Top Items:


Of Obama's $86 million, 40% from bundlers — About 40 percent of President Barack Obama's record-breaking $86 million second-quarter fundraising haul came from big-money bundlers, according to a POLITICO analysis of donors listed on Obama's campaign web site.
Discussion:
CNN and The Daily Caller
RELATED:

Obama's Haul: Big Money From Big Donors — Twenty-seven fund-raisers collected more than $500,000 each in contributions for President Obama and the Democratic Party in the past three months, helping Mr. Obama collect a record haul of campaign cash as he starts his re-election effort.
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, USA Today and Ballot Box

Obama fundraising report signals juggernaut campaign
Discussion:
OpenSecrets.org, Political Punch, The Daily Caller, Gawker, TPMDC and FrumForum

Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton Stepping Down — Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton is leaving the company in the wake of the PhoneGate hacking scandal. Hinton is the second high-ranking News Corp. executive to step down today, and the first major figure from the company's American operations.
Discussion:
Guardian, The Lede and Crooks and Liars, more at Mediagazer »
RELATED:


Dow Jones CEO Resigns Over Scandal
Discussion:
The Politico, Salon, The Raw Story, Associated Press, Washington Monthly and FrumForum, more at Mediagazer »

Les Hinton's Resignation Letters
Discussion:
New York Magazine, Gothamist, The Moderate Voice, Daily Kos and AMERICAblog News

Michele Bachmann officially leaves her church — Washington (CNN) - Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has long been a darling of conservative evangelicals, but shortly before announcing her White House bid, she officially quit a church she'd belonged to for years.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Ben Smith's Blog, Politics, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Taegan Goddard's …, Salon and AMERICAblog News


REPORT: How CNN, MSNBC, And Fox Are Covering News Corp. Hacking Scandal — News Corp.'s long-simmering phone-hacking scandal has reignited, throwing its global media empire into turmoil. As allegations of hacking into private citizens' voicemail increase, media and tabloid practices have been called into question.
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, Taylor Marsh, The Reaction, Media Matters for America and CNN, more at Mediagazer »
RELATED:


Fox And Friends Defends News Corp's Hacking Scandal: ‘We Should Move On’ — Fox News finally addressed their parent company's hacking scandal head on this morning, with Fox and Friends launching a comically sycophantic and pathetically inaccurate defense of News Corp. Host Steve Doocy …
Discussion:
Mediaite, Company Town, Gawker and Wonkette, more at Mediagazer »

Obama: Public is ‘sold’ on tax increases in a debt-ceiling deal — President Obama on Friday kept up the pressure on Republicans to agree to revenue increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, claiming 80 percent of the public supports Democrats' demand for tax increases.
RELATED:


Pawlenty Calls Out Romney On Debt Ceiling Debate
Discussion:
TPMDC, Ballot Box, CNN and The Raw Story

GOP's Debt Kamikazes
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, Outside the Beltway and The Moderate Voice

GOP dissent complicates path to resolving debt-ceiling crisis
Discussion:
Sadly, No!, Washington Monthly, ThinkProgress and Outside the Beltway


Blogger Who Posted Marcus Bachmann's ‘Barbarians’ Remark: 'I Didn't Doctor a Damn Thing' — It's becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of all of Michele and Marcus Bachmann's anti-gay remarks and beliefs, but unfortunately, today brings with it yet another twist.
Discussion:
Minnesota Independent, ThinkProgress, TPMDC, Ben Smith's Blog, Dump Michele Bachmann, The Politico, The Note and msnbc.com
RELATED:


‘Ex-gay’ conference headed to St. Paul in 2012
Discussion:
Pam's House Blend and ThinkProgress

Marcus Bachmann says his clinics not anti-gay
Discussion:
The Political Carnival, Washington Post, Examiner, Minnesota Independent, The Politico, Outside the Beltway, USA Today, La Daily Musto, FrumForum, Gawker, Dump Michele Bachmann, TPMDC, Shakesville, Truth Wins Out, CNN, ThinkProgress, Towleroad News #gay, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, msnbc.com, Mediaite, Ben Smith's Blog and Politics

