Top Items:
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
Palin Puts The Trig Question Back On The Table — Sarah Palin has now made two very clear public statements in the last day about the legitimacy of questions about the maternity of her son Trig. Here's the first, transcribed from the interview above: … And here's the second, a later Facebook attempt to walk back some of this:
Discussion:
Riehl World View, Taegan Goddard's …, Bree Palin, The Political Carnival and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion
RELATED:
Facebook:
Stupid Conspiracies — Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I've pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child.
Jane Hamsher / Firedoglake:
NV-Sen: Dear Harry, Kicking Your Ass is Going to be Fun — Harry Reid has raised a small fortune for his reelection campaign, and it's not working: … I've been talking to a lot of people in Arkansas recently, and they all say that Blanche Lincoln traded her vote on health care for her chairmanship of the Ag Committee.
RELATED:
Benjamin Spillman / Las Vegas Review-Journal:
SENATE RACE: Reid in a battle, poll reveals — Nine Republicans running for seat — Nevadans aren't warming up to Sen. Harry Reid, despite plenty of early advertising designed to boost his image, a new poll shows. — Just 38 percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion …
Discussion:
Hot Air, The Tolbert Report, JammieWearingFool, TPMDC, National Review Online, Scorecard's Blog, Saberpoint and The Note
Sahil Kapur / Raw Story:
Exclusive: Beck's movie bombs in New York, Boston — and Washington, D.C. — In New York, Beck sold 17 tickets. In Boston, another 17. And in Washington, D.C., the hotbed of political activism, his tearful film drew only 30, Raw Story has found. — Glenn Beck's new movie The Christmas Sweater …
RELATED:
Alex Seitz-Wald / Think Progress:
Beck's ‘Christmas Sweater’ …
Beck's ‘Christmas Sweater’ …
Discussion:
Townhall.com, Jack & Jill Politics, Washington Monthly, Shakesville, NCM.com and The Political Carnival
Joseph Childers / Ephemera Etcetera:
Glenn Beck's ‘Christmas Sweater’: A Viewer's Guide
Glenn Beck's ‘Christmas Sweater’: A Viewer's Guide
Discussion:
Gawker
Spiegel Online:
Prostitutes Offer Free Climate Summit Sex — Copenhagen Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards to city hotels warning summit guests not to patronize Danish sex workers during the upcoming conference. Now, the prostitutes have struck back, offering free sex to anyone who produces one of the warnings.
Jim Tankersley / The Swamp:
Obama delays Copenhagen, raises stakes — by Jim Tankersley and updated 4:50 pm EST — President Barack Obama will push back his visit to the international climate change treaty negotiations in Copenhagen from the first week of the conference to its final scheduled day, a senior White House official said this afternoon.
RELATED:
The Huffington Post:
Aetna Forcing 600,000-Plus To Lose Coverage In Effort To Raise Profits — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? — Health insurance giant Aetna is planning to force up to 650,000 clients to drop their coverage next year as it seeks to raise additional revenue to meet profit expectations.
Glenn Thrush / Glenn Thrush's Blog:
McCain's madder than he's ever been — Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) says he's “madder than he's ever been.” — And that's saying something. — Don Imus and the Arizona Republican were talking Friday morning about the February stimulus vote when McCain, who kept his famous temper at bay during the '08 campaign, went Howard Beale.
Discussion:
The Buzz
Christina Romer / White House.gov Blog Feed:
On the Employment Situation in November — Today's employment report was the most hopeful sign yet that the stabilization of financial markets and the recovery in economic growth may be leading to improvements in the labor market. — Payroll employment declined 11,000 in November.
