memeorandum: Meghan McCain's Dirty, Sexy Politics (Leon H. Wolf/The New Ledger)

6:45 PM ET, September 13, 2010

Top Items:

Timothy R. Homan / Bloomberg:

Rich Americans Save Tax Cuts Instead of Spending, Moody's Says — Hand the wealthiest Americans a tax cut and history suggests they will save the money rather than spend it. — Tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush were followed by increases in the saving rate among the rich …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Donklephant and The Political Carnival

Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Boehner concedes only three percent of small businesses affected …

Discussion: TPMDC, The Politico, Washington Monthly, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Wonk Room, Talking Points Memo and Crooks and Liars

Stephanie Condon / CBS News:
Mitch McConnell Stands Firm: No Partial Bush Tax Cut Extension

Discussion: Daily Kos, Washington Post, CBS News, Firedoglake, Guardian, Liberty Pundits Blog, Say Anything, National Review and HotAirPundit

CNN:
House GOP seeks distance from Boehner on tax issue

Discussion: Think Progress, The Plum Line and New York Times

Associated Press:
GOP spokesman: Senate GOP to oppose Obama tax plan

Discussion: Raw Story, Weekly Standard, First Draft, FrumForum and Washington Monthly

David M. Herszenhorn / New York Times:
McConnell Offers Law to Keep Bush-Era Tax Rates

Discussion: The Politico and Economist's View

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
MCCONNELL BREAKS WITH BOEHNER, WILL FIGHT MIDDLE-CLASS TAX BREAKS. …

Discussion: Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! and CBS News

Jonathan Allen / The Politico:
Democrats challenge Nancy Pelosi on taxes

Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
“The Obama tax cuts for the middle class”

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and TPMDC

David Frum / FrumForum:

Gingrich: Obama Wants Whitey's Money — Newt Gingrich upped the rhetoric against the president on Friday night. Interviewed by National Review's Robert Costa, Gingrich cited Dinesh D'Souza's cover story in Forbes. … With the Forbes story and now the Gingrich endorsement …

Discussion: TheFourthBranch.com, Political Punch, The Caucus, DownWithTyranny!, Salon, THEROOT.COM, Politics Daily, News Desk, Think Progress, Crooks and Liars, Democracy in America, Jay Bookman, Washington Monthly, Guardian, Hullabaloo and PostPartisan

Adam Serwer / American Prospect:

Forbes Embraces Birtherism Lite. — Sometimes it's best to think of racism as intellectual laziness. That is, it reflects a failure to evaluate people for who they actually are, because its easier to slip them into a familiar, predetermined category that doesn't upset other related conclusions a person might have come to as a result.

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Weigel, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Daily Dish, The Rachel Maddow Show, National Review, The Huffington Post, Balloon Juice and Peter Daou

Andy Barr / The Politico:
Andy Card: Newt Gingrich is not ‘helpful’

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, CNN, FrumForum and Washington Monthly

The Huffington Post:

Tom Ross, Delaware GOP Chair, Threatened With ‘Bullet In The Head’ — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? — The chairman of the Delaware Republican Party received a death threat last week over his support for Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del) over Tea Party challenger Christine O'Donnell in the state's upcoming Senate primary …

Discussion: TPMDC, Public Policy Polling, Ballot Box, Weigel, Raw Story, The Atlantic Online and FrumForum

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

2 Insurgents Could Hurt G.O.P. Chances for Senate Takeover — Tomorrow's primaries in New York and six other states - the last of the 2010 cycle, save for Saturday's primary in Hawaii and a runoff in Louisiana on Oct. 2 — originally looked as though they'd have little impact on the electoral landscape.

Discussion: Facebook, The Huffington Post, The Politico, New York Times and National Review

Sean J. Miller / Ballot Box:
Conservative group didn't think O'Donnell could win in Del.

Discussion: CNN, Public Policy Polling, ABCNEWS, The Note and The Other McCain

Michelle Malkin:
The DE Senate GOP primary: Castle, Soros & a health advisory

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Liberty Pundits Blog, msnbc.com, Hot Air and The Mahablog

Martin Peretz / The New Republic:

An Apology — Nicholas Kristof and I do not see the world—and America's role in it—in the same way. I have sometimes expressed my disagreements with his opinions vociferously (vociferousness is my business). But in yesterday's The New York Times, he quotes two sentences that I recently wrote …

Discussion: Nicholas D. Kristof, Salon, Raw Story, Politics Daily, The Huffington Post, TPMCafe, Hit & Run, Ò", Wonkette, Gawker, The Atlantic Online and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Nicholas Kristof / Nicholas D. Kristof:
Readers on the Anti-Muslim Frenzy

Discussion: Mediaite, TPM LiveWire, Ben Smith's Blog and TPMCafe

Sherry Devlin / Missoula Editor:

We didn't “sneak in” to Sarah Palin's speech — First: This blogpost is not about politics. — Second: Contrary to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's warning to the standing-room-only crowd at this afternoon's Teen Challenge fundraiser in Missoula, the media did not “sneak in” to her speech.

Discussion: Missoulian, The Daily Dish and The Political Carnival

Alex Seitz-Wald / Think Progress:

Paranoid Palin Hunts For Media ‘Moles’ At Montana Speech — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is never shy about bashing the “lamestream media,” concocting conspiracy theories about its bias, and pioneering a media strategy that keeps her as far away as possible from tough questions.

