Top Items:
Erik Schatzker / Bloomberg:
Citigroup Said to Commit $10 Million for New Executive Suite — Citigroup Inc. plans to spend about $10 million on new offices for Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit and his lieutenants, after the U.S. government injected $45 billion of cash into the bank.
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David Stout / New York Times:
House Passes Heavy Tax on Bonuses at Rescued Firms — WASHINGTON — Spurred on by a tidal wave of public anger over bonuses paid to executives of the foundering American International Group, the House voted 328 to 93 on Thursday to get back most of the money by levying a 90 percent tax on it.
Stephen Ohlemacher / Associated Press:
House passes bill taxing AIG and other bonuses — Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition — WASHINGTON - Denouncing a “squandering of the people's money,” lawmakers voted decisively Thursday to impose a 90 percent tax on millions of dollars in employee bonuses paid …
Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:
No New Taxes — I deplore this confiscatory tax aimed at whoever Congress is mad at today. Right now it's AIG and Fannie Mae; later it will be Merrill and Citibank, and eventually it will be defense contractors, profiteering oil executives, or whomever the Congressional Dems single out as their whipping boy du jour.
Manu Raju / The Politico:
GOP wary of plan to tax AIG bonuses
GOP wary of plan to tax AIG bonuses
Discussion:
Think Progress, Right Wing News, DownWithTyranny!, No More Mister Nice Blog, Washington Monthly, MSNBC, The Swamp, TPMDC and American Power
Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:
Who Doesn't Love The JournoList? — How great is the JournoList, that off-the-record electronic salon where liberal journalists and policy gurus can exchange views, and which is emphatically *not* an echo chamber? — Let's see - Matt Yglesias of JL on the AIG furor - it's a distraction:
Brady Dennis / Washington Post:
Inside AIG-FP, Feeling the Public's Wrath — A solitary flat-screen television hangs on the back wall of the trading floor inside the headquarters of AIG Financial Products here. Wednesday afternoon, the most-talked-about employees in America huddled around it to find out just how despised they have become.
Discussion:
JustOneMinute, On Deadline, Outside The Beltway, The Mahablog, AMERICAblog News, Emptywheel and Democracy in America
Carol E. Lee / The Politico:
Schwarzenegger on Obama: ‘Beautiful’ — LOS ANGELES - “When have you ever seen a president be that out there?” — That was a mesmerized Arnold Schwarzenegger after Obama's town hall meeting. — “I've never seen that,” Schwarzenegger said to a couple reporters as he and his wife, Maria Shriver, tried to make an exit.
Discussion:
CBS News
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Amos Harel / Haaretz:
IDF in Gaza: Killing civilians, vandalism, and lax rules of engagement — During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive.
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Tim Walker / Telegraph:
Gordon Brown is frustrated by ‘Psycho’ in No 10 — While not exactly a film buff, Gordon Brown was touched when Barack Obama gave him a set of 25 classic American movies - including Psycho, starring Anthony Perkins on his recent visit to Washington. — Alas, when the PM settled …
Fox News:
Duke Coach to Obama: Worry About the Economy, Not NCAA Picks — Reacting to news Obama picked North Carolina to win the NCAA Championship, Mike Krzyzewski says, “the economy is something that [the president] should focus on, probably more than the brackets.”
Discussion:
The Atlantic Politics Channel, NO QUARTER, TIME.com, TBogg, Political Machine, FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog and Wizbang
Stephen Ohlemacher / Associated Press:
13 companies getting bailout money owe back taxes — Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition — WASHINGTON - At least 13 companies receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe a total of more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes, a key lawmaker said Thursday.
