Cue the “Like” button jokes.

As the president’s political apparatus gears up to activate key Democratic constituencies for the 2012 election, President Barack Obama is scheduled to hold a Facebook 'town hall' Wednesday that will be broadcast to the social networking site's hundreds of millions of users.

The event, which will be moderated by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, starts at 4:45pm ET. You can watch a live feed of the town hall here.

The White House says the Facebook event demonstrates the president’s belief that “there are many ways to speak to the American people.”

“It would be nice, it would make our jobs a lot easier, if these were the days when a vast majority of the American audience tuned into Walter Cronkite at night and we could just talk to 'Uncle Walter' and get our message out there,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday. “And that’s just not the case anymore.”

Somewhere in the ballpark of half a billion people on the planet use Facebook, for everything from professing their Lady Gaga fandom to ascertaining whether their high school’s “Most Likely to Succeed” awardee lived up to the hype.

But who’s using it  -- and other social media tools like Twitter – for politics?

According to a report by the Pew Internet and Family Life Project, about 1 in 5 internet-using adults used social networking sites to engage in political activity – like swapping information about a campaign, joining an online political group, or “following” or “friending” a candidate --  in the months before the 2010 midterm elections.  

About 40 percent of those who use social media for political purposes are under 30 years old, and about the same percentage have a college degree. (About 75 percent of 18-29 year-olds overall are regular users of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, versus about a quarter of adults over 50.)

And they’re about equally divided on the political spectrum.

According to Pew, adults who used social media for politics voted for Republican over Democratic House and Senate candidates by a 45-41 percent margin.

And one of the most active groups “friending” candidates and causes on social media sites?  Tea Party supporters.

From NBC's Luke Russert and Mark Murray
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor today called for a "binding timeframe" in the White House-Congress negotiations to find long-term solutions for the nation's deficit and debt.

Cantor also repeated the GOP threat that Repubilcans won't vote to raise the debt ceiling unless there are serious reforms to reduce spending.(Emphasis is ours.)

Earlier this week, S&P downgraded the United States' long-term credit rating as a result of irresponsible spending practices, further highlighting the need to act immediately and take serious and binding steps to get our fiscal house in order. That is why it is so important that the latest iteration of the President's fiscal commission be a serious and sincere effort to manage down our debt and foster long-term economic growth, and not serve as yet another arena for political theater. For this commission to succeed, the President must agree to work with us in earnest. Going in, we need a clearly defined mission and a targeted purpose to be accomplished within a specific and binding timeframe. Our economy, global markets, job creators and families cannot afford to wait for the White House and Democrats to drag their feet when it comes to reducing our nation's debt and deficit; we need real results immediately to make Washington begin to live within its means and get people back to work.

With the debt limit window fast approaching, House Republicans have made clear that if the President and our Democratic colleagues refuse to accept serious reforms that immediately reduce federal spending and end the culture of debt in Washington, we will not grant their request for a debt limit increase. As the Washington Post pointed out, 'the looming debt limit votes offers an opportunity to accomplish some real deficit reduction.' We cannot afford to sit idly by and blindly raise the debt limit without binding and real spending reforms that will guarantee we don't continue these bad spending practices in the future.

From NBC's Mark Murray
In the early race for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney has been the anti-Trump, at least when it comes to dealing with the media.

Unlike The Donald -- who has granted interviews to almost any news organization that will ask him a question -- the former Massachusetts governor has been much more selective.

In an interview today on the conservative "Mark Larson Show," Romney criticized President Obama on economic policy. “Standard & Poor's, one of the rating agencies, just downgraded their view of the future for America," Romney said. "If you will, they downgraded the Obama presidency. In my own view, this is not something to be laughed off as the president’s people seem to be doing. The president really ought to personally sit down and meet with S&P. I did that when I was governor." Romney's press office then distributed those comments to political reporters.

Two days earlier, in another radio interview, Romney said something similar to conservative host Sean Hannity: "The Obama presidency was downgraded today... And the reason that I’m looking at this race ... is I have a 25-year career in the private sector; I know how jobs come and how they go." Once again, his press shop circulated those remarks to reporters.

This is the advantage that someone who has run for president before enjoys over those who haven't like Tim Pawlenty, Haley Barbour, and even Michele Bachmann. And it allows him to control his message (focus on the economy) and avoid as much as possible other questions (like Massachusetts' health-care law).

"Gov. Romney doesn’t feel the need to be in the news commenting on the headlines of the day," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul tells First Read. "Usually, when he steps out to give an interview, he’s talking about jobs and the economy. Job creation is the central message of his campaign, and it is what’s compelling him to become a candidate in the race."

But such a strategy also has forced Romney to run away from certain questions, suggesting a weakness for the perceived GOP front-runner. After delivering a foreign-policy speech before the Republican Jewish Coalition earlier this month, Romney refused to answer reporters' questions about Libya. “I’ve got a lot of positions on a lot of topics, but walking down the hall probably isn’t the best place to describe all those,” he said, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

During an interview on "The View" back in February, Romney admitted that he answered too many questions during the 2008 campaign. "The challenge I had last time was I answered every question. And sometimes, you need to say: 'You know, let me quickly answer that question and then get on to what's really important.'"

Of course, Romney can't pick and choose forever. When he eventually embarks on campaign trail -- full-time -- he'll be forced to answer questions from the traveling press corps.

"Some of these questions aren't going to away by avoiding the press," said a strategist for another 2012 GOP presidential campaign. "You can either answer them now or six months from now."

Rep. Michele Bachmann, the leader of the House Tea Party caucus and a potential 2012 presidential contender, said Wednesday that she’s prepared to “move on” from questions about the president’s birthplace.

“That’s what should settle it,” Bachmann said on Good Morning America when host George Stephanopoulos showed a copy of Barack Obama’s certification of live birth with a seal and the signature of the state registrar.

Case closed, Bachmann responded.  

“Introduce that, we’re done, move on, end of story,” she said.

The Tea Party favorite has not embraced the “birther” movement with the fervor of media-catnip distributor Donald Trump, saying repeatedly – as she said again today – that she “take[s] the president at his word” that he was born in Hawaii.

But she has also nodded in the past to those who demanded that the president offer further “verification” of his birthplace, and she has declined to refute the discredited rumors that the president was born abroad.  (She also offered to show her own birth certificate in the first Republican primary debate.)

“The president just has to give the proof and verification, and there it goes. Either it's real or it's not,” she said on FOX earlier this month. “Everybody should put their birth certificate on the table and not worry about it. It doesn't have to be a toxic issue.”

