Top Items:
Rick Santorum / Philly.com:
The Elephant in the Room: McCain may be Obama's secret weapon — A desire by both men to secure their places in history might forge an unlikely pairing. — I have been to New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington in recent weeks. In those cities, at least, you cannot watch the news …
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Roger Simon / The Politico:
What if I didn't pay taxes? — Would it be OK if I stopped paying my taxes until Barack Obama names me to be his secretary of the treasury? — That is a deal I would like to get. That is the deal financial wizard Timothy Geithner got. — He didn't pay all of his federal taxes for years.
Discussion:
ProPublica, National Review, The Reaction, Commentary, RedState, Flopping Aces, Balloon Juice, The Campaign Spot and Riehl World View
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New York Times:
More Questions for Mr. Geithner — President-elect Barack Obama's team reacted predictably to the disclosure that Timothy Geithner, the nominee for Treasury secretary, failed to pay a chunk of his federal taxes over several recent years. The script gets played out, with slight variations …
Bob Woodward / Washington Post:
10 Take Aways From the Bush Years — There's actually a lot that President-elect Barack Obama can learn from the troubled presidency of George W. Bush. Over the past eight years, I have interviewed President Bush for nearly 11 hours, spent hundreds of hours with his administration's key players …
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Wall Street Journal:
Bush and the Libby Pardon — As the curtain closes on the presidency of George W. Bush, the one loose end dangling is the pardon of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. In 2007 Mr. Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, was convicted for perjury and obstruction of justice.
Discussion:
protein wisdom
Associated Press:
Israel Shells UN Headquarters In Gaza — GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israel shelled the United Nations headquarters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, engulfing the compound and the main warehouse in fire and destroying thousands of pounds of food and humanitarian supplies intended for Palestinian refugees.
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Eric Lichtblau / New York Times:
Intelligence Court Rules Wiretapping Power Legal — WASHINGTON — A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, issued a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a specific court order …
Amanda Terkel / Think Progress:
Vitter casts lone vote against Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State.» — Today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 16-1 to approve President-elect Obama's nomination of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Casting the sole “nay” vote was Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) …
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland
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Thomas Nagorski / The World Newser:
West Wing ‘Ghost Town’ — From long-time ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton: — President and Mrs. Bush fly to Camp David Friday afternoon for a final weekend in the rustic seclusion of “the Camp.” Over the next 36 hours, White House staffers will go through the behind …
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Marist Poll:
Filling Her Senate Seat: New Yorkers Favor Cuomo to Replace Clinton — This Marist Poll reports: — · New Yorkers Clamor for Cuomo...Kennedy Stagnates in Pool of Public Opinion: The tides of support have changed in the contest over who voters think should fill Hillary Clinton's vacant U.S. Senate seat.
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Associated Press:
Holder to Senate: ‘Waterboarding is torture’ — Obama's nominee for attorney general vows break with controversial tactic — Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., shake hands just prior to Holder's confirmation hearing on Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Commitee.
Discussion:
Think Progress, Washington Monthly, JONATHAN TURLEY, Gateway Pundit, Sentencing Law and Policy, CBS News and Atlas Shrugs
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David Neiwert / Crooks and Liars:
O'Reilly Freaks Out Over the Thought of Holding Bush Admin Torturers Culpable — Bill O'Reilly came briefly unhinged last night, but managed to keep himself from having one of his infamous all-out temper tantrums. I thought for sure he was about to start shouting, “Do it live! F—k it!
California Progress Report:
State of the People is Grim: More Budget Cuts Are Exactly the Wrong Prescription — As Governor Schwarzenegger prepares to report on the State of the State tomorrow, California's families today declared that “the State of the People” is increasingly grim with a record number of Californians having lost …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post
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Claudia Rosett / Forbes:
Iran Wields The Gavel At The UNDP — What do Obama and Susan Rice propose to do about this? — Truly, I had plans to write this week about something other than the United Nations. But over at Turtle Bay, here they go again. — To chair the 2009 governing board of the U.N.'s flagship agency …
Discussion:
Daily Pundit
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Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:
Obama Charms Even a Night's Grand Ol' Party — At one point during the party, CNBC's Larry Kudlow asked Barack Obama why he had hired several of the liberal guests who appeared on his program but left him Robert Reich. — “So someone will stick up for me on your show,” the president-elect replied.
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Michael Calderone's Blogs
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George F. Will / Washington Post:
Of Judges, By Judges, For Judges — In November, 13,402,566 California voters expressed themselves for or against Proposition 8, which said that their state's Constitution should be amended to define marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. The voters, confident that they had a right …
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New West Notes
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Nicholas D. Kristof / New York Times:
Where Sweatshops Are a Dream — Before Barack Obama and his team act on their talk about “labor standards,” I'd like to offer them a tour of the vast garbage dump here in Phnom Penh. — This is a Dante-like vision of hell. It's a mountain of festering refuse, a half-hour hike across …
Discussion:
LewRockwell.com Blog
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Ezra Klein / American Prospect:
PROVOCATION OF THE DAY: SWEATSHOPS ARE GOOD. — Nick Kristof's …
PROVOCATION OF THE DAY: SWEATSHOPS ARE GOOD. — Nick Kristof's …
Discussion:
distributedrepublic …
Byron York / The Corner:
Vince Foster, Fifteen Years Later — I was looking over a daily almanac and saw that Vincent Foster would have been 64 years old today. In the 1990s, I spent a lot of time covering his death, beginning with trip to Fort Marcy Park the morning after his body was discovered.
Peter Baker / New York Times:
Biden Outlines Plans to Do More With Less Power — WASHINGTON — He was in the Senate for 36 years and visited the White House under seven presidents. But Joseph R. Biden Jr. has never seen the inside of the vice president's office in the West Wing. “I never thought a lot about the vice presidency …
Discussion:
Betsy's Page, The Caucus, Lost in Transition, The Note, Prairie Weather, Think Progress and TIME.com
Richard L. Connor / CQ Politics:
History May See Lincoln-Like Greatness in George W. Bush — It's easy to make comparisons between President-elect Barack Obama and former President Abraham Lincoln. We have the Illinois connections and then the hovering, dark clouds of war, a nation divided and in crisis, and other similarities that provide a historic link.
Room for Debate:
Torture's Blowback — Susan Crawford, the senior Pentagon official who dismissed charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Guantánamo detainee, said in a published report on Wednesday that she had concluded that he had been tortured by interrogators. “His treatment met the legal definition of torture.
Discussion:
No More Mister Nice Blog, The Corner, New York Times, The Washington Independent, Emptywheel and Guardian