Politico.com

The Journal News Gun Owner Database Debacle

Whenever one's privacy is breached in the public sphere, there's always that awkward, immediate reaction when the reader asks, "Was that one too far?" Well, it depends on impact and damage; this was a main concern with WikiLeaks - "Did their privacy leaks put anyone in harm's way?" underlies every c ... More >>

Andrew Cuomo Won't Talk About His Running For President In 2016. Everyone Else Will

Governor Andrew Cuomo won't talk about his seemingly inevitable run for the White House in 2016, but everyone else will."All I'm working on is being the best governor I can be," Cuomo told reporters yesterday when asked about a presidential run becoming a distraction."That's where I am. That is real ... More >>

Jesse Jackson Slams Newt Gingrich Over Food Stamps

And the food-stamp fracas continues! The Reverend Jesse Jackson has just blasted Newt Gingrich for his comments that Barack Obama is a "food stamp" president, and has come out against the Republican presidential hopeful, telling Politico: "Food stamps (are the) lifeline for many Americans -- they h ... More >>

Holy Shit! Mitt Romney Made a Fake Bet!

Last night, the remaining Republican presidential candidates met at Drake University in Des Moines for a debate that lasted almost two hours. What they said doesn't matter, however, as the only thing people will remember is the moment when Mitt Romney asked Rick Perry if he wanted to bet "ten thousa ... More >>

Rachael Ray Mag Changes Hands; Cantaloupe Death Toll Hits 23

​A food truck festival has been canceled in Boston this weekend due to the Occupy Boston protest downtown. [Boston Herald] A blogger for Politico went to 25 restaurants frequented by Michelle Obama to "have what she's having" and discovered the First Lady likes vegetables and dirty martinis. ... More >>

Mitt Romney Not a Christian, Says Mega-Christian With Megachurch

Robert Jeffress, the evangelical megachurch pastor who introduced Rick Perry at the Voter Values Summit yesterday, has publicly questioned Mitt Romney's faith. Politico reports that when asked whether Mitt Romney was a Christian, Jeffress said, "No." Jeffress added, "That is a mainstream view, that ... More >>

Reno Air Crash Kills 3; States Oppose AT&T Merger; UAW and GM Reach Agreement

​At least three people died yesterday when a plane at an air race in Reno, Nevada crashed near a grandstand. Jimmy Leeward was piloting a P-51 Mustang at the National Championship Air Races and Air Show when he lost control of the aircraft. Witnesses say he managed to pull up before impact, pr ... More >>

Matt Drudge, David Axelrod, and Tina Brown All Still Use AOL Email Addresses

~*xoMattDrudgexo*~@aol.com​You know who still uses an antique AOL email account, apart from your mom? A lot of really famous and important people. Politico's Ben Smith argues today that the outdated email service has actually gone from uncool and dated all the way back around to being a "status sy ... More >>

Stage Collapse at Indiana State Fair; Bachmann Wins Straw Poll; Suicide Attack in Afghanistan

​A concert stage collapsed last night at the Indiana State Fair, killing four and injuring 40. After a performance by singer Sara Bareilles, winds "between 60 and 70 mph" knocked over rigging and collapsed the structure to the ground. Attendees reported that "Spectators grabbed parts of their ... More >>

Holy Crap, it's the Ames Straw Poll!

Frontrunner Michele Bachmann has her eyes on the prize.​Today, in Ames, Iowa, the race for the Republican presidential candidacy begins its gestation. Candidates, pundits and voters flock to the campus of Iowa State University to, according to the Los Angeles Times, "mingle, eat barbecue and h ... More >>

London Riots; 4 NATO Soldiers Killed; S&P Warns of Another U.S. Credit Downgrade

Telegraph.co.uk​Riots raged overnight in the Tottenham area of London as protesters stormed the streets and burned buses, police cars and buildings. A crowd of 120 marched on the Tottenham police station in response to the shooting of Mark Duggan, a man who died in an alleged gunfight with off ... More >>

United States Postal Service, Like United States, is Broke

It was either Cliff or Newman, and I chose Cliff. Deal with it.​The U.S. Postal Service reported a $3.1 billion quarterly loss on Friday and, at its current financial decline, won't be able to make the $5.5 billion payment for its retirement fund due next month. Politico reports that unless Co ... More >>