But Bachmann now joins other possible 2012 GOP contenders ready to throw some cold water on the birther controversy -- or at least keep gasoline away from the flames.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee argued in February that birthplace conspiracies are “nonsense,” pointing out that onetime Obama rival Hillary Clinton’s opposition research team would have been equipped and able to publicize proof – if it existed - that the president is not a U.S. citizen

“For Republicans to even be bringing it up, I think it's a waste of energy and time,” he said.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has fashioned his response to the controversy into the opening of a stump speech laugh line. “I'm not one to question the authenticity of Barack Obama's birth certificate," Pawlenty says on the trail. "But when you look at his policies, I do question what planet he's from."

Pawlenty also pushed members of his party to put the questions about Obama’s birthplace to bed. “I, for one, do not believe we should be raising that issue," Pawlenty said on MSNBC in March. "I think President Obama was born in the United States."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney echoed Pawlenty’s assertion last week.

"I think the citizenship test has been passed. I believe the president was born in the United States,” Romney told CNBC. “The man needs to be taken out of office but his citizenship isn't the reason why."

And Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour dismissed a question about Trump’s high-profile brandishing of the birther mantle last week in New Hampshire,  saying simply that “I just accept at face value that the president was born where he says he was.”

Still, with poll numbers showing a sizable portion of GOP voters have questions about Obama’s birthplace, the issue could remain a tricky one for candidates as they appear in front of often-unpredictable town hall audiences.

A recent FOX News poll showed that about a quarter of all Americans – and almost four in ten Republicans – have doubts about whether or not the president was born in the United States.

From msnbc.com's Tom Curry
Reprising a position he took while running for president in 2008, Barack Obama on Tuesday endorsed one of the proposals made by his Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission: increase the amount of income subject to Social Security taxes.

The Social Security tax is imposed only on the first $106,800 of annual earned income. The Congressional Budget Office said increasing the maximum amount of taxable wages to $170,000 in 2012 and beyond would raise $468 billion in revenue over ten years.

(Generally, the maximum amount of taxable wages goes up every year in line with average wage growth, but since 2009 it has remained at $106,800.)

Obama said in an interview with NBC’s Tim Russert in November of 2007, “I think that the best way to approach this is to adjust the cap on the payroll tax so that people like myself are paying a little bit more.”

He said Tuesday, “For the vast majority of Americans, every dime you earn, you're paying some in Social Security. But for (billionaire investor) Warren Buffett, he stops paying at a little bit over $100,000 and then the next $50 billion he's not paying a dime in Social Security taxes.” For billionaires, a large part of their income comes not from wages, but from capital gains, dividends, and other investment income. That non-wage income is not subject to Social Security taxation.

But of course, thousands of people do earn a salary of more than $106,800 a year.

In 2008 (the last year the Internal Revenue Service published data), more than 3.8 million tax returns showed salary and wage income of more than $200,000.

Why doesn’t a person earning $500,000 a year pay Social Security taxes on every last dollar of that income?

The answer begins with the architects of Social Security in 1935. An advisory committee appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt set the amount of wages to be taxed at $3,000. The reason, said committee member Princeton University economist J. Douglas Brown, was “aesthetic logic. $3,000 looked very good. It was $250 a month.” In 1935, per capita wage income was only $1,179. That was for the year, not for one week. (A dollar in 1935 had the buying power of $16 today.)

In the decades that followed, Congress periodically raised the wage amount subject to Social Security taxes, partly to pay for larger benefits for retirees. In 1977 Congress passed a law to link the taxable maximum to match annual growth in average wages.

From the beginning there has been some connection between wages earned and Social Security benefits received. A worker with a lifetime of above-average wages will get benefits higher than those of a worker with a lifetime of average or below-average wages.

But there’s a maximum Social Security retirement benefit. For example, for a worker retiring at age 66 this year, the maximum annual retirement benefit is $28,392. 

The CBO has said the link between earnings and retirement benefits “has been an important aspect of Social Security since its inception.” Raising Social Security taxes on higher earners would weaken that link between wages and benefits, the CBO said, because their benefits wouldn’t increase as much as their tax burden would.

Raising taxes on higher earners would make Social Security more of an income transfer program: taking money from those who earn more, and giving it to those who earned less while they were working.

To some degree, Social Security already does this redistribution in the way its benefit formula is designed, but Obama’s proposal would nudge the system further in that direction.

Amid the embarrassing "birther" discussion of whether or not President Obama was born in the United States -- fact: he was born in Hawaii -- comes the upcoming New York Times magazine piece on Obama's late mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.

An excerpt:

 To describe Dunham as a white woman from Kansas turns out to be about as illuminating as describing her son as a politician who likes golf. Intentionally or not, the label obscures an extraordinary story — of a girl with a boy’s name who grew up in the years before the women’s movement, the pill and the antiwar movement; who married an African at a time when nearly two dozen states still had laws against interracial marriage; who, at 24, moved to Jakarta with her son in the waning days of an anticommunist bloodbath in which hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were slaughtered; who lived more than half her adult life in a place barely known to most Americans, in the country with the largest Muslim population in the world; who spent years working in villages where a lone Western woman was a rarity; who immersed herself in the study of blacksmithing, a craft long practiced exclusively by men; who, as a working and mostly single mother, brought up two biracial children; who believed her son in particular had the potential to be great; who raised him to be, as he has put it jokingly, a combination of Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi and Harry Belafonte; and then died at 52, never knowing who or what he would become.

Obama’s presidency -- so far -- has been largely defined by moving from one crisis to the next… One thing that HASN’T happened one year since the BP spill: tackling a solution to America’s energy problems… Obama participates in a Facebook town hall in Palo Alto at 4:45 pm ET and then hits two fundraisers in the evening… Dem Super PAC goes on the attack on Ryan budget plan… Profiling the 2011 KY GOV race… Priebus delivers speech in Chicago… And Newt’s in New Hampshire, while Cain’s in Indiana.

From NBC's Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Ali Weinberg, and Carrie Dann
*** Crisis control: From 2008 until now, Barack Obama has moved from one high-wire act to another. Back in ’08, Maureen Dowd even compared his presidential campaign to Hercules’ 12 Labors: He had to slay Hillary Clinton, embark on an exhausting trip to the Middle East and Europe, survive Sarah Palin, cope with an economic collapse, and defeat John McCain in the general election. None was easy, each featured setbacks, but all were ultimately successful. And since his time in the Oval Office, the labors have kept coming. Indeed, on this one-year anniversary of the BP spill, Obama’s presidency has been largely defined by moving from one crisis or challenge to the next. Stabilizing the economy. Rescuing the auto industry. Passing health care. Stopping the BP spill. Responding to Egypt and Libya. Avoiding a government shutdown. And now trying to raise the debt ceiling.

*** Respond, survive, and move on: What all these crises have in common: The White House responded (sometimes slowly), did everything it could do withstand the crisis and criticism (deliver an Oval Office address, host marathon negotiations), and then moved on when it could. These crises and challenges also share this trait: Outside of the health-care fight, they didn’t bring them on themselves. As Obama has admitted, 90% of a president’s job is dealing with events outside of your control. And then there’s this: The crises have taken away their focus on the economy.

