Top Items:
Alex Isenstadt / The Politico:
Low favorables: Dems rip Rasmussen — Democrats are turning their fire on Scott Rasmussen, the prolific independent pollster whose surveys on elections, President Obama's popularity and a host of other issues are surfacing in the media with increasing frequency.
New York Times:
Living on Nothing but Food Stamps — CAPE CORAL, Fla. — After an improbable rise from the Bronx projects to a job selling Gulf Coast homes, Isabel Bermudez lost it all to an epic housing bust — the six-figure income, the house with the pool and the investment property.
Discussion:
Lawyers, Guns and Money
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Peter S. Goodman / New York Times:
Real Estate in Cape Coral, Fla., Is Far From a Recovery — FELLOW adventurers, refugees from winter and armchair archaeologists, we are here on this shiny green tour bus to embark on a safari of sorts. We'll be exploring the local habitat, as upended and reconfigured by an epochal real estate fiasco.
David Leppard / Times of London:
MI5 knew of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's UK extremist links — The security services knew three years ago that the Detroit bomber had “multiple communications” with Islamic extremists in Britain, it emerged this weekend. — Counterterrorism officials said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was …
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Newsweek Blogs:
White House Adviser Briefed in October on Underwear Bomb Technique — White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan was briefed in October on an assassination attempt by Al Qaeda that investigators now believe used the same underwear bombing technique as the Nigerian suspect who tried …
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times, TalkLeft, The Confluence, Gates of Vienna, Gateway Pundit, Laura Rozen's Blog, YID With LID, Donklephant, The Moderate Voice, snooperreport.com, No Sheeples Here, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, PrairiePundit, Hot Air, Scared Monkeys, The Strata-Sphere, The Hill, Another Black Conservative, The Politico and American Power
Sudarsan Raghavan / Washington Post:
Al-Qaeda benefits from a decade of missteps to become a threat in Yemen — SANAA, YEMEN — Nearly a decade after the bombing of the USS Cole, a combination of U.S. and Yemeni missteps, deep mistrust and a lack of political will have allowed al-Qaeda militants here to regroup and pose …
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Steven Erlanger / New York Times:
Yemen's Chaos Aids Evolution of Qaeda Cell
Yemen's Chaos Aids Evolution of Qaeda Cell
Discussion:
Alshahid Network, TalkLeft, Canadian Press, PrairiePundit, BBC, Associated Press and Waq al-Waq
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
OUR STUNTED DISCOURSE.... For over a week now, the right has been working aggressively to go after President Obama over national security policy. But since the failed Christmas-day plot, conservatives haven't quite come up with a coherent line of attack. Indeed, nine days later …
Robin Sidel / Yahoo! Finance:
Banks Roll Out New Check, Card Fees … The nation's banks will be bombarding customers with new fees and products in 2010 as they try to replace more than $50 billion in revenue wiped out by new rules that clamp down on certain business practices. — So far, the changes are mostly concentrated in checking accounts and credit cards.
Tyler Cowen / New York Times:
Fruitful Decade for Many in the World — IT may not feel that way right now, but the last 10 years may go down in world history as a big success. That idea may be hard to accept in the United States. After all, it was the decade of 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the financial crisis, all dramatic and painful events.
Atheist Ireland / blog.atheist.ie:
25 Blasphemous Quotations — 1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”
Bono / New York Times:
Ten for the Next Ten — IF we have overindulged in anything these past several days, it is neither holiday ham nor American football; it is Top 10 lists. We have been stuffed full of them. Even in these self-restrained pages, it has been impossible to avoid the end-of-the-decade accountings …
Nick Britten / Telegraph:
Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years, experts predict — Britain is bracing itself for one of the coldest winters for a century with temperatures hitting minus 16 degrees Celsius, forecasters have warned. — They predicted no let up in the freezing snap until at least mid-January …
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, YID With LID, Don Surber, Biased BBC, Watts Up With That? and Associated Press