Rick Perry's Hip-Hop Prayer BBQ Didn't Create Jobs

Wikipedia​A lot has been made of Texas Governor Rick Perry's prayer rally, which he led this morning in Houston's Reliant Stadium. Perry, who is ramping up his campaign to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, insists that there were no political motivations to the gathering. Exact ... More >>

A Brooklyn State of Mind as Borough Exceeds Same-Sex Marriage Goal (Video)

Brides Stacey Minondo and Barbara Tremblay waiting outside Brooklyn Borough Hall​Brooklyn was number two when it came to the number of weddings it planned to perform yesterday. With 109 lottery winning couples registered in the morning, it was a distant second to Manhattan's planned 459 weddin ... More >>

President Obama Was "Kind of a Dick," Time Editor Says

Mark Halperin, Time Magazine's senior political analyst, was on MSNBC's Morning Joe earlier today and said President Obama was "kind of a dick" for his demeanor in yesterday's press conference. That political analysis came during a riff on seven-second delays, a censorship device that the show clea ... More >>

Dennis Kucinich Praises Syrian Leader, Says He Was Mistranslated a Smidge

​Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich traveled to Syria this week and reportedly praised President Bashar al-Assad, the leader who has been accused of ordering attacks on pro-democratic supporters. Politico reports that Kucinich held a press conference in Damascus where he said, "President Bashar ... More >>

New York Times Traffic Down 24% From Paywall; Erik Wemple to Washington Post

​Lately the New York Times has lost a few of its star writers including legendary critic and columnist Frank Rich and foreign correspondent Dexter Filkins, along with a handful of others, and although people change jobs all the time and for a variety of reasons, the timing was enough to make u ... More >>

Osama Bin Laden Death Pictures Hit First Freedom of Information Act Bump

​With President Obama deciding that the United States is not the type of country to release photographs of a dead Osama Bin Laden, shot in the head, there are two ways the public will ever see them: 1) a government leak when this all dies down, or 2) an enterprising journalist whose Freedom of ... More >>

Osama Bin Laden Likely Executed 'After' the Raid, Not Killed in a Firefight

​After more than two days of speculation and an ever-evolving account of what really happened, it is starting to become clear that Osama Bin Laden was never going to make it out of his Abbottabad, Pakistan compound alive, despite U.S. counterterrorism expert John Brennan's claim that, "If we h ... More >>

Mitt Romney: "We're Going To Hang" Barack Obama

​The smooth-haired former governor of Massachusetts placed his foot firmly in his mouth last night at an event in New Hampshire. Mitt Romney told the audience that the Republicans were going to hang Barack Obama. Well, it sounds worse than it was, but it was pretty bad!

Mitt Romney Throws His Exploratory Hat Into the Exploratory Ring

Mitt Romney has taken to YouTube to announce that he has formed an exploratory committee for the 2012 presidential race. He calmly talks about jobs while standing in front of what looks to be a high school football field (because nothing says "America" like adolescent concussions). It is subdued, re ... More >>

Obama Advisor Knows Debt, Rap; Loves 'Enema Man' And 'Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg'

​Alan Simpson, former Senator and current co-chairman of President Obama's deficit commission, went on Fox News' version of 106 & Park (that would be Your World with Neil Cavuto) to discuss Social Security. Politico reports Simpson argued that old people were being oversensitive with their Soc ... More >>

Howard Kurtz Is Not Too Big To Join the Kurt Bardella Pile On After Darrell Issa Snafu

​Howard Kurtz, the former Washington Post media critic and current Washington bureau chief at The Daily Beast, suffered some embarrassment earlier this year when he admitted to waiting six weeks before running a correction on a factually inaccurate article. Kurtz thought he was speaking with u ... More >>

The Daily Ditching iPad-Only For Android App ASAP; TBD.com Dismantled, Doomed

​After three weeks of publication as the world's first-ever iPad newspaper, reports are trickling out that News Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch's pet project, The Daily, will be migrating to a second platform, the Android tablet, in the second quarter of 2011. The news comes barely 20 issues since M ... More >>