*** What hasn’t happened one year since the BP spill: One year removed from the BP spill, the most amazing thing about it is what HASN’T happened -- namely a solution to the country’s energy problems. We aren’t any closer to resolving these problems. “I remember very well what [Obama] said when he was nominated: He said that in ten years we will not import any oil from the Mideast,” T. Boone Pickens tells NBC’s David Gregory in his weekly “Press Pass” chat. “We’re almost three years deep now from when he made that statement… There’s been no plan put forth that I’ve seen and since he’s been president to accomplish that, unless he started talking about natural gas, and when you get down to it, we don’t have a number of options.”

*** California, here we come: Today, Obama heads to California, where he participates in a Facebook town hall in Palo Alto (on the deficit and debt) at 4:45 pm ET, and then he hits two fundraisers in San Francisco afterward. While there’s official White House business on today’s agenda -- the Facebook town hall -- the trip feels more like a campaign tour than anything else. In fact, this is probably the new normal for the president’s domestic trips from now on. Tied to the president's Facebook visit, the RNC Research shop plans to send out this release, "Is There A “Dislike” Button? You Don’t Get To Your Lowest Approval Ratings Without Making A Few Poor Leadership Decisions."

*** Dem Super PAC goes on the attack: A day after the DCCC announced it was launching a (small-buy) radio advertising campaign against House Republicans who voted for the Ryan budget, House Majority PAC -- one of the Democratic Super PACs we profiled last week -- says it’s going up with a six-figure radio campaign. An example of one of the ads aimed at Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI): “While Duffy’s budget leaves the wealthy fat and happy, it puts the squeeze on Wisconsin families, and will end Medicare as we know it, that’s right, end Medicare as we know it.” The other targets of the campaign: Paul Gosar (AZ), Rick Crawford (AR), Allen West (FL), Chip Cravaack (MN), Charlie Bass (NH), Ann Marie Buerkle (NY), Joe Heck (NV), Francisco Canseco (TX), and Blake Farenthold (TX).

*** The races of 2011: KY GOV: In our next profile of the races of 2011, we take a look at the gubernatorial contest in Kentucky -- probably the most competitive GOV race this year, though incumbent Gov. Steve Beshear (D) begins with the edge. On May 17, state Senate President David Williams faces off in a GOP primary against businessman Phil Moffett, and the establishment-backed Williams is the favorite. Williams’ campaign has stumbled in recent weeks, especially with the news that his running mate (Agriculture Commissioner and former University of Kentucky basketball player Richie Farmer) is in a divorce. “Kentucky is competitive,” the Cook Political Report’s Jennifer Duffy tells First Read. “But Beshear seems well positioned to win a second term unless Williams really has a game changer.” Could the game changer be the eventual GOP nominee tying Beshear to national Democrats? This race will be interesting to see if this kind of attack works the same way it did in 2010…

*** Priebus in Chicago: This morning in President Obama’s hometown, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus will deliver a speech to the City Club of Chicago. First Read has obtained excerpts of the chairman’s remarks. On the 2012 race, Priebus will say: “This election in 2012 is not about liking President Obama. It is an election about principles; economic principles that will profoundly affect our ability to put this country back on a sustainable path to prosperity.” On the GOP Congress: “[A] new brand of Republican leaders in Washington are working to implement those solutions. They’re trying to make the hard decisions today that will avoid us having to make even harder decisions tomorrow.” And on the economy: “The #1 priority in this country right now must be JOB CREATION … and this President simply has … not … delivered. Unemployment is not below 8% … as he said it would be. The Stimulus Bill is not creating the new jobs … as he promised it would.”     

 *** On the 2012 trail: Newt Gingrich delivers a NH GOP “Live Free or Die” lecture in Manchester, NH… And Herman Cain speaks at Purdue University in Indiana.

Countdown to NY-26 special election: 34 days
Countdown to Iowa GOP straw poll: 114 days
Countdown to Election Day 2011: 202 days
Countdown to the Iowa caucuses: 292 days
* Note: When the IA caucuses take place depends on whether other states move up

Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter.

"U.S. President Barack Obama will tout his plan to trim the deficit and try to excite younger voters on Wednesday in a campaign-style trip to California that features a stop at Facebook headquarters," Reuters says. "Obama embarks on a deficit-cutting road show as policy makers and financial markets recover from ratings agency Standard & Poor's threat to downgrade America's triple-A credit rating on worries Washington won't address its fiscal woes."

The New York Times: "Democrats and Republicans are joining to oppose one of the most important features of President Obama’s new deficit reduction plan, a powerful independent board that could make sweeping cuts in the growth of Medicare spending."

The Times also writes up the president’s meeting yesterday on immigration. “With his re-election campaign launched this month and Latino communities growing increasingly frustrated with his immigration policies, Mr. Obama summoned more than 60 high-profile supporters of the stalled overhaul legislation to a strategy session, looking for ways to revive it. Among those attending were Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, an independent; Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio, a Democrat; and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican.”

Big trade and business associations are not messing around when it comes to the debt ceiling. The Hill writes that "Groups such as the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) plan to step up their advocacy for a debt-limit increase as the deadline for congressional action draws closer."

National Journal takes a look at what has - and hasn't - changed since the BP oil spill one year ago.

A plane carrying first lady Michelle Obama came too close to a massive military cargo jet because of an air traffic controller's error and had to abort a landing at Andrews Air Force Base, U.S. aviation officials said Tuesday.

Republicans selected Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia to participate in deficit discussions with the White House.

"When the House considered five competing 2012 budget plans from across the political spectrum last Friday, 24 lawmakers voted against every one of the proposal," writes The Hill, noting that many of the "none of the above" voters were Blue Dog Dems.

The so-called Gang of Six is close to announcing a deal on long-term deficit and debt reduction, the Washington Examiner writes.

A year after the oil spill, Politico looks at BP's donations to Hill lawmakers. "The company at the center of the storm in last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill sent out its first checks for the 2012 election cycle in March totaling $29,000. They went almost entirely to the campaigns of a handful of House Republican leaders."

National Review's Costa interviews Sen. Marco Rubio (R) on foreign policy. "Rubio, in an interview with National Review Online, says that the late senator Jesse Helms, the firebrand conservative from North Carolina, is his model. 'Politicians are not heroes,' Rubio says. 'But if you look at Jesse Helms, he had a tremendous amount of influence in this place.'"

BARBOUR: In a Yazoo City-datelined dispatch, the Boston Globe looks at Haley Barbour's opposition to the new health care law and how it's viewed by health advocates in the nation's poorest state.

CHRISTIE: A new Quinnipiac poll has Gov. Christie’s job-approval rating at 47%-46%.