Discussion: News Hounds

Timothy P. Carney / Washington Examiner:

Pelosi has pocketed nearly twice as much lobbyist cash as Boehner — If you read this weekend's New York Times' hit job on would-be Speaker John Boehner and his “lobbyist friends,” you might think, as the reporter clearly thinks, that John Boehner is cozier with lobbyists than most powerful politicians are.

Discussion: NewsBusters.org, Hot Air, Say Anything, Beltway Confidential, Politics Daily, GayPatriot, The Caucus and Liberty Pundits Blog

Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
Elevating John Boehner (and will it work)

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Weigel, USA Today and PostPartisan

Michelle Malkin:

Document drop: Breaking: DOJ Inspector General will investigate Obama voting rights record — Just obtained this letter from Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine to members of Congress informing them that he will open up a review of the Obama administration's selective enforcement …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers

Chris Johnson / Washington Blade:

Reid to schedule 'Don't Ask' vote next week — The Washington Blade has learned that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) intends to schedule a vote next week on major defense budget legislation that contains “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” repeal language, regardless of any objection from members of the U.S. Senate.

Alexander Nicholson / Congress Blog:
Reid my lips: no forgiveness if no NDAA in September

Discussion: Open Left and Pam's House Blend

Mark Halperin / The Page:

Halperin's Take: Brown Escalates War of Words With Bill Clinton — HALPERIN'S TAKE: The Whitman ad is probably the best TV spot by any campaign all cycle. Clinton and Brown have always had a rough relationship, which probably hit rock bottom... ... in 1992, when, in the same debate …

Discussion: Hot Air, Salon, Taylor Marsh, RedState and Politics Daily

Michael Scherer / Swampland:
Jerry Brown: “I Did Not Have Taxes With This State” UPDATED

Discussion: The Fix, CNN, Calbuzz and The Huffington Post

Leon H. Wolf / The New Ledger:

Meghan McCain's Dirty, Sexy Politics — On June 20, 2002, the United States Supreme Court decreed, in the case of Atkins v. Virginia, that the mildly mentally retarded were categorically exempt from capital punishment, reasoning that fully functional adults of diminished mental capacity …

Discussion: Outside the Beltway and AmSpecBlog

Michelle Malkin:

What will — and won't — get you banned from the U.S. — President Obama's Department of Homeland Security and State Department are hard at work making sure that no drunk foreign teens who call the commander-in-chief names ever set foot in our country. — Feel safer?

Discussion: AmSpecBlog

Virginia Wheeler / myfoxdc WTTG FOX 5:
UK Teenager Banned From America For Life Over Obscene Obama Email

Discussion: Hot Air, The Confluence, LewRockwell.com Blog, Say Anything and Outside the Beltway

Lydia Saad / Gallup:

Generic Ballot Splits 48% for GOP, 43% for Dems — Republicans close to unanimous in supporting GOP candidates — PRINCETON, NJ — Forty-eight percent of registered voters favor Republican congressional candidates and 43% favor Democratic candidates in Gallup's national generic ballot for the week of Sept. 6-12.

Discussion: The Hill, TPMDC, The Huffington Post and Taegan Goddard's …

Alyssa McDonald / New Statesman:

The NS Interview: Noam Chomsky — “President Obama is involved in war crimes right now” — Do you consider yourself to be primarily a scientist or a political activist? — If the world would go away, I would be happy to keep to the science, which is much more interesting and challenging.

Colby Hall / Mediaite:
Noam Chomsky: ‘President Obama Is Involved In War Crimes Right Now’

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and Alan Colmes' Liberaland

WIS-TV:

Obit: In lieu of flowers, donate to anybody running against Obama in 2012 … ROME, GA (NBC) - About 50 people attended the funeral for Don Unsworth, a northwest Georgia businessman, father, grandfather and husband. — Described by family as lively, humorous and politically conservative …

Discussion: CNN, Weasel Zippers and HotAirPundit

Chris Smith / New York Magazine:

America Is a Joke — The worst of times for politics and media has been the best of times for The Daily Show's host—and unfortunately things are getting even funnier. — I — t's hard to top a kick in the nuts. — Especially when the kicker is Linda McMahon, the Connecticut Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Discussion: newsfeed.time.com and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

Kenneth P. Vogel / The Politico:

Tea party outreach courts Jews — Tea partiers have downplayed the lack of diversity in their ranks, but on Monday one of the movement's leading organizers announced a new initiative to reach out to racial, ethnic and religious minorities - and their first target this High Holiday season are Jews.

Discussion: New York Times, Washington Wire, CNN, The Rachel Maddow Show, 24Ahead, Runnin' Scared and FrumForum

Lawrence Wright / New Yorker:

INTOLERANCE — When a dozen cartoons satirizing the Prophet Mohammed appeared in the conservative Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, in September, 2005, there was only a muted outcry from the small Danish Muslim community, and little reaction in the rest of the Muslim world.

Discussion: Atlas Shrugs, News Desk and Talking Points Memo

John Byrne / Raw Story:

Exclusive: Florida Governor Charlie Crist prepared to endorse broad swath of gay rights — MIAMI — Charlie Crist, the current governor of Florida and Independent candidate for US Senate, is prepared to issue a ringing endorsement of gay rights in a document slated to be released as early as this week …

Discussion: Washington Blade, Wonk Room, Pam's House Blend, Wonkette, Joe. My. God. and GOP 12