Top Items:
Andrew Breitbart / Big Hollywood:
Iraq War Showdown: Bill Kristol Agrees to Debate Matt Damon After Actor's “Idiot” Slam — On Sunday afternoon Weekly Standard editor and New York Times columnist Bill Kristol — in an email exchange with Big Hollywood — agreed to debate Matt Damon on his Hollywood home turf after being informed …
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Blogs and Stories:
The Sacking of Bill Kristol — Why The New York Times Sacked Bill Kristol by Scott Horton — Blogs and Stories — The famous neoconservative published his final New York Times column today. Scott Horton reports on real reasons the Gray Lady didn't renew his contract.
Richard Perez-Pena / New York Times:
Kristol Ends Times Op-Ed Column — William Kristol, the conservative columnist, and The New York Times have quietly ended their relationship after little more than a year, the newspaper said on Monday. — A single sentence printed below Mr. Kristol's column in Monday's paper broke the news: “This is William Kristol's last column.”
William Kristol / New York Times:
Will Obama Save Liberalism? — All good things must come to an end. Jan. 20, 2009, marked the end of a conservative era. — Since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, conservatives of various sorts, and conservatisms of various stripes, have generally been in the ascendancy. And a good thing, too!
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Culture11, The New Republic, The Reaction, Gawker, PoliticalBase.com Blog, Commentary, The Washington Note, Taylor Marsh, D-Day and Guardian
Greg Mitchell / The Huffington Post:
Cut Kristol: As Era Ends at ‘NYT,’ Some of Bill's Greatest Bloopers — As you surely know by now, Bill Kristol wrote his final column today for The New York Times, sparing the paper any further embarrassment. But, as usual, he did not spare us all a good belly laugh: The news of his demise came …
Glenn Garvin / MiamiHerald.com:
The opinionated Mr. Damon — Actor — and Miami Beach resident …
The opinionated Mr. Damon — Actor — and Miami Beach resident …
Discussion:
Gawker
Owen Thomas / Gawker:
Cheney's Veil Lifted on Vice President's Residence — Hope and change has come to Google Maps. The official residence of the vice president, obscured until Dick Cheney's last days in office and residence, now shines in satellite sunlight. — A reader tipped us off that Google Maps …
Ali Frick / Think Progress:
Fox Shows Photos Of Muslim Men: ‘Would You Want A Guy Like This Living In Your Backyard?’ — Since President Obama's announcement last week that he would shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention center within one year, Fox News has done its best to frighten its viewers about the rule:
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The Huffington Post:
Woodward Suggests Future Scandal For Obama White House — Appearing on the Chris Matthews Show Sunday, Bob Woodward offered a rather cryptic prediction of scandal that will plague the Obama White House. — “This may be tantalizing but vague,” said the Washington Post scribe.
Irwin M. Stelzer / Weekly Standard:
More to It Than Meets the Eye — The hidden coherence of Obama's recovery plan. — It grieves me to say so, but President Obama's conservative critics just don't get it. The new president has put forward a plan for economic recovery that is more coherent than they are willing to admit.
