memeorandum: Duke Energy won't be repaid $10 million from DNC (Bruce Henderson/The Charlotte Observer)

1:30 PM ET, March 1, 2013

Top Items:

Ashley Parker / New York Times:

House Republicans Cheer Boehner's Refusal to Negotiate on Cuts — WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner, the man who spent significant portions of the last Congress shuttling to and from the White House for fiscal talks with President Obama that ultimately failed twice to produce a grand bargain …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Plum Line, A plain blog about politics, Mother Jones, Taylor Marsh, The Maddow Blog, msnbc.com, Prairie Weather and Gawker

Matthew Yglesias / Slate:

A Cheer or Two for Sequestration — From left, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, and House Speaker John Boehner speak at a news conference on Tuesday in Washington. — A lot of liberals I read are very hot to trot with the idea that Congress should just repeal sequestration tout court.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Bloomberg, Booman Tribune and Ross Douthat

Jake Sherman / Politico:
Sequester summit: Stalemate

Discussion: Reuters and The Hill

First Read:
First Thoughts: Sequester Day caps off an absurd week

Discussion: Yahoo! News and Taegan Goddard's …

Bernie Becker / The Hill:
Sequester begins, with no end in sight for across-the-board cuts

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Week and CNN

CNN:
Deadline day: The latest on the forced spending cuts

Discussion: The Hill, Politico and Daily Kos

Washington Post:
Competing sequestration bills fail in Senate

Discussion: WFPL, Post Politics, Weasel Zippers, thomaspmbarnett.com, The Plum Line, Reuters and The Agonist

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Press corps to Woodward: Really? — Bob Woodward has suggested that the White House threatened him. Many of his colleagues in the press corps aren't buying it. — By the standards of this White House, a statement like the one senior White House official Gene Sperling wrote to Woodward last week …

Discussion: BuzzFeed, The Raw Story, Hot Air, Power Line, News Desk, No More Mister Nice Blog, Reuters, Democracy in America, Mediaite and Fox News Insider

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:
Woodward vs. White House: Washington at its weirdest

Discussion: Politico, The Huffington Post, Media Decoder, Outside the Beltway, New York Times, Daily Kos, TheBlaze.com, Prairie Weather, The PJ Tatler, New Republic, msnbc.com and Crooks and Liars, more at Mediagazer »

John Cook / Gawker:
Goodbye, Bob — Bob Woodward is not a reliable reporter.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, American Power, The Huffington Post, Achenblog, Booman Tribune, Taylor Marsh, Balloon Juice, Philly.com, The Daily Caller, Politico, CNN, The Reaction, Business Insider and Liberal Values

Harvard News:

If you might want to insult Harvard down the line, go elsewhere — If you think Harvard is a revolutionary communist hotbed, don't apply. If you think Harvard is full of “pinheaded” professors, don't enroll. And if you think Harvard pollutes the minds of its students …

Discussion: National Review, The Daily Caller, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Riehl World News, ABCNEWS and nation.foxnews.com

Akilah Johnson / Boston Globe:

Massachusetts official challenges Chief Justice Roberts' claim about voting — Galvin rebukes nation's top judge — Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. certainly sounded authoritative when he made a striking, though unflattering, declaration about Massachusetts …

Discussion: The Maddow Blog and First Read

Ian Millhiser / ThinkProgress:

Why Scalia's ‘Racial Entitlement’ Quote Is Even Scarier Than You Think — Justice Antonin Scalia quite deservedly came under fire yesterday for his claim that a key provision of the Voting Rights Act is a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” If the justice were looking to confirm every suspicion …

Discussion: Mother Jones, Connecting.the.Dots, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Taylor Marsh, Washington Post, News Desk and Democracy in America

David Weigel / Slate:

Why the Republican Party's sequestration strategy only makes Obama stronger. — The last halfhearted hopes of a sequestration fix died Thursday afternoon, with Senate Republicans voting to give more power to President Obama. The plan was anonymously titled S. 16—a missed opportunity …

Discussion: Business Insider, The Other McCain, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Washington Wire

Chris Geidner / BuzzFeed:
212 Members Of Congress Ask Court To Strike Down DOMA

Discussion: Equality On Trial and Good As You

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Senate rejects rival bills to prevent $85B sequester spending cuts

Discussion: USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Politico, msnbc.com and Ballot Box

Bruce Henderson / The Charlotte Observer:

Duke Energy won't be repaid $10 million from DNC — Duke Energy won't be repaid the $10 million line of credit it guaranteed for Charlotte to host last year's Democratic National Convention, the company confirmed Thursday. — As the credit line came due, Duke made official what it had signaled …

Discussion: Mother Jones, Post Politics and Weekly Standard

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Ben Bernanke, Hippie — We're just a few weeks away from a milestone I suspect most of Washington would like to forget: the start of the Iraq war. What I remember from that time is the utter impenetrability of the elite prowar consensus. If you tried to point out that the Bush administration …

Discussion: msnbc.com

New York Times:

The White House Joins the Fight — President Obama made good on the promise of his second Inaugural Address on Thursday by joining the fight to overturn California's ban on same-sex marriage. Having declared that marriage equality is part of the road “through Seneca Fall and Selma and Stonewall …

Discussion: The Maddow Blog and The Week

Lyle Denniston / SCOTUSblog:
U.S. endorses limited gay marriage right

Ruby Cramer / BuzzFeed:

Liberals See A Trap After The Sequester — What really scares progressives isn't the automatic spending cuts; it's the grand compromise that may replace them. “Entitlements may get ensnared when we go to an alternate fix,” says Rep. Nadler. — Image by AP

Discussion: Daily Kos and The Week

Joe Weisenthal / Business Insider:

An Economic Tragedy That Everyone Saw Coming Is Now Unfolding In Europe... The European economy has been a trainwreck for a long time, but there have been varying stages of it. — From 2007 through 2010 or so, the European economy basically went through the same trajectory as the US.

Discussion: Paul Krugman and Hullabaloo

Fox News:

Romney likens 2012 race to ‘roller coaster,’ in exclusive ‘Fox News Sunday’ interview — Mitt Romney, in an exclusive interview with “Fox News Sunday,” said the end of the 2012 presidential race was like getting off a roller coaster. — “We were on a roller coaster, exciting and thrilling, ups and downs.

Discussion: Politico, Daily Kos, National Review, The Week, Gawker, The Fix and NBCNews.com

BBC:

Horsemeat scandal: Four new products test positive — Nearly 2,000 tests for horsemeat have been carried out by British retailers — Four beef products sold by Bird's Eye, Taco Bell and catering supplier Brakes have been found to contain horse DNA, the Food Standards Agency says.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Joe. My. God., MyFOX8.com and Gawker

CNN:

Harlem shake reaches new heights; FAA not amused — Washington (CNN) — It's the dance sensation that's sweeping above the nation — at 30,000 feet. — The Harlem shake has gone aloft, breaking out on commercial airline flights, and appearing in dozens of YouTube videos.

Discussion: Hit & Run

Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:

Hail Armageddon — “The worst-case scenario for us,” a leading anti-budget-cuts lobbyist told The Post, “is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens.” — Think about that. Worst case? That a government drowning in debt should cut back by 2.2 percent — and the country survives.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Hot Air and Betsy's Page

Alexa O'Brien / alexaobrien.com/secondsight:

Pfc. Bradley E. Manning's Statement for the Providence Inquiry — This statement below was read by Private First Class Bradley E. Bradley at a providence inquiry for his formal plea of guilty to one specification as charged and nine specifications for lesser included offenses.