Mayor Bloomberg to Axe More Than 6,000 City Teachers

​Mayor Mike Bloomberg is set to announce that he plans to eliminate 6,100 teaching positions from the city's schools -- that's one out of every 12 -- according to Mike Bloomberg's media company. Bloomberg's Administration will layoff 4,666 teachers and lose another 1,500 to attrition. UFT Pre ... More >>

Sarah Palin Getting the Silent Treatment For February

​By one man at least: Dana Milbank of the Washington Post used his column space at the end of last week as an opportunity for mild self-flagellation, admitting that since the 2008 election, he has written about Sarah Palin in 42 column and in "dozens more blog posts, Web chats, and TV and radi ... More >>

Carolyn McCarthy Preps New Gun Control Bill; Pro-Glockers Up in Arms

LI rep Carolyn McCarthy​There's nothing like knowing there are crazed gunmen out there with elected officials squarely in their sites to focus political attentions. Which is why it will be interesting to see if official Washington has a stronger reaction to a planned political assassination wi ... More >>

Don't Ask Don't Tell Opponents Pick Up Some Unlikely Support

While John McCain gets crankier and crankier about repealing Don't Ask, Don't tell, opponents of the policy have picked up a couple of unlikely allies on the right. After much lobbying, Sen. Scott Brown has finally come around and said he will consider voting to end Don't Ask (along with the usua ... More >>

The Daily Kill Dossier: A Hit List of News Corp's Freshest Poaches

​As it's been noted, News Corp's daily newspaper built just for the iPad -- The Daily -- is on the way. It is Rupert Murdoch's newest child, the Draco Malfoy to his Voldemort. As such, they're hiring or trying to hire every editorial staffer this side of the Bangkok Bugle Tribune, which I just inv ... More >>

Tony Hayward Should Really Just Stop Talking

​Tony Hayward, the English bloke and former oil company CEO with the name that became infamous, and synonymous, with BP's 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled in the Gulf, and a sense of overwhelming incompetence in BP's attitude toward said spill (what with his taking time to go yachting, and c ... More >>

Barack Obama: Twisting Words in the Wind on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

President Obama covered a lot of ground on gay and lesbian rights in the middle of the four o'clock hour on Thursday. In the end, he wound up saying one thing and doing another. In a cleverly worded statement, he vowed that "don't ask, don't tell" will end on his watch. He did not mean that he wil ... More >>

Press Clips: "10 Reasons Nick Denton is an Asshole"

​Well, since it's now hailing outside, I'm stuck inside the office until it lets up just enough for me to run from our office to the Astor Place 6 using my emergency Umbrella Mafia-umbrella without getting completely drenched. Might as well do this thing. Press Clips, Day 11, Late "Hailpocolyp ... More >>

Carl Paladino TV Show Tonite: Will it be 'Mad Men' or 'True Blood'?

Morgan Schweitzer​Get ready to go to the windows and start shouting this evening, because at precisely 5:13 P.M. Carl Paladino will be making a "major announcement" on TV and it's going to be look out below. "I must make my witness," he was heard telling aides yesterday as he ordered them to b ... More >>

New York's Finest: Kristen Gillibrand Voted "Hottest Senator" by...Majority Leader Harry Reid?

​Not that New Yorkers don't already take what some might consider excessive pride in our great city and state's offerings, but it's never not nice to have a reminder from others of just how great it all is. Unless it's a creepy comment from an old man noting the attractiveness of a certain sen ... More >>

'Don't Ask Don't Tell' Ruled Unconstitutional -- the Takeaway

It's been quite a summer for the Federal Courts as they've stepped in yet again on behalf of equal rights for gay Americans. After a Federal District Court in San Francisco ruled Proposition 8 was unconstitutional last month, a Federal District Court in Riverside, CA ruled last night that the U.S. m ... More >>

Craigslist Sex Ads Are Gone For Good

via​As noted yesterday, Craigslist replaced their controversial "Adult Services" section, which openly traded in prostitution, with an un-clickable black box reading "censored," but only in the United States. According to CNN, "Craigslist representatives were not immediately available for comm ... More >>

Capital New York: New York's Newest Media Launch is ALIVE! Kinda. (UPDATED)