Discussion:
Swampland
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Mark Silva / The Swamp:
Prosecuting torture: ‘Hard to believe’ — Eric Holder, President Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general, made plenty of people uncomfortable when he asserted, flatly, in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, that water-boarding is torture.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly
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Liz Halloran / NPR:
Ex-AG Gonzales: ‘I Should Have Been More Engaged’ — Listen Now — · Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday rejected critics' charges that he allowed the Justice Department to become politicized under his watch. — Gonzales told host Michel Martin of NPR's Tell …
Jeff Mason / Reuters:
Obama begins reversing Bush climate policies — Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama began reversing the climate policies of the Bush administration on Monday, clearing the way for new rules to force auto makers to produce …
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New York Post:
JUST PLANE DESPICABLE — ‘RESCUED’ CITI BUYING $50M JET — Beleaguered Citigroup is upgrading its mile-high club with a brand-new $50 million corporate jet - only this time, it's the taxpayers who are getting screwed. — Even though the bank's stock is as cheap as a gallon of gas …
Jane Mayer In / New Yorker:
BEHIND THE EXECUTIVE ORDERS — On Thursday, President Barack Obama consigned to history the worst excesses of the Bush Administration's “war on terror.” One of the four executive orders Obama signed effectively cancelled seven years of controversial Justice Department legal opinions authorizing methods …
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Anonymous Attack On GOP Chair Candidate Uses Fake Newspaper Cover — Uh oh — it looks like viral email dirty tricks (okay, parodies) are now entering into the race for Republican National Committee chair. — This image of a parodied USA Today cover is being anonymously blasted around among Republicans …
ABCNEWS:
Blago Says He Thought of Oprah for Senate — Blago Goes on ‘GMA’ and Skips His Impeachement Trial — Illinois' beleaguered Gov. Rod Blagojevich said today that when he was deciding who would take President Obama's Senate seat he considered appointing talk show queen Oprah Winfrey.
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Marc Lynch:
How badly did Gaza poison the well? — The Israeli attack on Gaza during the last weeks of the Bush administration looks more than ever like Bush's “last gift” to Israel and to the region — carried out during the transition, with no American attempt to intervene, ending immediately before Obama's inauguration.
John H. Cochrane / University of Chicago GSB …:
Fiscal Stimulus, Fiscal Inflation, or Fiscal Fallacies? — “Fiscal stimulus” is the proposition that by borrowing money and spending it, the government can raise the overall state of the economy, raising output and lowering unemployment. Can it work? Do the arguments for it make any sense?
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight.com:
Feingold Introduces 28th Amendment — I hope you'll excuse the hubristic headline. Constitutional amendments are introduced all the time in the Congress. Most of them are used to make a political point of one kind or another and stand little chance of becoming law.
Discussion:
Daily Kos, PoliBlog, Betsy's Page, The Opinionator, Outside The Beltway and Washington Post
John Heilprin / Associated Press:
Obama Administration To Engage In “Direct Diplomacy” With Iran — UNITED NATIONS — President Barack Obama's administration will engage in “direct diplomacy” with Iran, the newly installed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Monday. — Not since before the 1979 Iranian revolution …
John Amato / Crooks and Liars:
Why aren't there better surrogates coming from President Obama's administration to discuss the stimulus plan? — Fortunately Paul Krugman has been getting on the air to beat back nonsensical discussions and bogus claims being made about President Obama's big stimulus package from the likes of the Sam Donaldson's.
Discussion:
Firedoglake
Rasmussen Reports:
44% of Democrats Say Bush Team Guilty of War Crimes — Forty-four percent (44%) of Democratic voters believe President Bush and senior members of his administration are guilty of war crimes. Only 28% of the nation's Democrats disagree. — The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found …
Associated Press:
Gov't worried about media interest in Obama's aunt — WASHINGTON (AP) - The Homeland Security Department still is requiring high-level approval before federal immigration agents can arrest fugitives, a rule quietly imposed by the Bush administration days before the election of Barack Obama …
Discussion:
Right Wing News
Jeremy W. Peters / City Room:
After Criticism, Paterson Cancels Trip to Davos — HYDE PARK, N.Y. - Gov. David A. Paterson, seeking to contain some of the fallout over his administration's handling of the United States Senate appointment, said on Monday that he had canceled a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this week.
Discussion:
Spin Cycle
Jerusalem Post:
Top EU official: Hamas fully responsible for Gaza war — Hamas bears full responsibility for the war in Gaza, a top EU official said Monday in the Strip, calling the group “a terrorist movement.” — “At this time we have to also recall the overwhelming responsibility of Hamas,” Louis Michel …
Melissa Biggs Bradley / The Huffington Post:
Through the Looking Glass: As New York Panics, London Parties On — We may be in the midst of history's first truly global economic crisis but our top financial capitals remain worlds apart. In fact, the stark contrast between the moods of New York and London made traveling between …
Discussion:
Runnin' Scared