McConnell proposal would force major review of entitlements — Larry Kudlow, who's plugged in with Congressional Republicans, scoops a key new detail about the emerging Mitch McConnell proposal to transfer control of the debt ceiling to the president:
Discussion:
The Hill, Firedoglake, AMERICAblog News, Daily Kos, Hullabaloo and Taylor Marsh
RELATED:

Obama Publicly Backs Means-Testing Medicare (UPDATE)
Discussion:
Iowa Caucuses and AmSpecBlog

McConnell's Uber-Clever Debt-Deal Stratagem
Discussion:
Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, The TrogloPundit, AMERICAblog News, Outside the Beltway, The New Republic and Taylor Marsh

Jackson Lee: Congress complicating debt ceiling because Obama is black — Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) on Friday strongly suggested that members of Congress are making it difficult for President Obama to raise the debt ceiling because of his race. — “I do not understand …
Discussion:
RealClearPolitics Video Log, UNCOVERAGE.net, Weasel Zippers, The Gateway Pundit, Pajamas Media, UrbanGrounds, Mediaite, The Note, Vox Popoli and CNSNews

Obama makes his case to the left — President Obama recently took a beating from some on the left for suggesting that immediate deficit reduction is necessary to take the issue off the table and make it possible to spend more on liberal priorities later. And Obama of course has regularly …
Discussion:
The New Republic, Jared Bernstein, Crooks and Liars, Corrente and Eschaton
RELATED:

Obama's “Deficit Now, Jobs Later” Strategy Doesn't Seem Sound
Discussion:
Daily Kos


Body Scanners Improperly Added by TSA: Court — Airport body scanners that create unclothed images of passengers were improperly adopted by the U.S. as a primary screening tool, a federal appeals court ruled, while allowing their use to continue. — The U.S. Transportation Security Administration …
RELATED:

Court OKs Airport Body Scanners, Rejects Constitutional Challenge
Discussion:
The Volokh Conspiracy, CNET News, Hit & Run, Outside the Beltway and TalkLeft

Perry's Briefing — Word in Austin is that Rick Perry is doing everything necessary to prepare for a presidential run, including brushing up on foreign policy. — We hear that he recently met with top national-security experts Doug Feith and William Luti.
Discussion:
Hot Air, ThinkProgress and The Daily Dish


Obama Eliminates Warren as Consumer Head — President Barack Obama has chosen a candidate other than Elizabeth Warren as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a person briefed on the matter. — The president's choice is a person who already works at the consumer agency, the person said today.
Discussion:
naked capitalism, ThinkProgress and The Raw Story

Erick Erickson's Bad Advice — The RedState editor tweets that this post of his is being passed around the House GOP's caucus meeting. Hey, lots of things are passed around at meetings. Let's just hope no one takes this seriously, because it's totally incoherent. … Who actually thinks this?
Discussion:
RedState, Washington Post, Outside the Beltway, Salon, Gawker, Erick's blog, Washington Monthly and JustOneMinute


House turns off light bulb standards by voice vote — The House on Friday morning moved to block federal light bulb efficiency standards without even a roll call vote. — An amendment from Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) defunding the Energy Department's standards for traditional incandescent light bulbs …
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Hot Air, The Hill, Daily Kos, ThinkProgress and Pajamas Media

For First Time, Majority in U.S. Supports Public Smoking Ban — Little support for making smoking illegal, however — PRINCETON, NJ — A majority of Americans (59%) support a ban on smoking in all public places for the first time since Gallup initially asked the question in 2001.
Discussion:
Hot Air and The New Republic


China Plans to Release Some of Its Pork Stockpile to Hold Down Prices — BEIJING — Some nations have strategic oil reserves. Some keep grain reserves. China has both, and something others have somehow overlooked: a national pork reserve. — And with the price of pig meat up 38 percent …
Discussion:
Lawyers, Guns & Money