pundette and The Daily Dish
Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:
State of Uncertainty for Romney Camp as It Looks to Iowa
State of Uncertainty for Romney Camp as It Looks to Iowa
Discussion:
CNN, The Politico, msnbc.com, Iowa Caucuses, USA Today, TPMDC, Daily Kos and Washington Post
The Note:
Obama Won't Personally Sign Patriot Act Extension — ABC News' Matthew Jaffe (@jaffematt) and Devin Dwyer (@devindwyer) report: Congress officially passed an extension of the Patriot Act tonight, just hours before key provisions of the national security law were due to lapse at midnight.
Discussion:
The Politico, Boing Boing, The Caucus, Top of the Ticket, The Daily Caller, The Volokh Conspiracy, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Gawker, Outside the Beltway, Odd Clauses Watch, The Moderate Voice, Josh Blackman's Blog, No More Mister Nice Blog, Michelle Malkin, rubber hose and New York Magazine
RELATED:
The Note:
Mitt Romney Supports Ethanol Subsidies, Opposes Tim Pawlenty's ‘Hard Truth’ — ABC News' Emily Friedman (@emilyabc) & Matthew Jaffe (@jaffematt) report: — Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty are at odds on one of the biggest issues to voters in Iowa, home of the nation's first presidential caucuses.
Discussion:
Washington Wire, Ballot Box, GOP 12, Pajamas Media and Outside the Beltway
RELATED:
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Pawlenty was ‘open to’ mandate, a ‘worthy goal,’ in '06 speech
Pawlenty was ‘open to’ mandate, a ‘worthy goal,’ in '06 speech
Discussion:
GOP 12 and The New Republic
Matthew Yglesias / Yglesias:
Tim Pawlenty's Doing It Wrong
Tim Pawlenty's Doing It Wrong
Discussion:
Washington Post, Grasping Reality … and Cato @ Liberty
Stogie / Saberpoint:
Soquel High School Students Suspended for Wearing White T Shirts (They're Signs of “White Supremacy") — Soquel, California — on the Central Coast: — Several high school seniors wore white t shirts to their class's group picture last Wednesday and were suspended for doing so.
Discussion:
Left Coast Rebel and Five Feet of Fury
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Azenith Smith / kionrightnow.com:
Soquel Students Suspended for White Supremacy Claims
Soquel Students Suspended for White Supremacy Claims
Discussion:
Wake up America, Moonbattery and The Daily Caller
Jason Embry / Austin American-Statesman:
Perry says he will consider White House run — Gov. Rick Perry today gave his strongest indication yet that he may run for president. — “I'm going to think about it” after the legislative session ends Monday, Perry said. — For years, Perry has said that he would not run for president and that he had no interest.
Kevin Hall / The Iowa Republican:
Bachmann's Debacle — “This is a disaster,” said one prominent Polk County Republican. An elected official called it “an embarrassment”. The embarrassing disaster was the result of Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann's last minute cancellation of her appearance at the Polk County GOP's Robb Kelley Dinner.
RELATED:
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
What Obama did to Israel — Every Arab-Israeli negotiation contains a fundamental asymmetry: Israel gives up land, which is tangible; the Arabs make promises, which are ephemeral. The long-standing American solution has been to nonetheless urge Israel to take risks for peace …
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
When a party declares intellectual bankruptcy — The good news is, House Republicans unveiled a plan yesterday that's intended to create jobs. The bad news is, the plan can charitably be described as a bad joke. — As we discussed yesterday, the jobs agenda, such as it is …
Discussion:
PERRspectives, Balloon Juice, Mother Jones, Daily Kos and ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*
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The Note:
Rolling Thunder Riders Praise Sarah Palin's Participation in Rally — ABC News' Sheila Marikar [@sheilaym] reports: For the riders of Rolling Thunder, the news that Sarah Palin will participate in their national rally on Sunday came as a surprise. A welcome surprise.
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, Weasel Zippers and Mediaite
Amazon.com:
Amazon.com Reveals the Most Well-Read Cities in America — Cambridge, Mass., tops the list with the most books, magazines and newspapers purchased per capita of any city in the United States — (NASDAQ: AMZN)—Just in time for the summer reading season, Amazon.com announced its list of the Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities in America.
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway and The New Editor
Clay Dillow / Popular Science:
This Time Lapse Video of the Very Large Telescope At Work is the Coolest Thing You'll See Today — Your Universe (As Seen From the Home Planet) ESO/Stephane Guisard and Jose Francisco Salgado — There's very little we can write to preface the imagery below, so we'll just set the scene and get out of the way.
Discussion:
Yourish.com and Questions and Observations
Brendan Greeley / Business Week:
Tyler Cowen, America's Hottest Economist — The George Mason University professor has written a bestseller, The Great Stagnation, keeps an influential blog, and reads way too many books — Tyler Cowen sits with a cranberry juice and a pile of books he no longer intends to read.
Discussion:
Hit & Run, Outside the Beltway and The Moderate Voice
Associated Press:
Herman Cain: Federal Reserve Chairman, Tea Party Champion — The businessman's tenure with the Kansas City Fed should make for interesting debates with anti-Fed stalwart Ron Paul — There's no question that Herman Cain is the big winner in the the latest national Gallup poll …
Discussion:
AmSpecBlog, The Atlantic Online and Outside the Beltway
Rick Perlstein / New York Times:
America's Forgotten Liberal — JANUARY was the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth, and the planet nearly stopped turning on its axis to recognize the occasion. Today is the 100th anniversary of Hubert H. Humphrey's birth, and no one besides me seems to have noticed.
Discussion:
A plain blog about politics, Hullabaloo and Daily Kos
Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
Questions about Ratko Mladic — The individual whom The New York Times describes as Europe's “most wanted war crimes suspect” was captured yesterday in Serbia and will likely be extradited to be tried before an international war crimes tribunal at the Hague: … I have two questions about this:
Discussion:
Unqualified Offerings, FP Passport, The Lede and Global Public Square