Top Items:
Richard Cohen / Washington Post:
Warren On? Party Off. — Not that he was planning to attend, but Barack Obama should know that my sister's inauguration night party — the one for which she was preparing Obama Punch — has been canceled. The notice went out over the weekend, by e-mail and word of mouth …
Discussion:
AMERICAblog News, Taylor Marsh, TalkLeft, Wake up America, Babalu Blog, Feministe, Commentary, Stop The ACLU, Riehl World View, Macsmind and Dean's World
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TMZ.com:
Rick Warren — Out of the Closet! — Rick Warren, the pastor who will deliver the invocation next month for Barack Obama, apparently is doing a little image-adjusting in West Hollywood. — We got this pic, taken yesterday at Out of the Closet thrift store.
Digby / Hullabaloo:
One Way Street — I saw something very interesting today on MSNBC. Barnicle, filling in for Matthews on Hardball, hosted Reverend Eugene Rivers, a well respected, uncontroversial African American preacher, and Mike Rogers, strident gay activist. — Loaded for bear, Rivers came out firing …
E. J. Dionne Jr / Washington Post:
A Gamble for Obama — By inviting Pastor Rick Warren to give …
A Gamble for Obama — By inviting Pastor Rick Warren to give …
Discussion:
Power Line, Boston Globe, D-Day, The XX Factor, The Corner, Scripting News, The New Republic, Townhall.com and AMERICAblog News
Susan Kelleher / Seattle Times:
Seattle refuses to use salt; roads “snow packed” by design — To hear the city's spin, Seattle's road crews are making “great progress” in clearing the ice-caked streets. — But it turns out “plowed streets” in Seattle actually means “snow-packed,” as in there's snow and ice left on major arterials by design.
Ezra Klein / American Prospect:
THERE IS NOTHING ANYONE CAN DO ABOUT IT. — Over at BoingBoing, Clay Shirky engages in a bit of self-congratulatory schadenfreude for predicting the collapse of the newspaper business model back in 1993. And no doubt: He was prescient. But like a lot of folks (many of them named Jeff Jarvis) …
Discussion:
Don Surber
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Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
What Might Have Been — Ezra Klein makes the case that the decline …
What Might Have Been — Ezra Klein makes the case that the decline …
Discussion:
Eschaton
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
More on What Might Have Been — I promised more thoughts …
More on What Might Have Been — I promised more thoughts …
Discussion:
Kevin Drum
Deb Riechmann / Associated Press:
Bush pardons man who helped Israel during wartime — Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition — WASHINGTON - In a gesture of forgiveness for an American considered a hero in Israel, President George W. Bush on Tuesday granted a pardon posthumously to a man who broke …
Discussion:
Townhall.com
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The Huffington Post:
Emanuel Heads To Africa As Blagojevich Report Drops — With the Obama transition team set to release an internal report regarding the extent of its interactions with embattled governor Rod Blagojevich, one of the key figures in the mix is heading out of the country.
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Bill Gertz / Washington Times:
Obama wants Bush war team to stay — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has asked most Bush administration political appointees except those targeted for dismissal to stay on in the Pentagon until replaced by the Obama administration in the coming months. — “I have received authorization …
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John O'Sullivan / Wall Street Journal:
Conservative Snobs Are Wrong About Palin — I know Maggie Thatcher. The two women have a lot in common. — Being listed in fourth place for Time magazine's “Person of the Year,” as Sarah Palin was for 2008, sounds a little like being awarded the Order of Purity (Fourth Class).
Discussion:
PoliBlog, At-Largely, The Reaction, Townhall.com, AmSpecBlog, No More Mister Nice Blog, Commentary, BLACKFIVE and Media Blog
Quinnipiac University:
New York Is Semi-Sweet On Caroline, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Cuomo Is Favored By Upstate Voters — New York State voters split 40 - 41 percent on whether Caroline Kennedy is qualified to be a U.S. Senator, but they expect by a 48 - 25 percent margin that Gov. David Paterson will name …
Discussion:
TPM Election Central, The Daily Politics, Hotline On Call, Liberal Values, MyDD, Real Clear Politics, Daily Kos and Spin Cycle
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Tennessean.com:
Flood of sludge breaks TVA dike — Collapse poses risk of toxic ash — HARRIMAN, Tenn. — Millions of yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation and putting environmentalists on edge …
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Brian Angliss / Scholars and Rogues:
“Clean” coal ash flood may make new Superfund site (Update #2)
“Clean” coal ash flood may make new Superfund site (Update #2)
Discussion:
Wonk Room
John H. Richardson / Esquire:
Why Obama Really Might Decriminalize Marijuana — The stoner community is clamoring to say it: “Yes we cannabis!” Turns out, with several drug-war veterans close to the president-elect's ear, insiders think reform could come in Obama's second term — or sooner.
Maggie Haberman / New York Post:
O, MY BOD! IT'S BEACH BARACK — NEXT PREZ HEATS UP HAWAII — Just call him “Ab"-bama. — Buff-bodied President-elect Barack Obama put his chiseled frame on full display - as seen on Page 1 - during a stroll in Hawaii while on vacation with his family.
James H. Burnett III / MiamiHerald.com:
Quirky Festivus holiday gains followers — Those who celebrate Festivus display a pole instead of a tree and air grievances instead of exchanging gifts. — JBURNETT@MIAMIHERALD.COM — Alexandra Casuso was only 11 years old when Festivus made its TV debut on Seinfeld in 1997 …
NY1:
Top Clinton Advisor Wolfson Joining Team Bloomberg — In an exclusive interview with NY1, top Democratic strategist Howard Wolfson announced today that he will be joining Mayor Michael Bloomberg's re-election campaign as a senior communications advisor. — “Around the time of the term limits extension …
Little Green Footballs:
NPR Rewrites Rathergate History to Cover Up Fraud — National Public Radio does their best to rewrite history in this shockingly disingenuous piece on the Rathergate affair, told from Dan Rather's perspective as he openly states (and NPR doesn't challenge) that the memos in his infamous 60 Minutes II piece …
Discussion:
NPR
CNN:
Child porn investigation catches California lawyer — (CNN) — A lawyer who served in the Clinton administration and more recently was an adviser to California's lieutenant governor pleaded guilty to a child porn charge in a San Diego federal court Monday. — Wade Rowland Sanders admitted …
Discussion:
Tabloid Edition
Bob Owens / Pajamas Media:
The Op-Ed the New York Times Wouldn't Run — An FBI informant's response to Bill Ayers' rewriting of history got the cold shoulder — but you can read it here. — On December 5, the New York Times afforded former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers a chance to publish an op-ed …
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
The Bush Legacy — Ed Gillespie's RealClearPolitics article on “Myths and Facts About the Real Bush Record” is about as stupid and dishonest as you'd expect. But after “debunking” five perfectly accurate alleged myths, Gillespie gets into the whopper that really gets my goat:
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Think Progress, Real Clear Politics, rubber hose, Gateway Pundit, Washington Monthly, Eschaton and Jules Crittenden
Ezra Klein / American Prospect:
APPLY ECONOMICS TO ECONOMISTS. — Over e-mail, Dean Baker offers an explanation why so few economists accurately saw the trembling instability beneath the economy, much less sounded the alarm. “They didn't know” is not an operative explanation. The analysis was public …