Top Items:
CNN Political Ticker:
S.C. poll: Huckabee bolts to top of GOP; Obama cuts into Clinton lead — WASHINGTON (CNN) - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee surged to the top among Republican presidential candidates in South Carolina, while Sen. Hillary Clinton's lead over Sen. Barack Obama among Democrats narrowed since July in that state, according to a new poll.
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Sarah Liebowitz / Concord Monitor:
Obama edges Clinton in poll — Romney well ahead in 'Monitor' survey — December 14. — Barack Obama has come from behind to turn the Democratic presidential race in New Hampshire into a toss-up, according to a new Monitor opinion poll. The results - which show Obama with a one-point edge …
Rasmussen Reports:
Election 2008: Florida Republican Primary — Florida: Huckabee 27% Romney 23% Giuliani 19% — Mitt Romney's strategy for winning the Republican nomination was to win the early states and build momentum. Rudy Giuliani's plan was to accept defeats in the early states and come back strong …
Discussion:
Associated Press, The Corner, Riehl World View, Hot Air, Below The Beltway, eyeon08.com, PoliGazette and Taegan Goddard's …
Rich Lowry / National Review:
Huckacide — Editor's note: This column is available exclusively through King Features Syndicate. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact: kfsreprint@hearstsc.com, or phone 800-708-7311, ext 246). — The ghost of Howard Dean haunts the pundit class.
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Peggy Noonan / Opinion Journal:
The Pulpit and the Potemkin Village — Would Reagan survive in today's GOP? And is Mrs. Clinton in for a fall this winter? — What is happening in Iowa is no longer boring but big, and may prove huge. — The Republican race looks—at the moment—to be determined primarily by one thing, the question of religious faith.
Katharine Q. Seelye / New York Times:
Apologies From the Heart (of Darkness?) — It must be the season of apologies in presidential politics. — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized personally to Senator Barack Obama on Thursday for a top adviser's public suggestion that Republicans would go after Mr. Obama for his youthful drug use.
Matthew Yglesias:
Class Warfare — Here's a chart based on Paul Krugman's writeup of data from the CBO's new "Historical Effective Federal Tax Rates" report. Naturally, the only solution is tax cuts.
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Paul Krugman:
Bush boom bah — You know you're a serious wonk when you wait eagerly each year for the arrival of the CBO's "Historical Effective Federal Tax Rates." But it's much more than a tax report — it's the single best estimate we have of trends in income and income inequality. The tables (Excel file) are here.
Discussion:
ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES
Scarecrow / Firedoglake:
Will the Senate Gut the Constitution and FISA Again? — The Senate is expected Friday to begin consideration of bills to restore FISA, after a panicked Congress gutted FISA's Constitutional protections last August. Final votes may not occur until Monday or Wednesday, but procedural votes today …
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Michael Hirsh / Newsweek:
Why Isn't Gore Running? — The White House is the place to battle global warming. — There he was again on the world stage—in Oslo this time—celebrating his Nobel Peace Prize with singer Melissa Etheridge and actress Uma Thurman, the Hollywood hottie who called him "adorable" …
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Ali / Think Progress:
600: — Percent the cost of government paper-shredding has increased since President Bush took office. USASpending tracked how the government spent $452,807 on contracts for paper-shredding services in 2000, only to see that number rise astronomically to over $2.9 million in 2006.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly
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Al Kamen / Washington Post:
Instead of Plum Appointments, Maybe a Lump of Coal — Christmas is usually a time when controversial nominees for top federal jobs wait for Santa, in the form of the president of the United States, to come down the chimney with their recess appointments. — Maybe not this year.
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E. J. Dionne Jr / Washington Post:
Plan B For Pelosi And Reid
Plan B For Pelosi And Reid
Discussion:
Washington Times, Corrente, Brilliant at Breakfast, The Glittering Eye and Bark Bark Woof Woof
From The Blotter / The Blotter:
Al Qaeda Releases New Recording — From The Blotter: — A new al Qaeda communique featuring Al-Qaeda's number-two man was released on the internet Friday morning. — References to last month's peace conference in Annapolis indicate the recording is recent.
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Paul Kane / Washington Post:
Rove, Bolten Found in Contempt of Congress — Senate Committee Cites Top Bush Advisers in Probe of U.S. Attorney Firings — A Senate panel found former presidential adviser Karl Rove and current White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten in contempt of Congress yesterday for refusing …
CNN Political Ticker:
Veteran GOP strategist signs on with Huckabee — WASHINGTON (CNN) — A veteran Republican strategist considered by many the architect of Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide election victory is set to take the helm of Mike Huckabee's surging presidential bid, CNN has learned.
The Corner:
Omar the Actor — In conservative circles, I take a lot of ribbing for the fact that I used to work for The New York Times. But during the years I was at the paper, my editors held us to a very high standard. Apparently, things have changed. — The most recent example is the Times quoting …
John McCormick / The Swamp:
Vilsack's neighbor: first Clinton, now Obama — MONTICELLO, Iowa - From her front yard in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, the video shows Susan Klopfer talking about the state of the race among the Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa. — And the former precinct captain for Sen. Hillary Clinton …
New York Post:
SO, WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY AT THE ATLANTIC? — THE Atlantic Monthly already had cut back to a publishing frequency of 10 times a year, but only now is the magazine getting around to dropping the word "monthly" from its corporate identity and officially changing its name to The Atlantic.