WEDNESDAY’S MINI-REPORT…. Today’s edition of quick hits:
* President Obama will host a budget meeting at the White House tonight with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). The discussion is set to begin at 8:45.
* Libya: “Stung by criticism from rebel leaders, NATO officials said Wednesday that the pace of attacks on the forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was increasing, after a slight slowdown as the coalition handed off responsibility earlier in the week.”
* In the meantime, Gadhafi sent President Obama a letter, arguing that it’d be awfully nice of the coalition and NATO to stop firing on his military.
* Ivory Coast: “Opposition forces in Ivory Coast said Wednesday that they had begun an assault to dislodge the nation’s strongman, Laurent Gbagbo, from a bunker under his residence after he refused French and United Nations demands to leave.”
* House Republicans know their ridiculous one-week budget extension can’t pass, but they’re going to waste time on it anyway, in the hopes they can use it to play another partisan game.
* Remember the European debt crisis? It’s not over: “Portugal’s caretaker government decided Wednesday that it would ask the European Union for a financial bailout, after months of resisting such a move.”
* The White House makes it easier to prove it gave you a tax cut.
* House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) wants you to think former Clinton budget adviser Alice Rivlin supports his radical plan. She doesn’t.
* Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), who really isn’t well, believes funding NPR is unconstitutional. Whatever you say, Paul.
* On a related note, Liberty University, a school founded by a radical televangelist, gets more public funds through Pell Grants in a year than NPR gets through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
* News organizations really shouldn’t struggle this much to report on the attack of a Gauguin painting at the National Gallery.
* Fox News’ Juan Williams blasted the Washington Post for “burying” a news story about economic optimism among African Americans and Latinos. The Washington Post ran the story on the front page — which is the opposite of “burying.”
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
