Top Items:
Susan Page / USA Today:
National security adviser: Airline bomber report to ‘shock’ — WASHINGTON — White House national security adviser James Jones says Americans will feel “a certain shock” when they read an account being released Thursday of the missed clues that could have prevented the alleged Christmas Day bomber from ever boarding the plane.
Discussion:
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James Gordon Meek / NY Daily News:
NCTC director Michael Leiter remained on ski slopes after Christmas Day airline bombing attempt — WASHINGTON - The top official in charge of analyzing terror threats did not cut short his ski vacation after the underwear bomber nearly blew up an airliner on Christmas Day, the Daily News has learned.
Sebastian Rotella / Los Angeles Times:
U.S. learned intelligence on airline attack suspect while he was en route — U.S. border enforcement officials discovered alleged extremist links in a database while the suspect was headed to Detroit on Christmas Day, new disclosures show. — Reporting from Washington …
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:The Leiter They Are, The Quicker They Fall?
Discussion:
FrumForum
Lydia Saad / Gallup:
Conservatives Finish 2009 as No. 1 Ideological Group — Uptick owing largely to more independents calling themselves conservative — PRINCETON, NJ — The increased conservatism that Gallup first identified among Americans last June persisted throughout the year, so that the final year-end …
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Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:
Lieberman tanks — Want to know how far Joe Lieberman has fallen in the wake of the health care vote last month? Barack Obama's approval rating with Connecticut Republicans is higher than Lieberman's with the state's Democrats. — 81% of Democrats now disapprove of Lieberman's job performance …
The Huffington Post:Lieberman's Approval Ratings Tank In Connecticut
Discussion:
Washington Monthly
The Note:
Steele Lashes Out: Critics Should ‘Get a Life,’ ‘Shut Up,’ ‘Fire Me ... or Get out of the Way’ — ABC News' Aaron Katersky and Rick Klein report: RNC Chairman Michael Steele is lashing out his critics, with a series of blunt messages for prominent Republicans who have blasted him over his leadership for the Republican Party.
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Ralph Z. Hallow / Washington Times:
Steele's side pursuits drive away big donors — Book tour, speeches seen as distractions — Some wealthy contributors are shunning the Republican National Committee and donating instead to the other GOP campaign committees or directly to candidates - in many cases because of discontent …
Reid Wilson / Hotline On Call:GOP Furious At Steele; RNC Admits Little Control
Discussion:
The Washington Independent
Gregg Levine / Firedoglake:
Cadillac Flip Flop: Obama Was Against Health Plan Tax Before He Was For It — In a video that rings so true it hurts, Lee Stranahan-a former Obama supporter-gives us the aspiring president's own speech. Only a month before the 2008 election, Obama makes it plain just how bad an idea the …
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Hugh Son / Bloomberg:
Geithner's New York Fed Told AIG to Limit Swaps Disclosure — Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer's payments to banks during the depths …
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David Weigel / The Washington Independent:
Carlson Launches Right's Answer to HuffPost — The offices of The Daily Caller evoke a long-ago era of journalism, circa 2005 or 2006, before the Los Angeles Times closed its big-city bureaus, The Washington Times fired 60 percent of its staff, and magazines from Gourmet to Portfolio shuttered for lack of revenue.
Michael Crowley / The New Republic:
The Butt Bomb — Al Qaeda's hidden weapon. — In the wake of the failed bombing attempt by Nigerian Al Qaeda operative Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, airport security experts are wringing their hands over how to stop the next underwear bomber. X-ray machines don't detect the type of explosive …
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Rasmussen Reports:
Election 2010: Colorado Governor — With Ritter Stepping Down, Democratic Prospects Improve in Colorado — Now that Colorado Governor Bill Ritter has said he will step down rather than run for reelection, Democrats may be more competitive in this year's gubernatorial race.
