Top Items:
New York Times:
Lieberman Gets Ex-Party to Shift on Health Plan — WASHINGTON — Just the thought of Joseph I. Lieberman makes some Democrats want to spit nails these days. But Mr. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, is not the least troubled by his status as Capitol Hill's master infuriator …
Discussion:
Firedoglake, The Caucus, Jules Crittenden, Guardian, Hot Air, The Hill, Wonkette, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Washington Post, Prairie Weather and Towleroad News #gay
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Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Why Democrats push health care, even if it kills them — To some observers, the Democrats' race to pass national health care seems irrational — even suicidal. Don't party leaders understand how much the public opposes the bills currently on the table? Don't they know that voters are likely …
Brian Beutler / TPMDC:
Rahm To Reid: Give Lieberman What He Wants — Obama administration officials were not pleased when word leaked out earlier today that the White House was leaning on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to cut a deal with Joe Lieberman on a public option alternative—and they gave their counterparts …
Discussion:
Ezra Klein, Open Left, TBogg, Sadly, No!, Brilliant at Breakfast, The Huffington Post, Campaign Diaries and MyDD
New York Times:
Senate Democrats Likely to Drop Medicare Expansion — WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders said Monday that they were prepared to drop a proposed expansion of Medicare and make other changes in sweeping health legislation as they tried to rally their caucus in hopes of passing the bill before Christmas.
Ezra Klein:
The death of the public option — The public option died tonight. So, it seems, did its eager successor, the Medicare buy-in. Harry Reid buried the ideas at a somber meeting of the Senate Democratic Caucus. “Could it have been better?” asked Sen. Jay Rockefeller. “Yeah.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Megan McArdle, The Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Strata-Sphere, The Politico and Daily Kos
The Politico:
Obama: ‘Last chance’ for health reform — In a provocative argument designed to rescue his foundering health-care plan, President Barack Obama will warn Senate Democrats in a White House meeting Tuesday that this is the “last chance” to pass comprehensive reform.
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
VIDEO: Watch Lieberman Endorse Medicare Buy-In Three Months Ago
VIDEO: Watch Lieberman Endorse Medicare Buy-In Three Months Ago
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Washington Post, The Moderate Voice, The Daily Beast, msnbc.com, Spiritual Politics, YID With LID, The Takeaway, Jack & Jill Politics, TPMDC, Politics Daily, Ezra Klein, PostPartisan, Open Left, The Hill, Crooks and Liars, The Political Carnival, Matthew Yglesias, Think Progress, Talking Points Memo, The Huffington Post, AMERICAblog News and Daily Kos
Carrie Budoff Brown / The Politico:
W.H. to Reid: Cut deal with Lieberman
W.H. to Reid: Cut deal with Lieberman
Discussion:
CNN, ABCNEWS, FiveThirtyEight, TPMDC, Washington Examiner, The Note, Wake up America, NPR Blogs, The Confluence, The Reaction, Sister Toldjah, The Lonely Conservative, The Greenroom, Cato @ Liberty, Lynn Sweet, Reclusive Leftist, Dow Jones Newswires, Hot Air, YID With LID, American Tory, The New Republic, Weekly Standard, Ben Smith's Blog, Tom Watson, The Plum Line, Moe_Lane's blog, Emptywheel and On Politics
Brian Beutler / TPMDC:
Lieberman: No Need For Medicare Buy-In Because Baucus Bill Was So Good
Lieberman: No Need For Medicare Buy-In Because Baucus Bill Was So Good
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars, Emptywheel, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, Philly.com and Talking Points Memo
Dominic Lawson / Times of London:
Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don't add up — Hannah Devlin, Ben Webster, Philippe Naughton in Copenhagen — There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday. — The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead …
Kenneth P. Vogel / The Politico:
Conservatives grab for tea party cash — “It's time for the tea party movement to start flexing its muscle in the electoral process,” Odom said in announcing the launch of Liberty First, which he said collected $11,500 in its first week of fundraising, and has accepted pledges for another $98,000.
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Andrew Ross Sorkin / New York Times:
Putting Obama on Hold, in a Hint of Who's Boss — President Obama didn't exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street's top brass on Monday.
Anthony Watts / Watts Up With That?:
DOE sends a “litigation hold notice” regarding CRU to employees - asking to “preserve documents” — It appears bigger things are brewing related to CRU's Climategate. — WUWT commenter J.C. writes in comments: — I work at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.
CNN:
Millions of White House e-mails recovered — Washington (CNN) - Computer technicians have recovered about 22 million Bush administration e-mails that the Bush White House had said were missing, two watchdog groups that sued over the documents announced Monday.
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Charlie Savage / New York Times:
U.S. Said to Pick Illinois Prison to House Detainees — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is expected to announce on Tuesday that it has selected a prison in northwestern Illinois to house terrorism suspects now being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in a major step toward shutting down that military detention facility.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Ben Smith's Blog, Washington Post, Political Punch, CNN, Lynn Sweet and ChattahBox News Blog
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Big Hollywood:
Hollywood Producer Urges Celebs to Target Joe Lieberman's Wife — What's the Difference Between the Mafia and a Hollywood Leftist? ...the Mafia doesn't go after your family. — It shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that Jane Hamsher, the founder and publisher of the website targeting Joe Lieberman's wife …
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James Taranto / Wall Street Journal:
A Courage of Failure — ObamaCare backer: Defying public, wrecking health care would be “a significant political achievement.” — Printer — Friendly — There's trouble in paradise, or rather there would be if the U.S. Senate's Democratic Caucus were paradise.
Quinnipiac University:
Paterson Approval Up, But Dems Back Cuomo Almost 3-1, Quinnipiac University New York State Poll Finds; Thompson Tops Gillibrand In Dem Senate Primary — New York Gov. David Paterson continues his climb out of the basement, as voters disapprove 49 - 40 percent of the job he is doing …
Manu Raju / The Politico:
Franken feuds with GOP's No. 4 — Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) sparred sharply on the Senate floor Monday evening, a departure from the usually dormant speeches in the august chamber. — Franken said he was struck by a speech in which he said Thune had refused …
John Tierney / New York Times:
Trusting Nature as the Climate Referee — Imagine there's no Copenhagen. — Imagine a planet in which global warming was averted without the periodic need for thousands of people to fly around the world to promise to stop burning fossil fuels. Imagine no international conferences wrangling over the details of climate policy.
Adam Liptak / New York Times:
Supreme Court Takes Texting Case — WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether a police department violated the constitutional privacy rights of an employee when it inspected personal text messages sent and received on a government pager.
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Washington Post:
House Democrats lose fourth member to retirement — Caucus privately expresses concern about implications — House Democrats got a jolt Monday when a fourth lawmaker in a matter of weeks announced his retirement, leaving party officials and strategists fearful that they represent …
Susan Stabley / bizjournals:
Report: John Edwards bought Charlotte home for former mistress Rielle Hunter — Rumors have been circulating for several days through Charlotte's Eastover neighborhood that former U.S. Sen. John Edwards bought a home here for his admitted former mistress, Rielle Hunter.
Bloomberg:
Regulators Resist Volcker Wandering Warning of Too-Big-to-Fail — Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — Paul A. Volcker visited nine cities in five countries in the past eight weeks to warn that bankers and regulators “have not come anywhere close to responding with necessary vigor” to the worst economic crisis in 70 years.