​Beloved New York Observer editors Tom McGeveran and Josh Benson left the paper late last year to go work on a secret, hush-hush project. This was after Jared Kushner -- the son of a disgraced Jersey real-estate scion and now Ivanka Trump's husband -- purchased the legendary pink paper (whose ... More >>

National Enquirer Recycling Obama Sex Scandal, Powered By John Edwards Goodwill

​Did President Barack Obama have an affair with Vera Baker, a campaign aide on his run for Senate in 2004? Definitely (maybe), says the National Enquirer! Probably, says the Drudge Report, amid vivid Vietnam-style flashbacks while muttering "Lewinsky" repeatedly. Everyone else is hedging their ... More >>

Mike Bloomberg Trashes Chuck Schumer As He Crusades to Protect Wall Street Excess

​Politico reported today that Mayor Mike trashed his longtime buddy Chuck Schumer at an April 12 meeting in Mitch McConnell's Senate office in Washington. The attack on Schumer, who supports the financial reform bill now before the Senate, is part of the oddest Bloomberg campaign ... More >>

Blodget and Salmon on Blodget vs. Salmon: The Last Word

​Last week, a war of words broke out between two fairly notable New York media presences. It was started after an editor was fired last week, the news of which we broke here. And we thought we'd try to end it here, too, by speaking with both about the spat.

Health Care Bill One Vote Closer, America Too Distracted with Other Cliffhanger Result to Care

​Upset City! That's one less holdout to rough up in the back rooms of Capital Hill: Rep. John Boccieri (D) of Ohio has voted for the health care bill, putting Americans one step closer to health care that will supposedly piss them off less. Unfortunately, it's happening while they wait for the ... More >>

Mike Bloomberg's Girlfriend Diana Taylor Said (By Bored Press) to Consider Senate Run

​We thought the age of celebrity candidates ended with Jesse Ventura. Then, with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then, with Al Franken. Then, with Caroline Kennedy, Mort Zuckerman, Larry Kudlow... Oh, who are we kidding, it never ends. Now we hear "multiple sources confirm" that Mike Bloomberg's girlf ... More >>

Rudy for Senate: he won't say, aides say no

​After parading his somewhat tarnished national security street cred, ruling out a gubernatorial run and floating a run at the Senate, America's former Mayor has gone to ground in Florida and isn't talking. His aides, on the other hand, say the Senate isn't big enough for him.

Now Giuliani is Supposed to Be Running for the Senate

​The Daily News, apparently not wanting to be left out, reports that "sources" tell them Rudolph Giuliani, who is allegedly done with his speculative gubernatorial run, "will run for U.S. Senate instead." Politico's got it; so has Talking Points Memo; aaaaand it's in play!...

Vast White-Wing Conspiracy? 15% of Black House Members Under Investigation

David Paterson took a lot of heat for saying racism was behind his poor press and dismal poll numbers. When he tried to rope President Obama into the act, the White House distanced itself from the governor more strenuously than they did even from Bill Thompson. We wondered some time ago if maybe hi ... More >>

Towns Takes Hint from Albany Dems, Locks GOP Out of Chamber

Remember, during the Albany Coup, how the state senate Democrats locked the chamber and Pedro Espada flourished the key? National Democrats are starting to pick up this method, thanks to our own Edolphus Towns. The Hill says the Brooklyn Congressman "locked Republicans out of the House Oversight a ... More >>

Post Responds to Monkey Cartoon Flap; Other Flaps to Follow

The New York Post runs a small editorial this morning about Sean Delonas' ape-stimulus cartoon, which ran in the paper earlier this week and which some have characterized as a racist swipe at Barack Obama. In some quarters the editorial is called an "apology," but it's way too pugnacious for that. " ... More >>

WPIX, Others Say Gillibrand Will Go to Senate

Despite the protestations of Wayne Barrett and Carolyn McCarthy, among others, it looks as if Governor Paterson is going with Kirsten Gillibrand. The Times says he's "leaning" toward her; WPIX "confirms" it; Politico's Glenn Thrush says it "looks like" Gillibrand. After the mad leaks of last night o ... More >>

Washington Post Nabs Kornblut From the Times