Please join us tonight for Ed's return. Here's a look at some of the stories that caught my eye prepping for tonight's show. Did I miss any? Post 'em in the comments. I'll have today's Outlook and Underbuzzed a little later, as always.
TODAY
- Senate takes up solicitor-general nominee Donald Verrilli
MEDICARE
- GOP tries to block ads hitting them on their plan to kill Medicare.
- VIDEO: GOP fails to block Democratic Medicare ads.
- Krugman: Call it VoucherCare.
- Some GOPers use the V-word, too.
- Florida Senate candidate still taking heat for his Ryan Plan waffle.
- VIDEO: DCCC puts up new video reminding America how both parties once embraced this.
- VIDEO: The right wing also has its own video up.
MEDICAID
- With the GOP budget making harsher cuts to Medicaid, where is the Dem outrage?
JOBS
- One reason for May's weak job numbers? Lack of government spending.
- Local governments prepare to add to the ranks of unemployed.
- Differing views on whether May's numbers represent a trend.
- Republicans don't consider a Nobel Prize for studying unemployment sufficient qualification for a Fed nominee.
- What has severed productivity from employment levels?
GAS AND FOOD PRICES
- Americans for Prosperity launches campaign to blame Pres. Obama for high gas prices.
- And don't forget who's bankrolling Americans for Prosperity: Oil money.
- VIDEO: Haley Barbour launches woefully misinformed attack on Pres. Obama for high gas prices.
- The GOP 2012 stands behind energy subsidies.
- Airline trade group blames lower profits primarily on rising gas prices.
- Poll: Egyptians revolted because of the economy, including high commodity prices; not to gain freedom.
AUTO BAILOUT
- Speaker Boehner's office says the bailout is "nothing to celebrate."
- Bailed-out automakers now fighting back against fuel-economy standards.
- Flashback: Boehner says govt. can't steer auto companies back to profitability.
WALL ST. / BANKS
- VIDEO: Local sheriff turns the foreclosure tables on Bank of America.
- Goldman Sachs fights back against damning Senate report.
CORPORATE AMERICA
- Ma Bell is on track to put herself back together.
- Federal prisons director flies through revolving door to private prison company.
ELECTIONS
- NYT editorial calls out systematic Republican efforts to reduce opportunities for Americans to vote.
- WI Republicans undertake plan to trick voters at the polls.
ECONOMY
- Half a million Greeks protest useless, destructive "austerity" plan.
- Most states poking holes in the American safety net.
- How Grover Norquist transformed the GOP to make taxes the ultimate taboo.
- Alan Greenspan supports Clinton-era tax rates.
- Analysis: If Washington doesn't do something, things are going to get worse.
- Republican Study Committee calls for multiple debt-ceiling-increase votes.
- Why a deal on the debt ceiling looks so hard.
- Chart: If it's a recovery, who exactly recovered?
- VIDEO: Bill Kristol lets the cat out of the bag: Corporations don't need tax cuts.
BROKEN GOVERNMENT
- Republican judge begs Sens. McCain and Kyl to fill judicial slots.
ABORTION
- VIDEO: Right-wing produces anti-choice horror movie showing just how horrific the right-wing vision for women truly is.
HOMOPHOBIA
- Home Depot stands up to anti-gay lobby.
AFGHANISTAN
- Presidential advisers look at accelerating the withdrawal.
LIBYA
- Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) pens op-ed ripping Obama Administration for Libya policy.
CLIMATE CHANGE
- Arizona threatened by wildfires.
EDUCATION
- Thirty-six states look at privatization measures.
OBAMA 2012
- Poll: His numbers are about at 2008 levels.
- His economic message may get an overhaul.
- His campaign eyes the same states they won in 2008, but think they've lost Indiana.
GOP 2012
MITT ROMNEY
- Giuliani smacks him for standing by RomneyCare.
HERMAN CAIN
RON PAUL
- A punchier money-raising style this time around.
RICK SANTORUM
- He joins the race, welcomed by skepticism.
- He says he would have applied the so-popular Ryan Plan to Social Security, too.
- VIDEO: Rick Santorum says he has more "temerity" than well-known he-man Paul Ryan. (Note: Dictionary.com lists audacity, effrontery and foolhardiness as synonyms for temerity. Oops.)
TIM PAWLENTY
- Flashback: He supported expanding federal health care for needy children. Like a socialist would.
JON HUNTSMAN
- Freaks out conservatives by speaking not just any foreign language, but Chinese!
RICK PERRY
- The Texas governor is talking to his financial backers about a possible run.
SARAH PALIN
- Her supporters don't revere history, they rewrite it.
(What I'm reading: Greg Sargent's Plum Line, Think Progress, Matt Yglesias, The Wonk Room, Talking Points Memo, TPMDC, Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, the Washington Monthly, the National Journal, Ezra Klein, Politico's Playbook and Huddle, Dave Weigel, Wonkette, Firedoglake, the NYT Caucus, Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars. What my iPod has me listening to: Sahara Gold, by Bruce Cockburn.)
Get more from Senior Producer Jonathan Larsen (@jtlarsen) on Twitter