Discussion:
CEPR, The New Republic, msnbc.com, The Confluence, DownWithTyranny!, MyDD, The Hill, Swampland and The Hill
RELATED:
New York Times:
Jobs Report Is Strongest Since the Start of the Recession — In the strongest jobs report since the recession began two years ago, the nation's employers all but stopped shedding jobs in November, the government reported on Friday, and they appeared to be on the verge of finally rebuilding the work force.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Big Government, The Caucus, AFL-CIO NOW BLOG, Floyd Norris, Washington Monthly, KeithHennessey.com, Calculated Risk, Raw Story, Economix, The Foundry, Streetsblog Capitol Hill, The Atlantic Business Channel, Hit & Run, The Huffington Post, ProPublica, Matthew Yglesias, Firedoglake, Gawker, Another Black Conservative, skippy the bush kangaroo, Daily Kos, Gothamist, AMERICAblog News, Weekly Standard, Climate Progress, The Washington Independent, Commentary and Truthdig
RELATED:
Laura Blumenfeld / Washington Post:
The $700 billion man — NEVADA COUNTY, CALIF. — He wears no coat though it's freezing, shines no light though it's near midnight, carries no shotgun though he's tramping on the pine-needled tracks of black bears. — He wants to be lost in these woods. — “Come on, you bums,” …
CNN:
CNN Poll: Obama approval under 50 percent — Washington (CNN) - Support for President Barack Obama's Afghanistan policy is fairly high, but that hasn't stopped his approval rating from dropping below 50 percent for the first time in a CNN poll. — According to a CNN/Opinion Research …
Discussion:
The Plum Line, Hot Air, Mudville Gazette, Weekly Standard, The Page, Afghanistan Crossroads and Conservatives4Palin.com
Ezra Klein:
Can Congress cut Medicare costs? — Jim Horney is the director of federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Before that, he worked on the Senate Budget Committee, and before that, he served as chief of the Projections Unit in the Budget Analysis Division of the Congressional Budget Office.
RELATED:
Ezra Klein:
My theory of the public option fight, and of health care — Digby has a great post on the politics of the public option: … I'm a policy guy, arguably to the point of myopia. The public option compromises that are on the table at this point aren't really compromises worth having.
RELATED:
William A. Jacobson / Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion:
Thomson Reuters Public Option Poll Details Obtained - Exclusively Here
Thomson Reuters Public Option Poll Details Obtained - Exclusively Here
Discussion:
The Sundries Shack
Paul Krugman:
Good news is bad news — Today's unemployment report was good news. But in a real sense good news is bad news, because this month's not-too-bad number deflates the sense of urgency. — The fact remains that realistic projections show unemployment staying disastrously high for many years.
Discussion:
FiveThirtyEight, Ezra Klein, Washington Monthly, Economist's View, Mother Jones and Eschaton
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
Obama's hollow speech on Afghanistan — We shall fight in the air, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills — for 18 months. Then we start packing for home. — We shall never surrender — unless the war gets too expensive …
David Brooks / New York Times:
The Analytic Mode — Many Democrats are nostalgic for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign — for the passion, the clarity, the bliss-to-be-alive fervor. They argue that these things are missing in a cautious and emotionless White House. — But, of course, the Obama campaign …
David Saltonstall / NY Daily News:
Going for gold: Rudy Giuliani takes job as security consultant for Rio 2016 Olympic Games — Further proof that Rudy Giuliani is less than focused on running for office has emerged in an unlikely spot - Rio de Janeiro. — Brazilian officials, joined by Giuliani in sunny Rio …
Jim Hoft / Gateway Pundit:
Breaking: Obama's “Safe Schools Czar” Is Promoting Child Porn in the Classroom- Kevin Jennings and the GLSEN Reading List — Scott Baker from Breitbart-TV.com and Co-Host of ‘The B-Cast’ submitted this shocking report today on Obama's deviant Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings.
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Reform or Else — Health care reform hangs in the balance. Its fate rests with a handful of “centrist” senators — senators who claim to be mainly worried about whether the proposed legislation is fiscally responsible. — But if they're really concerned with fiscal responsibility …
Washington Post:
Homeland Security panel faces ethics scrutiny after credit card hearing — At a hearing in late March, the nation's credit card companies faced the threat of expensive new rules from an unlikely regulator: the House Committee on Homeland Security, chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).
Michael King / WXIA-TV:
House Speaker Glenn Richardson Resigns — ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's powerful House speaker has resigned — after a suicide attempt and allegations by his ex-wife of an affair with a lobbyist. — Speaker Glenn Richardson says in a statement issued Thursday by the House communications office …