A year after its passage, the health-care overhaul is opening fresh battlefields in an old and bitter debate. Almost immediately after the law came into effect, five states passed bills that will prohibit private health insurance plans sold on its new state-based insurance marketplaces from cover...

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/11/AR2011031103168.html?wprss=rss_politics

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The state of Arizona has moved onto contentious political territory once again with the legislative passage of a bill requiring President Obama and other presidential candidates to prove their U.S. citizenship before their names can appear on the state's ballot.

Source: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/pBk11SWpM6Q/

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/17/fracking-report-carcinogens-water-wells_n_850159.html

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House Republicans have been challenging EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant, in hearings aimed at cutting the agency's budget and curbing its ability to regulate greenhouse gases.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/13/AR2011031303340.html?wprss=rss_politics

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Ed Quillen dressed the Republicans in gray for the Sesquicentennial:

[O]ne might make the argument that if you take the long view, the Confederacy actually triumphed. We can start with the Republican Party, founded in 1854 to oppose the Dixie way of life, but now a reflection of Southern attitudes. In capturing the Republican Party, the political descendants of the Confederates are accomplishing through politics what their ideological ancestors failed to accomplish on the battlefield.

To be sure, chattel slavery has long been abolished in this nation. But you could consider slavery a form of cheap labor with no legal protections for the laborers. Now consider the GOP current efforts to bust unions, cut wages and benefits, and reduce workplace safety regulations.

Robert Parry:

Ryan?s plan would fatten the insurance industry?s bottom line by squeezing the elderly on healthcare. In effect, the plan would create a free-market ?death panel? by forcing many senior citizens to skip necessary care.

Ryan also would ?save? large sums by turning the Medicaid program for the poor into a state block grant system, which would leave states little choice but to also turn their backs on many sick and disabled.

Dan Becker and James Gerstenzang said there's a way to save motorists money and help the environment:

There is no magic wand that will bring down the price of gasoline, which has once again crossed the $4 mark in California. But there is a long-term solution that will inoculate us from higher costs in the future.

The Obama administration can't do much to lower the price of a gallon of gas, but it is on the cusp of a crucial decision that could help consumers come out ahead because they would need less gas.

Officials are quietly working on just how steeply to require the auto industry to cut emissions and increase mileage in the next generation of cars, SUVs and pickups. Their decision, coming as early as May, could require dramatically cleaner vehicles that would cut carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 6% a year and average 62 miles per gallon. The new rules would be phased in from 2017 to 2025.

Paul Krugman was glad to see President Obama call the Republicans' bluff.

And the hissy fit ? I mean, criticism ? the Obama plan provoked from Mr. Ryan was deeply revealing, as the man who proposes using budget deficits as an excuse to cut taxes on the rich accused the president of being ?partisan.? Mr. Ryan also accused the president of being ?dramatically inaccurate? ? this from someone whose plan included a $200 billion error in its calculation of interest costs and appears to have made an even bigger error on Medicaid costs. He didn?t say what the inaccuracies were.

Suzanne Fields expressed some problems she has with Nancy Pelosi and Democratic women in Congress generally.

Petula Dvorak:

?This is abortion politics on steroids,? said Carole Joffe, professor at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California at San Francisco, who has studied the abortion debates for decades and wrote a book on them, ?Dispatches From the Abortion Wars.? She says that politicians are making abortion ?front and center, now more than ever before.? ?

But bringing up abortion delivers political gold when politicians can?t deliver on such problems as the economy and the two or three wars we?re fighting, Joffe told me. And that?s why it becomes such a big factor on Capitol Hill.

Ben Shapiro apparently slept through April Fool's Day, so had to write his prank column late:

Pay no attention to the recent polls showing Obama crushing Trump by 20 points in a head-to-head matchup.

That disparity is attributable to the public perception that Trump is a loudmouth with no true interest in running. The moment he declares in earnest and gets on the campaign stump, his numbers will rise dramatically.

Kevin Zeese has a few problems with President Obama's debt-reduction plans:

When there are no real cuts for the Pentagon, just slower growth, it means that the rest of discretionary spending will face real cuts. Everything from education to the environment, health care to safety will be cut and every American will feel it.

Nate Silver:

Are Republicans favorites to take back the Senate next year?
For the time being, I?d say so. The simple fact that Democrats have 23 senators up for re-election in 2012 ? compared to just 10 for the Republicans ? tilts the playing field in the G.O.P.?s favor. And although both parties have had their share of retirement announcements, the Democrats? ? particularly Kent Conrad?s in North Dakota and Jeff Bingaman?s in New Mexico ? have tended to come in more vulnerable seats.

But as I?ll aim to demonstrate for you, I don?t think the Republicans are terribly heavy favorites: instead just a wee bit above 50 percent.

Katha Pollitt weighs in on the GOP's war on women:

This point has been made so often, to so little effect, that I sometimes wonder if the antichoice plan is not actually to prevent abortion but simply to make it as awful as possible for the woman. Many of the 370-plus antiabortion bills now wending their way through state legislatures are simply about creating misery, anxiety and fear?forcing women to view ultrasounds, see antichoice counselors, listen to scripts claiming falsely that abortions cause breast cancer and infertility, and wait, wait, wait for their procedures. Prevention, after all, would mean birth control?the very thing Title X provides! Now, with $17 million less. Because why should hookers have free birth control? If you ever doubted that the next target of the antichoice movement will be contraception, you need to start paying attention to the fine print.

Robert Fisk:

In reality, the "Arab awakening" began not in Tunisia this year, but in Lebanon in 2005 when, appalled by the assassination of ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri (Saad's father), hundreds of thousands of Lebanese of all faiths gathered in central Beirut to demand the withdrawal of Syria's 20,000 soldiers in the country.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/zkJyqvhkn1Q/-Abbreviated-pundit-round-up

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Continuing to draw comparisons between his plan and the Republicans' plan for deficit reduction, President Obama says in his weekly address that the GOP proposal is ?wrong for America.?

Source: http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=8f8e2a59e4e6f8246fa7dbd164a97bb6

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Four prospective Republican candidates appeared together at a Tax Day-Tea Party rally in New Hampshire Friday, calling for lower taxes and major cuts in federal spending.

Source: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/tHGiqIQHxbU/

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For all the rhetoric against federal spending and encroachment on states' autonomy, governors rely heavily on federal funds, especially in these troubled economic times. An ABC News analysis show that even those states whose lawmakers have assailed federal spending, money from Washington, D.C. makes up a huge part of state budget.

Source: http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=8c3806f0f718fead5f31d4c37982121e

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Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been wrongly accused by critics of arrogantly shooting from the hip and getting us into that mess in Iraq.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/10/AR2011031005411.html?wprss=rss_politics

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Jake Tapper explains the timing behind President Obama's speech on the budget.

Source: http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=0ecc3bc66413e2cda16e1b16769899b2

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