Top Items:
New York Times:
Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll — KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country's booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years …
Discussion:
Salon, Blogs and Stories, The Huffington Post, MoJo Blog Posts, NO QUARTER, Ben Smith's Blog, BuzzFlash.org, Newsweek Blogs, The Corner on National …, Think Progress, The Washington Independent, Swampland, Mudville Gazette, Armchair Generalist, Democrats.com, ATTACKERMAN, Daily Kos, Washington Post, Sweetness & Light, Politics Daily, Informed Comment, The Agonist, Prairie Weather, Scholars and Rogues, Telegraph, At-Largely, Newshoggers.com, Gawker, Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, Boing Boing and The Page
RELATED:
Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times:
Don't Build Up — It is crunch time on Afghanistan, so here's my vote: We need to be thinking about how to reduce our footprint and our goals there in a responsible way, not dig in deeper. We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the domestic support …
Abu Muqawama:
The Most Important Article on Afghanistan You'll Read This Week — Why, you ask? Because if this is true, and if the CIA is empowering Ahmed Wali Karzai at the same time in which NATO/ISAF is saying abusive local power-brokers are a threat to mission success, then this is yet another example …
Slobodan Lekic / Associated Press:
AP IMPACT: Troops already outnumber Taliban 12-1
AP IMPACT: Troops already outnumber Taliban 12-1
Discussion:
Associated Press
Matthew Mosk / Washington Times:
EXCLUSIVE: Democratic donors rewarded with W.H. perks — Offered access to bowling alley, movie theater — During his first nine months in office, President Obama has quietly rewarded scores of top Democratic donors with VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers …
RELATED:
Bonnie Erbe:
Obama Not Comfortable With Women in Basketball, Golf ... or Anywhere Else — By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog — President Obama drew heat last week for a story that surfaced outing his private White House male-only b-ball games. The story was that even though two female members …
David Zurawik / Z on TV:
Another bad moment for White House in war on Fox — The White House keeps up its attack on Fox News as biased in this video with Valerie Jarrett, another senior adviser to President Obama making the claim. But watch how fast Jarrett folds when CNN anchor Campbell Brown asks her if pro-administration MSNBC isn't just as biased.
CNN:
CNN Poll: 7 in 10 say Palin not qualified to be president — WASHINGTON (CNN) - More than seven in 10 Americans think Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president, according to a new national poll. — Seventy-one percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey …
Discussion:
Firedoglake, The Fix, Syracuse Post-Standard, Taegan Goddard's …, Left Coast Rebel, Salon, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, PoliBlog and RADAMISTO
RELATED:
Domenico Montanaro / msnbc.com:
FIRST THOUGHTS: BUSINESS AS USUAL — From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg — *** Business as usual: We're soon coming up on the one-year anniversary of Barack Obama's presidential win. And one of the messages he used during the two-year campaign …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Politics Daily, Real Clear Politics, National Review Online and All Spin Zone
Craig Robinson / The Iowa Republican:
Palin Headed to Iowa? — TheIowaRepublican.com has learned that former Alaska Governor and Vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin could be the featured speaker for the Iowa Family Policy Center's fall fundraiser in Des Moines on November 21. The appearance would be Palin's first in Iowa since …
San Francisco Chronicle:
Did Schwarzenegger drop 4-letter bomb in veto? — Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross, Chronicle Columnists — (10-27) 19:19 PDT SACRAMENTO — Did Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office use a coded veto message to send the f-bomb to Tom Ammiano, soon after the San Francisco assemblyman made news by telling the governor to “kiss my gay ass”?
RELATED:
Tim Redmond / Politics:
Arnold to SF: F**k You — It was hardly a bill of cosmic import, but Assemblymember Tom Ammiano's AB 1176 would have helped the Port of San Francisco with some financing issues. It's the kind of bill that legislators offer on behalf of their cities all the time — and generally, they are non-controversial.
Discussion:
Newsweek Blogs, Hot Air, Jules Crittenden, Capitol Weekly, Salon, NPR Blogs, MyDD, Calitics, Gawker and RedState
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Schwarzenegger Gives California Legislature A Hidden Finger
Schwarzenegger Gives California Legislature A Hidden Finger
Discussion:
Mediaite
Mary Katharine Ham / Weekly Standard:
Pew Political IQ Poll: Republicans Consistently More Knowledgeable — You likely won't see this poll result elsewhere, so I thought I'd highlight it here. This is a Pew Political IQ test conducted over the phone with 1,002 adults from Oct. 1-4. They were asked 12 questions …
John Koblin / New York Times:
Times Buyout Package Reveals More than Expected — Just over a week ago, every person in the Times newsroom was sent out a buyout package via UPS Next Day Air. If 100 staffers don't raise their hands by Dec. 7, there will be layoffs. — We got our hands on one of the thickish brown envelopes that went to employees' homes.