DANIELS: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels may face the prospect of signing a “birther” bill like the one Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer just vetoed in Arizona, The State Column reports. The bill was proposed by a Republican state senator but is currently stuck in committee.

GINGRICH: Newt Gingrich pens an op-ed for Human Events in which he relates Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget -- as well as his warnings of impending debt doom -- to the warnings of Paul Revere that the British were coming to arrest them.  He also criticized President Obama for his “slander” of Paul during his speech last week on cutting the deficit.

HUNTSMAN: The New York Times’ Zeleny profiles Jon Huntsman. “After spending nearly two years as the top American diplomat in China, Mr. Huntsman returns to the United States next week. He has scheduled visits next month here in South Carolina and in New Hampshire, where the Tea Party and social conservatives hold significant sway and have changed the political landscape.”

“On paper, given his affiliation with Mr. Obama, Mr. Huntsman would seem to be facing a tough time in a primary where anti-Obama sentiment is expected to run high. But in a crowded field, with many Republicans signaling dissatisfaction with the candidates thus far, his supporters hope he could get beyond short-term challenges with a long-term pitch of electability.”

Real Clear Politics: “So far, the Mormon issue doesn't seem to be nagging Huntsman the way it did Romney four years ago. Did Romney's 2008 candidacy itself help allay anti-Mormon prejudice? Is there something different about the way they embrace their faith? Do the two men discuss this issue differently? All of the above?”

PALIN: Last night on FOX, per NBC's Catherine Chomiak, Sarah Palin praised Donald Trump for his candidness, and said that he is being treated unfairly by the media. She said he is simply responding to reporters’ questions about the birth certificate. As for her own potential run, she said it's too early to declare -- and an exploratory committee is not even on her radar. If she doesn’t run, she’s not sure who she would support and wants to “keep hearing their ideas.”

SANTORUM: Rick Santorum will make a speech on foreign policy later this month at the National Press Club in Washington, The State Column writes.

TRUMP: If he continues down the path of running for president, Donald Trump could refrain from filing a disclosure form on his personal finances until he officially moves from “testing the waters” to talking about himself as an actual candidate, Salon points out. “Federal rules say individuals should register as official candidates when they: explicitly refer to themselves as candidates; buy advertising to publicize their candidacy; amass money for a war chest that could be used in a campaign; or seek ballot access. Once Trump does any of these things and spends $5,000 on the effort (which presumably he already has), he must register as a candidate.”

Two states' Senate races provide key microcosms for the policy debates between Republicans and Democrats, writes National Journal: Nevada and Virginia.

FLORIDA: "It’s all coming down to Florida, again," Politico writes. "The fight for the GOP presidential nomination looks increasingly like it could be decided by a state with a rule-breaking, unsanctioned election that has thrown the presidential primary calendar in flux."

"More importantly, in a wide-open primary field it’s not clear that any candidate can afford to skip even an unauthorized contest in the nation’s largest swing state. As a result, Florida’s months-long staring contest with the Republican National Committee over the primary date is a moot point: GOP White House hopefuls are already preparing to contest Florida like a bona fide early presidential state."

INDIANA: Club for Growth leader Chris Chocola had some blunt advice for Sen. Dick Lugar yesterday. "We think it would be probably best if he would retire at this point," he said.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: This morning, the New Hampshire Democratic Party is announcing a campaign calling on NH GOP Chairman to defend the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

“Both the South Carolina and Iowa Republican Parties have defended their early presidential contests,” the New Hampshire Dems say. “Why won't Kimball stand up for New Hampshire?”

SOUTH CAROLINA: “U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint says he's watching where the Republican presidential hopefuls come down on raising the debt ceiling and other big issues in Washington as he considers whether to endorse one,” The Greenville News writes. 

From NBC's Shawna Thomas and Carrie Dann
As Congress continues its debate over how America’s tax dollars should be best used, lawmakers are arguing over a chunk of a half-million dollars intended to defend a law that about half of taxpayers don’t think is worth defending: the federal statute that deems same-sex marriage unconstitutional in the eyes of the U.S. government.

According to a contract provided by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office, the House Administration Committee and the General Counsel entered into an agreement on April 14^th with former Solicitor General Paul Clement to act as the House’s lawyer in cases involving the Defense of Marriage Act.

The price tag on the contract: About $520/hour with a cap of $500,000 on legal charges.  

In February, the White House delivered a surprising victory to gay rights activists when President Barack Obama directed the Department of Justice to abandon its defense of the act because, the administration argued, a part of the law violates the constitution.

But House Speaker John Boehner, calling that decision “regrettable” and politically divisive, argued in March that “the constitutionality of this law should be determined by courts – not by the President unilaterally.”  He announced then that the House would take up the legal responsibilities of defending the law in the absence of DOJ legal staff.

He’d also like DOJ to pick up the tab.

“Obviously, DOJ’s decision results in DOJ no longer needing the funds it would have otherwise expended defending the constitutionality of DOMA,” Boehner wrote in a letter to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asking her to join in his efforts to request the funds from the agency. “It is my intent that those funds be diverted to the House for reimbursement of any costs incurred by and associated with the House, and not DOJ, defending DOMA.”

Pelosi responded by requesting the details of the cost of outside counsel, resulting in the publication of the $500,000 figure released today.

Attorney General Eric Holder has previously argued that the administration’s decision to stop defending DOMA does not mean that a pot of saved money is now available in DOJ’s coffers.

“I'm not sure we save any money, frankly,” Holder said at a hearing in March. “The people who would be defending the statute, were we to do that, are career employees of the Department of Justice, who will not be spending their time doing that; they will be spending their time doing other things.  I'm not sure that I see any savings as a result of the decision that I announced with the president.”

The law itself, which was enacted in 1996, appears to be losing popularity. According to a new CNN Poll, 51% of Americans believe same-sex marriages should be “recognized by the law as valid.”  That’s a 7% jump since this question was asked in April of 2009. 

Yesterday, Clement and his team filed a “Motion to Intervene” in their first case, Windsor v. United States, on behalf of the House.

In that case, the widow of a same-sex partner is suing to retrieve estate taxes she owed when the federal government did not recognize her marriage.

Edith Windsor and her now-deceased partner, Thea Spyer were legally married in Canada in 2007.  That marriage was recognized by their home state of New York. 

But when Spyer died, because her marriage was not recognized under DOMA, Windsor owed taxes on the estate totaling $363,053 – taxes that would not have been levied had the couple been married in the eyes of the federal government. 

Windsor’s case challenges the constitutionality of DOMA and simply put, asks the government to give her the money back. 

According to court documents, the team led by Clement is scheduled to make its first appearance before a judge on May 9^th 2011.

From NBC's Pete Williams
Six states, New York City, and three conservation groups ran into a buzz saw at the U.S. Supreme Court today, likely signaling an end to their legal battle against five big power companies over global warming.

The Supreme Court Building is seen last month on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP)

They filed their lawsuit in 2004, hoping to have a legal fallback ready in the event the Environmental Protection Agency chooses not to impose carbon dioxide pollution limits on existing power plants. The states, New York, and the conservation groups -- collectively, the plaintiffs -- claimed that those power plants were creating a public nuisance, releasing greenhouse gasses that contribute to global warming and cause environmental damage. The power plants they targeted, their suit said, emit ten percent of the entire country's carbon dioxide pollution.

But based on comments from the justices during today's oral argument, it's doubtful the plaintiffs have a single vote on the court in favor of keeping their lawsuit going. Chief Justice John Roberts noted that the EPA has decided to look at whether CO2 emissions from existing plants should be regulated. "Doesn't that mean that this federal action displaces any right to sue under common law?" he asked.

Even the court's more liberal justices hinted that they doubted the plaintiffs could keep their public nuisance suit going. "The relief you seek sounds like what the EPA does. You want to turn federal judges into a super-EPA," said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

The justices were also skeptical that the plaintiffs could successfully attribute a measurable change in global warming -- a worldwide phenomenon -- to a single group of polluters. The states claim they can do so based on past cases in which one state sues a company in another state for causing pollution that creates a public nuisance. "But there's a huge gap or chasm between state pollution cases and this global one," said Justice Elena Kagan. 

The EPA has said it will decide by May of 2012 whether to regular CO2 emissions from existing plants. Environmental groups wanted this lawsuit to be a fallback in the event it views the EPA's action as insufficient. But it now seems doubtful that legal safety net will be available.

President Obama speaks during town hall meeting at North Virginia Community College today. (AP)

From NBC's Athena Jones
President Barack Obama took his case for deficit reduction on the road Tuesday, telling a town hall audience in Virginia he is hopeful a bipartisan compromise to address the nation's budget deficit can be reached.

It was the first stop on a campaign-like swing to sell his approach to cutting $4 trillion from the deficit over the next 12 years. The president will hold similar events in Palo Alto, CA and Reno, NV over the next couple of days as he travels to tout his plan and raise money for his re-election.

The push begins a day after markets shook when ratings agency Standard and Poor's downgraded its long-term outlook for U.S. debt. The agency said it had lowered its outlook to "negative" from "stable"because the U.S. had "very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness" compared to similar countries. The path to addressing those concerns is "not clear," it wrote.

The debt and deficit were a winning issue for conservatives and Tea Party-backed candidates in the last election, and Obama has spoken frequently about the need to get America's fiscal house in order.

Still, his speech last week at George Washington University was the first major attempt to begin to spell out how he would go about reducing the nation's gaping deficit. In that address, he offered a stinging rebuke of a Republican approach that relies mainly on spending cuts that would affect seniors, the poor and middle class and the disabled.

Today, he repeated his call for everyone to do their part to bring down the budget deficit.

"If we don't close this deficit now that the economy has begun to grow again, if we keep on spending more than we take in, it's gonna cause serious damage to our economy," the president told the crowd at Northern Virginia Community College, going on to explain that companies would be less likely to set up shop in America, individuals would see their interest rates go up and the government would not be able to afford to invest in areas that would create jobs and spur growth.

"We've gotta tackle this challenge and I believe the right way to do it is to live up to an old-fashioned principle of shared responsibility," he said.

Obama criticized the House-passed Republican budget plan, saying it would slash spending in key areas like education and infrastructure. The plan would "change Medicare as we know it," he argued, by creating a voucher system that would lead to higher out of pocket costs for elderly patients, while proposing more tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. 

"We can't just tell the wealthiest among us, 'You don't have to do a thing. You can just sit there and relax and everybody else, we're gonna solve this problem,' he said.

That argument -- that the Republicans are the party of the rich and big companies, while the Democrats are looking out for ordinary Americans -- was a central theme of Obama's campaign for president in 2008 and one that seems certain to play a role again this time around.

"The only way to pay for these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans is by asking seniors to pay thousands more for their health care or cutting children out of Head Start or doing away with health insurance for millions of Americans on Medicaid," he continued. "That's not a trade off I'm willing to make; it's not a trade off I think most Americans think is fair no matter what party you belong to. That's not who we are as a country. We're better than that."

The president, who wants to see the Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy expire, delivered a 20-minute speech to the crowd before spending nearly 40 minutes answering questions on education funding, Medicare, Social Security, clean energy investments and the chances for bipartisanship when it comes to reducing the deficit.

Even as S&P stated there was "a material risk that U.S. policymakers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium- and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013" and the Republican National Committee used the ratings report to drive home its own argument that the president is "all talk," the White House believes a bipartisan deficit-cutting agreement can be reached.

"I believe that Democrats and Republicans can come together to get this done," Obama told the audience.  "Shockingly enough there will be some politics played along the way. There will be those who say that we're too divided, that the partisanship is too stark, but I'm optimistic. I'm hopeful. Both sides have come together before. I believe we can do it again."

The White House yesterday set Thursday, May 5th, as the date for Vice President Biden to host a meeting on deficit reduction with members of congress at Blair House.

In his fiscal policy speech last week, the president asked House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to each designate four members of their caucuses to participate in the negotiations.

In his lengthy interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, Donald Trump appeared stumped when asked about the legal principle that served as the cornerstone for the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.   Here’s the key part of the interview:

Guthrie:  “Is there a right to privacy in the Constitution?”

Trump:  “I guess there is, I guess there is.  And why, just out of curiosity, why do you ask that question?” 

When pressed to explain how his position on the right to privacy “squares” with his anti-abortion position, Trump responded:  “Well, that’s a pretty strange way of getting to pro-life.  I mean, it’s a very unique way of asking about pro-life.  What does that have to do with privacy?  How are you equating pro-life with privacy? ”

Guthrie asked, “well, you know about the Roe v. Wade decision.”  Trump responded, “yes, right, sure.  Look, I am pro-life.  I’ve said it.  I’m very strong there.”

The exchange was reminiscent of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s response to a similar question during the 2008 presidential campaign.  In one of a series of interviews with CBS News’ Katie Couric that were widely seen as damaging to Palin’s image, the vice presidential nominee was asked:  “Do you think there's an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?”  Palin responded, “I do.  Yeah, I do.”

Given that the Supreme Court used the “right to privacy” reasoning as the foundation for the Roe ruling, anti-abortion activists and candidates have long insisted no such right exists. 

You can see more of the Trump interview here.

Did Obama’s tough speech last week backfire?...  New Washington Post/ABC poll shows his approval rating upside down… Obama to address the deficit/debt in Northern Virginia at 10:15 am ET… Standard & Poor’s wake-up call… DCCC goes on the offensive… DCCC Chair Steve Israel appears on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown”… Trump sees a right to privacy and criticizes Ryan’s Medicare phase-out… Trump’s also VERY well-versed in financial-disclosure requirements for presidential candidates… The races of 2011: Profiling WV GOV… And Brewer vetoes AZ “birther” bill.

