Top Items:
Daily Mail:
Another politician forced to resign after sending naked pictures to woman he had online relationship with — A politician who emailed a woman nude photos of himself that were posted on a GOP activist's website has resigned and said he will consider all legal options to have the pictures taken down.
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers, Mediaite and Ricochet Conversation Feed
Paul Ryan / Wall Street Journal:
Where's Your Budget, Mr. President? — Ever since they fudged the numbers to pass ObamaCare, Democrats have abandoned credible spending plans. — During the negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, President Obama reportedly warned Republican leaders not to call his bluff by sending him a bill without tax increases.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, The Gateway Pundit, Taegan Goddard's …, Man Are We Screwed and The New Republic
Molly K. Hooper / The Hill:
How Boehner escaped disaster — In the midst of a rebellion from his own colleagues, John Boehner faced a big decision. — It was 10 p.m. last Thursday, the most stressful moment of his Speakership. — Boehner's debt-limit bill was short on votes, and the GOP leadership was forced …
Discussion:
The Gateway Pundit
RELATED:
Bloomberg:
Debt Panel Membership to Send Signal on Chances for Tax Overhaul — Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) — The push to reduce the U.S. debt is shifting to the makeup of the special congressional panel charged with finding further spending cuts and whether its 12 members can consider rewriting the tax code.
Discussion:
The Reaction
Alan Colmes' Liberaland:
Republicans Attack Obama For Having A Birthday Party — Apparently, you're not allowed to do anything other than create jobs, if you're Barack Obama (Mr. Boehner, where are the jobs?). The right wing is going apoplectic because there is a star-studded Chicago fund-raiser in conjunction with his 50th birthday.
Discussion:
The Impolitic and Political Punch
RELATED:
Political Punch:
President Obama Headed to Chicago for Birthday-Themed Fundraiser
President Obama Headed to Chicago for Birthday-Themed Fundraiser
Discussion:
Michelle Malkin, TheBlaze.com and The Daily Caller
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
The eternal pivot — Mike Allen's note this morning that …
The eternal pivot — Mike Allen's note this morning that …
Discussion:
Pajamas Media, Betsy's Page, GOP.com and Pundit & Pundette
JammieWearingFool:
'Maybe He Hasn't Noticed or Doesn't Care, But the Country is Giving Up On Him' — I'm not of the mind that Barack Obama doesn't care about his fortunes in the wake of the debt deal hammered out this week. He obviously cares since he's now jetting off for his biggest fundraisers of his re-election campaign.
RELATED:
New York Post:
Scapegoater-in-chief — That was fast. Mounting his shrinking soapbox soon after the Senate passed the debt-ceiling bill, President Obama took less than a minute to lapse into his class-warfare shtick. — It's always us-against-them with him, but yesterday was especially off-key.
Discussion:
Questions and Observations
Ian Millhiser / ThinkProgress:
Romney Advisor Robert Bork: Civil Rights Act Is ‘Unsurpassed Ugliness,’ But Contraception and Porn Bans Are Fine — Yesterday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) announced his presidential campaign's “Justice Advisory Committee,” along with its co-chair Robert Bork.
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland
Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Palin says she has no respect for Romney's debt-ceiling stance — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) joined the attacks against Mitt Romney's handling of the debt-ceiling debate, saying she has no respect for how the GOP presidential front-runner handled the issue.
Discussion:
Washington Wire and CNN
RELATED:
The Right Scoop:
Palin: If we were terrorists Obama would be wanting to pal around with us — Sarah Palin says that she isn't just going to roll over and say to the left “hit me baby one more time, call me a terrorist again, call me a racist”, but rather she's going to call them out on their hypocrisy.
Discussion:
Michelle Malkin, Cold Fury and nation.foxnews.com
Ezra Klein / Washington Post:
McConnell: ‘The debt ceiling will not be clean anymore’ — (GETTY IMAGES) The most honest man in Washington did some more truth-telling on CNBC last night. Speaking to Larry Kudlow, Mitch McConnell made perfectly clear that the hostage situation we just went through wasn't a one-shot deal.
Discussion:
The Mahablog, Hullabaloo, Stinque, The Reality-Based Community, Jared Bernstein and The Political Carnival
RELATED:
Michael D. Shear / The Caucus:
Can the Debt Ceiling Genie Be Put Back in the Bottle?
Can the Debt Ceiling Genie Be Put Back in the Bottle?
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway, The Politico, Connecting.the.Dots and American Prospect
Pierre Thomas / ABCNEWS:
D.B. Cooper Mystery: Alleged Niece Comes Forward — A woman claiming to be the niece of infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper has spoken to ABC News in an exclusive interview about her role in the recently re-ignited 40-year-old cold case that has haunted the FBI for years.