NJN:
New Jersey Senate To Vote On Gay Marriage Bill — Live Streaming at 2:00 pm — New Jersey takes center stage in the debate over same-sex marriage as the state senate prepares to vote on a bill legalizing Gay Marriage in New Jersey. — The bill, entitled “The Freedom of Religion …
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog, Blue Jersey, New York Times, LGBT POV, Pam's House Blend and Joe. My. God.
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
A defense of Obama — I get a lot of unsolicited e-mail and should probably publish more of it; this defense of Obama, sent in by someone named Ellie Light, seemed to crystallize a point his supporters have been trying to make for a while: — A year ago, if we had read in the paper …
Discussion:
The New Republic
Daniel Trotta / Reuters:
Goodbye kiss provoked Newark airport scare: report — NEW YORK (Reuters) - The security scare that shut Newark airport for hours and delayed thousands of passengers was caused by a man who slipped into a secure area to give a woman one last goodbye kiss, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
Discussion:
Althouse
Bob Barr / The Barr Code:
Critics of Obama way off base on this one — Yes — the not-so-bright, would-be terrorist from Nigeria got though international and domestic security mechanisms supposed to have stopped him long before the jerk lit his underwear afire before landing in Detroit.
Discussion:
VetVoice
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Obama Admin: All Gitmo-Terror Recidivists May Have Been Released Under Bush — One of the big stories of the morning — echoed widely by the news orgs and on the right — is that new government stats show that 20 percent of Gitmo detainees who have been released are thought to have returned to extremist activity.
Discussion:
The Daily Dish, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Monthly, Hot Air, Newsweek Blogs, democracyarsenal.org and Bloomberg
Stephen Adams / Telegraph:
Snow covers Britain from head to toe — As if dusted with icing sugar, this satellite image of Britain shows the full extent of the snow coverage affecting the country. — From head to toe there is barely a patch of land not blanketed by the heaviest snowfall in 50 years.
Discussion:
Tim Blair
Jon Walker / Firedoglake:
New Arkansas Poll Results Beg Question: Why Did Senate Democrats Make Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson Walk the Plank on Health Care? — Next time, you might be thinkin' reconciliation, arrrgh (photo: Nick Humphries) — The policy arguments aside, I have a tough time understanding politically …
Charles Lane / PostPartisan:
Dick Morris sees two parties. I see four. — I can't remember a more breathtaking 48 hours in politics since Barack Obama's election in November 2008. Byron Dorgan is out; Chris Dodd is out; Bill Ritter is out. Who would have thought that just one year into Obama's promising presidency …
Joe Klein / Swampland:
Zeitgeist Patrol — Alone in our nation's capital last night, I decided to keep in touch with the culture by going to see Avatar in 3D. I hadn't read much of the commentary about the movie, but the word of mouth was that it was visually spectacular—and yes, spectacular it was, especially in 3D …
Discussion:
NewsBusters.org
Jodi Kantor / New York Times:
Abortion Foe Defies Party on Health Care Bill — MENOMINEE, Mich. — Representative Bart Stupak often endures things others find unbearable. He crisscrosses a Congressional district so vast that some constituents live eight hours apart and so cold that the beer at his beloved football games sometimes freezes.
David Weigel / The Washington Independent:
Is Palin Getting $100,000 to Speak at the Tea Party National Convention? — This morning, I asked whether Sarah Palin's decision to speak at the Tea Party National Convention — while (so far) eschewing the much higher-profile Conservative Political Action Conference — had anything to with money.
Discussion:
TPMDC, Riehl World View, Washington Monthly, WorldNetDaily, Guardian and Democratic Strategist
Reid Wilson / Hotline On Call:
Hayworth Gearing Up For Senate Race — Ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R) is seriously exploring a bid against Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), according to sources with knowledge of his plans. — Hayworth has been in touch with consultants to gauge their interest in working for his potential candidacy …
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Scorecard's Blog, The Note, The Atlantic Politics Channel, Swing State Project, msnbc.com and The Page
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