From NBC's Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Ali Weinberg, and Carrie Dann
*** Did last week’s speech backfire? A new Washington Post/ABC poll -- which shows President Obama’s approval down to 47%, and with 44% believing the U.S. economy is getting worse (when employment is actually on the rise) -- suggests that the climbing gas prices have soured the public’s mood, big time. “Almost eight in 10 say inflation in their area is getting worse, and more than seven in 10 say higher gasoline prices is causing financial hardship at home,” the Post writes. But this poll, as well as the Gallup surveys, also seems to confirm that the president’s speech last week might not have played well. For one thing, and this is true going back to the ’08 campaign, Obama usually doesn’t get rewarded when he comes off as too partisan (even though the left loves it). More importantly, last week’s speech was on a topic -- the deficit/debt -- that most Americans don’t find as important as the economy/jobs. And in the Post/ABC poll, Obama took a hit with independents, with 55% of them disapproving of his job. 

*** Watch Obama’s tone today: So as Obama talks about the deficit and debt today in Northern Virginia at 10:15 am ET, it’s worth asking: What will his tone be? And will his focus be exclusively on the deficit/debt, or will he place a bigger emphasis on the overall economy? (Speaking of tone, don’t miss Obama lecturing a Dallas reporter after the interview had concluded, “Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview.” The combative tone in was mostly about NASA's decision to NOT give a Shuttle to Houston. Watch the entire interview; it's a classic example of someone allowing irritation to show. As the old deodorant commercial once quipped -- don’t let us see him sweat.)

*** Standard & Poor’s wake-up call: It will also be interesting to see how Obama weaves the news of yesterday’s Standard & Poor’s warning, which sent U.S. stocks tumbling. More than anything else, that news served as a wake-up call to Washington that Wall Street is paying attention -- and that failure to reach a long-term agreement could have negative impact. The last time Wall Street sent such a dire warning to Washington was after the House defeated the initial TARP legislation. Both parties are spinning the S&P decision as proof they are right: Dems say it means they have to meet in middle; Republicans say it means president needs to get more serious about the problem. By the way, Vice President has called for May 5 to be the first White House-led bipartisan meeting to forge a compromise on the deficit.

*** DCCC goes on the offensive: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is going on the offensive against the House GOP budget plan. The DCCC is launching a paid and grassroots campaign (consisting of radio ads, Web ads, phone calls, and email alerts) that targets the effort to phase out Medicare. Here’s a sample radio ad: “Did you know Congressman Chip Cravaack [R-MN] voted to end Medicare forcing seniors to pay $12,500 for private health insurance, without guaranteed coverage? Tell Cravaack to keep his hands off our Medicare.” DCCC Chairman Steve Israel will appear on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown” today.

*** Trump sees a right to privacy, criticizes Ryan budget plan: As MSNBC.com's Carrie Dann has noted, Donald Trump hasn't always thought President Obama is the worst president ever. (In 2009, he praised both the economic stimulus and the president. “I think we have a president who is working very hard and trying very hard. He inherited a mess.”) And now comes an interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie that might raise more conservative eyebrows. When asked if there’s a right to privacy in the Constitution -- which was the legal underpinning in Roe v. Wade -- Trump said, “I guess there is. I guess there is.” He went on to say, “Look, I’m pro-life.” Trump also criticized the House GOP budget plan when it comes to Medicare. “I think the Republicans are too far out in front in terms of Medicare... I think Paul Ryan is too far out front with this issue.”

*** The “ultimate blowhard”: But the rest of the interview made Trump appear more like Charlie Sheen than your typical presidential candidate. He boasted that his wealth is higher than Forbes’ estimate of $2.7 billion. “I have a great company. Very under-leveled. Tremendous amounts of cash. And a huge net worth. Much higher than anybody has really said.” When Trump disagreed with raising the debt ceiling, he said, “What do they know, the economists? Most of them are not very smart.” In his column today, David Brooks explains why some people like Trump. “Many people regard Trump as a joke and his popularity a disgrace. But he is actually riding a deep public fantasy: The hunger for the ultimate blowhard who can lead us through dark times.”

*** Well-versed on financial-disclosure requirements: Here’s a final point on Trump: Why does he know much about the financial-disclosure requirements for presidential candidates? And how does he know that the FEC allows 60-day extensions on that requirement. Check out what he told Guthrie: “If I announce … you’re allowed to do it in 30 days. But they give you a 60-day extension. I don’t need any extensions, because on that I’m already working.” Does Trump sound like a candidate anxious to disclose his real net worth? How important is the perception of wealth to Trump? Bottom line: Trump knows he can be an active candidate for a good two months before revealing a single thing about his personal finances. Hmmm.

*** The races of 2011: With Congress on its two-week recess, First Read will spend the next few days profiling some of the more noteworthy political races of 2011. First up: West Virginia’s gubernatorial contest. The incumbent is acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D), who filled Joe Manchin’s (D) office after he embarked on his Senate bid. While Tomblin is probably the favorite in the May 14 primary, he faces a crowded field of Democratic challengers -- including the state Treasurer (John Perdue), the Secretary of State (Natalie Tennant), and the state House speaker (Rick Thompson). The GOP primary is equally crowded. The top two Republicans are probably former Secretary of State Betty Ireland and businessman Bill Maloney. Republicans didn't get the candidate they wanted (Shelley Moore Capito), and so Democrats are viewed as the slight favorite to hold the seat. But nothing is certain until these messy primaries are sorted out. The special general election date is Oct. 4.

*** Brewer vetoes AZ’s “birther” bill: It appears Arizona’s governor did the GOP a favor for the fall of 2012. The Arizona Republic: “Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday shot down an effort by the Arizona Legislature to require presidential candidates to provide proof of citizenship in order to get on the state's ballot. In her veto letter, Brewer said House Bill 2177 ‘creates significant new problems while failing to do anything constructive for Arizona.’ The House and Senate could override the governor's veto with a two-thirds majority vote in each chamber, but on Monday, such a move appeared unlikely.” 

Countdown to NY-26 special election: 35 days
Countdown to Iowa GOP straw poll: 115 days
Countdown to Election Day 2011: 203 days
Countdown to the Iowa caucuses: 293 days
* Note: When the IA caucuses take place depends on whether other states move up

Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter.

The new Washington Post/ABC poll: "Deepening economic pessimism has pushed down President Obama’s approval rating to a near record low, but he holds an early advantage over prospective 2012 rivals in part because of widespread dissatisfaction with Republican candidates. In the survey, 47 percent approve of the job Obama is doing, down seven points since January. Half of all Americans disapprove of his job performance, with 37 percent saying they 'strongly disapprove,' nearly matching the worst level of his presidency."

