politico

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) has said he’ll vote against Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Politico reports.
A key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kyl’s vote could encourage other Republicans on the committee to vote against Sotomayor as well. He was reportedly undecided as early as yesterday.
Sotomayor is still expected to [...]

Dennis Whitfield of the American Conservative Union has sent out a press release on today’s embarrassing Mike Allen story that alleges a pay-for-play proposal between the conservative group and FedEx.

“An article containing a false headline has been published by Capitol Hill newspaper Politico today regarding an issue with expansion of the National Labor Relations Board.

This, from Roger Simon, is the kind of political commentary that shoots for “outside the beltway” and just becomes patronizing. Mocking the media coverage of Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska):
Listen to how “rambling” and “disjointed” she is. Once upon a time in American politics, this was known as being “plain-spoken,” but that time has gone.
OK. From [...]

From Politico’s Mike Allen today comes the shocking tale of lobbyists and corporate insiders invited by The Washington Post to meet in intimate, off-the-record pow-wows, not only with Obama administration officials, but also with Post reporters and editors — all facilitated by the newspaper, and all for the bargain basement price of $25,000 – $250,000.
The [...]

This is curious: twice in two weeks Politico has given rather sensational headlines to stories, then changed them later in the day. The original headline for Mike Allen’s preview of the president’s Cairo speech, which has been preserved in a syndicated version:
Obama walks Muslim minefield
The headline that replaced this later in the day:
Obama faces Mideast [...]

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s comments to reporters yesterday that the economic downturn could pose a substantial hurdle to passing immigration reform legislation this year suggests that the Obama administration (and Congress) may be more influenced by politics than economic reality.

And if you can tell which is which, you’re probably not Mike Allen or Jim VandeHei. Credit to Dick Cheney, in that Beltway way, for getting Politico to put him on the same plane as President Obama.

Just how much did top AIG executives pocket last year in bonuses? Politico reports the total awards paid out were four times higher than previously reported, based on new responses from AIG to queries by Rep. Elijah Commings (D-Md.).
AIG now says it paid out more than $454 million in bonuses to its employees for work [...]

Do you love Politico? Sure, we all do. And one of the best ways to read the paper is to read TWI a few weeks earlier. For example, if you were reading TWI 10 weeks ago, you learned that Republicans on the Hill were treating “The Forgotten Man,” the revisionist history of the Great Depression [...]

Ryan Grim reports from the House Republicans’ press conference to launch their alternative budget plan, which was previewed on page A-1 of Politico today as a “detailed alternative to President Barack Obama’s policies” and “a big, TV-friendly stack of blueprints.” From Grim:
“Two nights ago, the president said, ‘We haven’t seen a budget yet out of [...]