Michael Calderone / The Politico:
News gets worse for the MSM — There have been a lot of bad days recently for what's come to be known as the mainstream media — or MSM — but Monday was one of the worst. — New circulation figures showed that big city papers had lost as much as a quarter of their circulation in the past six months.
Discussion:
Michael Calderone's Blog, Gawker, Commentary, Reflections of a Newsosaur, Achenblog and TVNewser
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Palin created company while in office — A small mystery in Sarah Palin's personal financial disclosure: In April, while still governor, she founded what she describes as a “marketing” business, called “Pie Spy.” — Palin lists herself as the owner of the limited liability corporation …
Jason Horowitz / Washington Post:
To find right PR guru, Beck looked to his left — A few weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, Glenn Beck, a young Tampa-based disc jockey eager to break into conservative talk radio, called his new Manhattan agent, George Hiltzik, to help arrange a visit to Ground Zero.
Ann Althouse / Althouse:
The phony quotes keep coming — and they go viral before even very quick corrections. — Yesterday, Yale lawprof Jack Balkin had to backtrack: … Although Professor Balkin picked up the story and wrote about it, to his credit, from the start, he hedged with phrases like “[i]f the current report is accurate.”
Carrie Budoff Brown / The Politico:
Defections have Dems ISO Plan B — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's appeals for party unity landed with a thud Tuesday with the very group he needs for his public-option push to pay off: centrists who hold the key to health reform. — And not just any centrists but one who makes liberals see red …
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, The Note, Hot Air, Wizbang and The Strata-Sphere
Bruce Drake / Politics Daily:
For First Time Under Obama, Majority Says U.S. Is on Wrong Track — While the stock market has picked up and the country appears to be pulling out of the recession, a majority of Americans - for the first time in the Obama presidency - says the U.S. is headed down the wrong track …
Tom Matzzie / The Huffington Post:
Meet Wall Street's Man in the Adirondacks — A funny thing is happening in upstate New York right now. The collusion between the grassroots populist anger of the “teabaggers” and the more elitist pro-Wall Street agenda of the Club for Growth is being unmasked all at once—just in time for Halloween.
Discussion:
Glenn Thrush's Blog
Wall Street Journal:
GMAC Asks for Fresh Lifeline — Lender in Advanced Talks for Third Slug of Taxpayer Cash — at Least $2.8 Billion More — In a stark reminder of how some battered financial firms remain dependent on government lifelines, GMAC Financial Services Inc. and the Treasury Department …
Discussion:
Calculated Risk, The Foundry, The Baseline Scenario, DailyFinance, NO QUARTER and naked capitalism
Paul Begala / Blogs and Stories:
Traitor Joe — Blogs and Stories — The ex-Democrat now says he'll join the GOP in a health-care filibuster. Paul Begala on Lieberman's latest and most shameless betrayal. — It's journalistic shorthand to note a politician's party identification and state after his or her name.
Discussion:
Glenn Thrush's Blog
USA Today:
Early reports: Job gains signal stimulus impact — WASHINGTON — States have reported using stimulus money to create or save more than 388,000 jobs so far this year, buttressing the Obama administration's claim that the $787 billion plan has had a significant impact on the economy.
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Krauthammer: Obama attacks on Bush “disgusting” — When does a President stop blaming his predecessor and start taking responsibility for his own actions? To be fair, that has been an eternal question in the American context, but it does seem as though Barack Obama has a crutch that he refuses to put aside.
John Meroney / The Atlantic Online:
A Conversation With Gore Vidal — At age 83, Gore Vidal remains a sharp provocateur, as irascible and irreverent as ever. — Snapshots in History's Glare, a new memoir by Vidal released this month, renews interest in this American literary and cultural icon—offering readers a pictorial look …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post
The Hill:
Rep. Stupak threatens to work with Republicans to kill healthcare bill — Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) on Tuesday threatened that he may work with Republicans to torpedo healthcare reform unless he gets a vote to strip abortion-related provisions out of the House bill.