Mark your calenders: Vice President Joe Biden, the White House's new cop on the deficit beat, has called the first meeting of lawmakers on the subject for May 5.

Obama's tax bill: "The president and his wife, Michelle Obama, on Monday reported an adjusted gross income of $1,728,096 for 2010, down from $5.5 million in 2009," the New York Times says. "Most of their income came from sales of his books 'Dreams From My Father' and 'The Audacity of Hope.' The Obamas paid $453,770 in federal taxes, for an effective tax rate of just over 26 percent; the top individual tax rate is 35 percent. The Obamas donated $245,075 — 14.2 percent of their income before tax deductions and exemptions — to 36 charities."

And Politico’s Ben Smith writes about P.J. Crowley going rogue.

The two parties didn't quite see eye to eye on the meaning of that Standard & Poor's negative rating yesterday. The Hill: "Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle appeared to dig in their heels following the S&P announcement, in both the debate over raising the debt ceiling and their own preferred methods for reducing deficits."

The New York Times says that although S&P “did not actually lower its highest AAA rating on the country’s debt, it was the first time since the S.& P. started assigning outlooks in 1989 that the country was given an outlook that was something other than stable. While it had not been completely unexpected, the S.& P. decision shifted the nation’s deficit debate out of the political arena — at least for the day — and thrust it on Wall Street. The action spooked investors, sending the three main stock indexes down more than 1 percent.

BACHMANN: Rep. Michele Bachmann had a closed-door meeting with South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley before they appeared together at a Tea Party rally on the steps of the state house, CNN reports. Bachmann said they “talked about 2012 and the tremendous opportunity that there is here in South Carolina,” while Haley said Bachmann did not ask for her support.

She also told CNN that she didn’t think she would be eligible for the May 5 presidential debate in South Carolina because she may not announce an exploratory committee before the debate.

Bachmann told the AP that she might write a book to introduce herself to voters.

BARBOUR: Jim Dyke, an aide for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s political action committee, pushed back on a Politico report from yesterday which said that the lobbying firm founded by Barbour, BGR, was involved with a PR campaign on behalf of Arabic news network Al-Jazeera beginning in 2005, Real Clear Politics says. While Dyke did not deny BGR worked on behalf of Al Jazeera, he said that by 2005, Barbour had already left the firm and was in his second full year as governor.

Barbour had surgery to relieve minor back pain, the AP reports.

HUCKABEE: Freshman Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) said he would support Mike Huckabee if the former Arkansas governor ran for president, The Chattanoogan reports.

Politico’s Morning Score notes that Radio Iowa reported yesterday that Danny Carroll, a former Iowa state legislator who co-chaired Mike Huckabee’s Iowa caucus campaign, said he would support former Alabama judge Roy Moore if Moore ran for president in 2012.

HUNTSMAN: Jon Huntsman’s advisers are planning to make a big play in South Carolina if Huntsman decides to run for president, CNN writes. Richard Quinn, a Columbia-based strategist who is working for Huntsman’s “campaign-in-waiting” Huntsman PAC, said Huntsman official would “plant a flag” in the Palmetto State despite his past work for the Obama administration and his support of same-sex civil unions.

The Wall Street Journal considers who might have leaked two complimentary letters Huntsman sent to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama: “The range of potential leakers is small, namely: the White House, in cohoots with Mr. Clinton, via the Democratic National Committee; the state of Utah, assuming copies were left behind in the archives; or Mr. Huntsman himself. Each would have had very different motives.

PALIN: Sarah Palin’s actions this week, including a fiery speech in Madison, Wisconsin and a revamped website, demonstrate her desire to stay in the public spotlight, Politico reports. “After a period in which most of the coverage about her related to either her tangles with the media or falling poll numbers, expect to see more such public appearances where she can take the offensive. Palin and her team recognize that, with Republicans like Michele Bachmann and Donald Trump crowding into their space, that's the way to remain in the mix.” 

ROMNEY: On Hannity's radio program, Romney seized on the S&P news to whack Obama. "The Obama presidency was downgraded today," Romney said. "And people recognize that this president is playing chicken with the U.S. economy. And the reason that I’m looking at this race, and everyone has their reasons, but the reason I’m looking at this race is I have a 25-year career in the private sector, I know how jobs come and how they go, and I want to create more jobs for the American people and get our economy on track again.” 

TRUMP: Congressional Republicans in Trump's home-state delegation are getting Donald Fatigue, The Hill reports."'I don't know if he needs this to boost his ratings or what, said Rep. Peter King, the New York delegation's senior Republican, of Trump's flirtation with a 2012 bid. 'But I know he enjoys being on the national stage.'"

Politico's Roger Simon puts a magnifying glass over the theory that Trump is simply shilling for birtherism to get his Tea Party bona fides before abruptly dumping the theory and taking a more serious approach to pursuing the nomination. And he's not buying it. "First, Trump is not too smart to believe in birtherism. Politically, Trump is a dope," Simon writes.

Last February – on the eve of the passage of a controversial health care bill and amidst increasing skepticism of the 2009 stimulus plan – many voters who had previously supported Barack Obama were beginning to sour on the president.

But one prominent American was still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“I really like him. We'll have to see how he does,” Donald Trump told CNN in an interview. “On a personal basis, I like him. … Right now, he's at that tipping point. It's going to go one way or the other.

It was, apparently, a steep slope after that tipping point. In an interview last week, Trump categorically dubbed Obama “the worst president ever.” 

But Trump, whose presidential flirtations have been coupled with television omnipresence in recent months, has only taken a tough view of the most recent resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue within the last year.

As late as April 2010, just a year ago, Trump said that “the jury’s still out” on Obama’s job performance, noting just that he’d “like to see” the president get tougher on OPEC and China.

At times, Trump’s disdain for George W. Bush provided the backdrop for the real estate mogul’s optimism about Obama.

In March 2009, after the passage of the stimulus, Trump pointed – as the Obama administration itself has often done – to mistakes made by Obama’s predecessor as the primary origins of the nation’s economic woes.

“I think we have a president who is working very hard and trying very hard. He inherited a mess,” Trump said of Obama, adding that he believed the nation was on track for a quick recovery. “I really believe that it is going to get very good, and I think within two years it will be like the old days, but with some restrictions [on the economy.]”

It’s no secret that Trump has evolved on several GOP plank issues; including abortion (he was once pro-choice but recently explained his pro-life conversion) and health care (he wrote in a 2000 book “we must have universal healthcare.”)

But he has also praised specific plans backed by the Obama administration to jumpstart the economic recovery, some of them particularly reviled by the Tea Party constituency he hopes to court.

In February 2009, for example, Trump embraced Obama’s efforts to cap the salaries of Wall Street executives whose companies were receiving government support, saying “he’s absolutely right” to institute salary limits.

In the same interview, he hailed the young administration’s plans to inject funds into the economy, affirming that “I would certainly vote for a stimulus.”

The Donald has also repeatedly praised the Troubled Asset Relief Program (which passed under President George W. Bush and was backed by both 2008 presidential nominees), saying that the hastily-passed bank bailout bill saved the economy from certain disaster.

"A year ago, the government did the right thing or really I believe we would have been in a depression," he said in the fall of 2009.

And in December of that year, Trump praised the administration for meeting with banking executives but lamented the reluctance of financial organizations to do more to loosen more funds for loans. Their unwillingness to listen to the White House, he added, “show[ed] a great lack of respect for the president.”

By the way, Trump's naming of Obama as "the worst president ever" updates his previous statements about his least-favorite leader of the free world.

“I think Bush is probably the worst president in the history of the United States,” he said in March 2007.

From NBC's Jason Seher
Donald Trump spent the weekend pushing his "common sense" agenda and attacking his potential opponents. 

Appearing on CNN's “State of the Union,” the New York business tycoon told host Candy Crowley that GOP primary voters will prefer him to declared Republican candidate Mitt Romney because, according to Trump, he has a much more substantial track record of creating jobs and generating profits.

"I'm a much bigger business man," Trump said Sunday. "And I have a much, much bigger net worth. My net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney," Trump said.

Trump repeatedly criticized Romney's business background throughout the interview, first calling him a "fund guy" before asserting the former Massachusetts governor "didn't create" jobs. Before launching his political career, Romney co-founded and led Bain Capital, now one of the nation's top private-equity firms. According to a 2007 New York Times article, under Romney the group specialized in leveraged buyouts -- buying existing firms with money borrowed against their assets -- that sometimes led to layoffs. During his 1994 Senate bid, Romney's opponent, Ted Kennedy, cut a series of commercials focusing on laid-off workers. Now Trump is summoning those charges to hit Romney.

"He would buy companies," Trump said. "He'd close companies, he'd get rid of jobs."

Even though he will not announce if he is running for president until his reality television show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” finishes airing in June, Trump said his ability to put people to work and make deals is not only "what this country needs" -- but also distinguishes from potential primary foes like Romney and President Obama. Trump made it a point to dress down Obama's position on every policy point Crowley raised, blaming the president for mishandling the crisis in Libya and for allowing China to manipulate its currency without reprisal.

"It's the messenger," Trump told Crowley. "Obama is not the right messenger. We are not a respected nation anymore. The world is laughing at us."

While he focused strictly on Obama's policies Sunday, in an interview aired Friday night, Trump told FOX’s Sean Hannity he believes former Weatherman Bill Ayers authored the president’s first book, “Dreams From My Father.”
 
"Bill Ayers wrote the book," Trump said, though not providing any evidence Ayers wrote it.

Trump claimed the president "made a big mistake" by publishing his second book, "The Audacity of Hope," insisting its inferior narrative quality raises serious questions about whether the president wrote the best-selling memoir he published in 1995, prior to launching his political career.  Referencing his best-selling books -- including “The Art of the Deal” -- Trump asserted former Obama mentor and "super-genius" Bill Ayers is the true author of Dreams From My Father. 

"I know something about writing," Trump told Hannity, "and I want to tell you, the guy that wrote the first book didn't write the second book.  Obama made a big mistake when we wrote the second book because the second book was not Ernest Hemmingway; it was about 37 classes below. So, the first book is Ernest Hemingway-plus. The second book was written by somebody that was much more average."

In his conversation, Trump also reaffirmed his commitment to investigating President Obama's birth, saying he has "a real doubt" Obama was born in Hawaii. While Trump acknowledged he originally "assumed he was born here," Trump said he will continue to investigate Obama's birth certificate until he finds a satisfactory answer.  Trump also said journalists give the president a "free ride," and accused unnamed media members of protecting Obama from these issues.

"I have some reporters," Trump said, "you could see they are visibly angry at me for even bringing [the birther] thing up."

President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle reported a joint adjusted gross income of about $1.7 million in 2010 and paid $453,770 in total federal taxes, the White House announced Monday.  They also paid $51,568 in state income taxes in Illinois.

The president and his wife also reported donations to 36 different charities totaling $245,075, with the largest single donation going to the Fisher House Foundation, a program that supports the families of members of the military receiving special medical care.

Their tax returns are online here.

In a blog post, White House communications director Jay Carney wrote that most of the First Family’s income comes from proceeds from sales of the president’s books.

Also releasing their tax information today, Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Dr. Jill Biden reported a joint income of about $379,000 and paid $86,626 in federal taxes. They paid about $18,000 in state taxes to Virginia and Delaware, and they donated $5,350 to charity.

From NBC's Athena Jones
President Obama today sits down for local television interviews with stations in four states that could play a key role in the next election.

The president is scheduled to speak with affiliates in Denver, CO; Raleigh, NC; Dallas, TX; and Indianapolis, IN. Obama won three of those four states in 2008, and with its changing demographics -- a rapidly growing Hispanic population, in particular -- the Lone Star State looks increasingly like one the president and his team hopes to put in play for the 2012 campaign. Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden made San Antonio one of the stops where they promoted their "Joining Forces" initiative to encourage communities to provide more support for military families. That swing also took the women to important swing states.

Obama's team has long been a fan of local interviews that allow the president to bypass the national media and move beyond the DC Beltway to connect directly with voters in places that will be important to keep in his camp in the coming campaign. Including today, he will have done more than a dozen this year.

In February, Obama sat down with affiliates in Milwaukee, WI; Cincinnati, OH; and Richmond, VA. In March, he spoke ones in Albuquerque, NM; Pittsburgh, PA; and Hampton Roads, VA about education reform.

From NBC's Pete Williams
The United States Supreme Court today took no action on a request from the state of Virginia, which is asking the court to fast-track a challenge to the Obama health care law.

The justices were to have discussed the case last Friday, but today's delay signals that they're not yet ready to say what they'll do about Virginia's request.

The court does not always take immediate action after the justices talk about pending matters in a closed-door conference; cases are sometimes repeatedly placed on the calendar for discussion. The reason may be that one or more of the justices wants to write a dissent to the court's action, or there could be other factors they want to consider.

Virginia's Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, wants the Supreme Court to let the state bypass the normal federal appeals process and take the case directly to the justices. The court's rules allow for this, but it is something that is granted only very rarely. The Justice Department opposed the request to come to the Supreme Court on a fast track.

Virginia's is one of several challenges to the centerpiece of the law, the requirement that virtually all Americans buy health insurance.

Two federal judges, in Virginia and Florida, have found that provision unconstitutional. Three others, also in Virginia and in Michigan and Washington, DC, have found the law constitutional.