National: John Boehner

1. The Obama Tax Cuts Are Just Bait for the GOP

Obama’s whole model is to lead by being unthreatening. He’d rather have someone else make the tough decisions. He figures that tax-cut proposals will work like catnip on Republicans in Congress. Then they’ll have the big fights with the Congressional Democrats that Obama would prefer not to have.

2. TARP II Demands Real Debate

The entire rationale on which it was presented to Congress was thrown out within days of its passage. To date, it has become apparent that the plan has not achieved one of its pivotal goals – making credit available to individuals and businesses.

• In this post yesterday I attempted to list the Daily Kos staff list, and totally botched it. I said there were 8 full-time people working on the site, there are actually nine. Who did I miss? Jed, who is close to launching a new kick ass Daily Kos product. Yet another reason I suck.
• In a "stimulus" environment away with bailouts for unworthy industries, add another possible one to the list:

  A source of mine called to say that Obama's reached out to some newspaper publishers about giving papers a tax break in the stimulus package. Broadcasters are ticked that they're being left out.