Discussion:
The Lede, Mediaite and New York Times
Michael Joseph Gross / Vanity Fair:
Exclusive: Operation Shady rat—Unprecedented Cyber-espionage Campaign and Intellectual-Property Bonanza — For at least five years, a high-level hacking campaign—dubbed Operation Shady rat—has infiltrated the computer systems of national governments, global corporations, nonprofits …
Discussion:
New York Times, Mashable! and The Daily Caller, more at Techmeme »
RELATED:
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
Report on ‘Operation Shady RAT’ identifies widespread cyber-spying
Report on ‘Operation Shady RAT’ identifies widespread cyber-spying
Discussion:
The Politico, more at Techmeme »
New York Times:
Syria Sends In Tanks to Storm Center of a Rebellious City — BEIRUT, Lebanon — Ignoring global condemnation, Syria ordered its military to storm through the rebellious city of Hama on Wednesday after three days of shelling. Activists and residents there said that tanks …
Discussion:
Pajamas Media
RELATED:
Elliott Abrams / Wall Street Journal:
Preventing Civil War in Syria
Preventing Civil War in Syria
Discussion:
CNN, Eunomia, Lebanon news, Foreign Policy and ThinkProgress
Peter Wallsten / Washington Post:
Moderate Senate Dems prepare a balanced budget amendment — One of the big victories by tea-party Republicans in the debt-ceiling measure signed into law Tuesday was securing a requirement that Congress vote later this year on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
Discussion:
No More Mister Nice Blog, Politics and Daily Kos
RELATED:
Lori Montgomery / Washington Post:
President Obama signs debt-limit bill into law
President Obama signs debt-limit bill into law
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, The Heritage Foundation and Man Are We Screwed
Timothy Geithner / Washington Post:
Compromise achieved, reform's the next chapter
Compromise achieved, reform's the next chapter
Discussion:
TalkLeft and Weasel Zippers
Maureen Dowd / New York Times:
Washington Chain Saw Massacre — Even before Emanuel Cleaver, the Democratic congressman from Missouri, called the debt deal “a sugar-coated Satan sandwich” and Nancy Pelosi tossed in a side of “Satan fries,” the whiff of sulfur was rising from the Capitol.
Discussion:
Moe Lane
RELATED:
A.Killough / CNN:
Tea party groups to join forces in Wisconsin
Tea party groups to join forces in Wisconsin
Discussion:
Nice Deb, The Raw Story, Althouse and Daily Kos
Reuters:
Private sector added 114,000 jobs in July — (Reuters) - Private employers added more jobs than expected in July, though less than in June, but planned layoffs rose to a 16-month high, according to separate surveys on Wednesday. — The data comes ahead of the U.S. government's key jobs report on Friday …
Discussion:
The Political Carnival
Edward Wyatt / New York Times:
Stalemate in Senate Leaves 4,000 Out of Work at F.A.A. — WASHINGTON — After dealing with the debt crisis, Senate negotiators tried and failed on Tuesday to end a stalemate over temporary financing for the Federal Aviation Administration, leaving 4,000 agency employees out of work and relying …
Discussion:
p m carpenter's commentary, Wonkette, The Raw Story, The Consumerist and Associated Press
RELATED:
Keith Laing / The Hill:
LaHood's effort fails to end FAA furloughs
Anna Palmer / The Politico:
K Street eyes super committee — K Street wasted little time putting clients on notice about the next phase of the debt ceiling debate with a simple message: Nobody is safe from the super committee. — Lobby shops say a much-broader-than-expected range of budget cuts and tax provisions could be in play …
Discussion:
Politics, Man Are We Screwed, Citizens for Legitimate … and Sky Dancing
Voice of Russia, News:
Russia's Post issues stamps to mark Obama's 50th birthday — Russia's Post Office has issued a collection of stamps and envelopes to mark the 50th jubilee of the US President Barack Obama. — The US leader is celebrating his birthday on the 4th of August.
Discussion:
americanthinker.com and Doug Ross
Daniel Markovits / Los Angeles Times:
How the GOP lost on the debt deal — The deal reached by Congress eliminates the leverage that would have been created by another imminent default until after the next election, where it will be exercised by new and possibly differently constituted players.
Discussion:
normblog
Ezra Klein / Washington Post:
One shot on taxes: Don't blow it, Democrats — There are now two sides in the American tax debate: the Republican Party, which refuses to have a serious conversation about taxes, and the Democratic Party, which . . . refuses to have a serious conversation about taxes.
Discussion:
UrbanGrounds and Daily Kos
Marie Diamond / ThinkProgress:
GOP Rep. Steve King: Free Birth Control Will Make America ‘A Dying Civilization’ — Conservatives are lashing out at the Obama administration's decision to listen to the experts at the Institute of Medicine and approve their recommendation to require new health insurance plans to cover birth control with no co-pays.
Discussion:
Jezebel, Feministing, Political Correction RSS and TPMDC
Richard Lawson / Gawker:
Matt Damon Gives Libertarian Reporter a Satisfying Smackdown — A reporter from libertarian rag Reason interviewed notorious Massachusetts liberal actor Matt Damon at this year's Save Our Schools March and she tried to throw some business at him about teacher tenure and Ayn Randy incentive stuff and he wasn't having it.
Discussion:
Sky Dancing and The Wire