Michelle Malkin:
Audio comedy gold: Bozo the Vice President is looking out for you — The gaffetastic gift that keeps on giving. — In trying times, we can always count on Bozo the Vice President to provide some welcome comic relief. Joe Biden was The Newshour on PBS last night in full swagger …
Associated Press:
Undersea volcano erupts near Tonga — Eruption in South Pacific not presently a threat to islanders, authorities say — NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga - Scientists sailed Thursday to inspect an undersea volcano that has been erupting for days near Tonga — shooting smoke, steam and ash thousands of feet …
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Eddie / Sky News:
Julia Alasheyeva, Moscow — A picture has emerged apparently showing Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in his former days as a KGB officer. — The 20-year old photo depicts two world leaders - US President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev - in Moscow.
Gail Collins / New York Times:
The Grievance Committee — Angry. So very, very angry. Unable to speak due to mega-anger washing over every pore and fiber of my being. Anger is in. (Hope's so ... January.) — I am extremely angry at Tim Geithner for being such a baby that he couldn't scare a bunch …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Commentary, Outside The Beltway, Hullabaloo, Booman Tribune and Wall Street Journal
Satyam Khanna / Think Progress:
Rice: 'No One Was Arguing That Saddam Hussein Somehow Had Something To Do With 9/11′ — On PBS's Charlie Rose yesterday — six years after the eve of the Iraq invasion — former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice discussed the decision to invade Iraq.
Laura Rozen / The Cable:
Top brass disturbed by GOP stalling of Iraq ambassador — There's one as yet unremarked constituency increasingly disturbed by some Republican senators' efforts to block the confirmation of former North Korea envoy Christopher Hill to be the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq: the U.S. military.
Discussion:
Think Progress, The New Republic, democracyarsenal.org, Washington Monthly, Matthew Yglesias and Weekly Standard
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Sebelius has trouble in Kansas — And it's not a twister, Auntie Em. Kathleen Sebelius left her job as governor of Kansas to take a Cabinet position as Secretary of Health and Human Services in Barack Obama's administration, but she left unfinished business behind.
Barry Schweid / Associated Press:
US-China policy group calls for mutual respect — WASHINGTON - To relieve tensions, ease up on mistrust and develop more respect. That's a leading policy think tank's prescription for the leaders of the United States and China. — The two countries could make the world a better place …
Times of London:
Iranian blogger who insulted leader ‘dies in jail’ — A young Iranian blogger jailed in Tehran's notorious Evin prison for insulting the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has died, his lawyer said today. — Mohammad Ali Dadkhah said that although there is not yet …
Jimmy Orr / Christian Science Monitor:
Obama: It's like AIG has a bomb strapped to them — E-mail a friend - Print this - Letter to the Editor - Republish - - Get e-mail alerts - RSS — Maybe Iowa Senator Charles Grassley and President Obama have more in common than they think. — At least there are similarities when they discuss AIG.
Hollywoodreporter / The Live Feed:
Networks reluctantly shuffle for Obama speech — Networks are pulling their shows over to the side of the road to make room for the lights and sirens of president Barack Obama's latest primetime address. — Obama will take to the air next Tuesday evening on four broadcast networks and bump …
James K. Galbraith / Associated Press:
No Return to Normal — Why the economic crisis, and its solution, — are bigger than you think. — B arack Obama's presidency began in hope and goodwill, but its test will be its success or failure on the economics. Did the president and his team correctly diagnose the problem?
Elizabeth A. Kennedy / Associated Press:
Bin Laden exhorts Somali militants in Web message — NAIROBI, Kenya - Osama bin Laden urged Somalis on Thursday to overthrow their new president, issuing a statement that clearly outlines al-Qaida's ambitions in a nation long feared to be a haven for the terrorist network.
Lindsey Ellerson / The Note:
Norquist Opposes AIG Tax, But Says It Doesn't Break Tax Pledge — ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports from Capitol Hill: While everyone seems to be outraged about the $165 million in bonuses awarded to AIG executives at the troubled financial products division, the plan by Democrats in the House …
Fox News:
Haggard, Wife to Appear on ‘Divorce Court’ Show — COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Former evangelical pastor Ted Haggard and his wife are planning another TV appearance, this time to talk about their marriage. — The two are in Los Angeles taping an appearance on the syndicated Twentieth Television show …
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland