Top Items:
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Internal Memo To Top Dem Donors Warns Mass Senate Race Is “Very Tight,” “Urgent” — In a sign of serious worry about the increasingly tense battle for Ted Kennedy's seat, the Democratic National Committee and the Martha Coakley campaign have blasted a private memo to top national Dem donors …
Discussion:
Michelle Malkin, Hotline On Call, FiveThirtyEight, Boston Globe, Democratic Strategist, Boston Herald, NO QUARTER, TPMDC, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, Ben Smith's Blog, Washington Examiner, The Corner on National …, The Fix, Scorecard's Blog, The Radio Equalizer, National Review Online and Riehl World View
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Pete Abel / The Moderate Voice:
Brown, Coakley, and a Confession — So Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Martha Coakley had their final debate last night; and by all accounts — at least all the accounts I've read — it was a feisty affair. — If you follow political matters at all …
Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:
Senate Race Tightens in Massachusetts
Senate Race Tightens in Massachusetts
Discussion:
Power Line, The Washington Independent, RedState, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Gateway Pundit, TPMDC, Hot Air and Swing State Project
Jim Hoft / Gateway Pundit:
Martha Coakley Is Not Just Wrong on Terror War - She's Dangerous (Must-See Video)
Martha Coakley Is Not Just Wrong on Terror War - She's Dangerous (Must-See Video)
Jim Hoft / Gateway Pundit:
Nice Work... New Coakley Attack Ad Misspells Massachusetts
Nice Work... New Coakley Attack Ad Misspells Massachusetts
Discussion:
Breitbart.tv, neo-neocon, Mediaite, Martha Coakley, The Greenroom, Atlas Shrugs, Moonbattery, theblogprof and The Other McCain
The Official Google Blog:
A new approach to China — Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.
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The Rothenberg / The Rothenberg Political Report:
NV Sen Moved to Lean Takeover, Dems Still have Edge in MA Sen — New polling confirms that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) is mired near 40% in general election ballot tests against all potential opponents, even those voters know nothing about. It will be extremely difficult …
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John Fund / Wall Street Journal:
Harry Reid's Swansong — Will Harry Reid retire at the end of this year? — Printer — Friendly — In the end, I don't believe Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will run for re-election. Whether or not the health care bill he muscled through the Senate becomes law, the 70-year-old will bow out of his race for a fifth term.
Bill Carter / Media Decoder:
Conan O'Brien Says He Won't Host ‘Tonight Show’ After Leno — Conan O'Brien released a statement Tuesday saying that he no longer wanted to be the host of “The Tonight Show” on NBC if it appeared at 12:05 a.m. — Mr. O'Brien's brief run as host at 11:35 p.m. is to be cut short next month …
Discussion:
Mashable!, The Huffington Post, Liberal Values, New York Times, Mediaite and Taylor Marsh
The Politico:
Obama to address House GOP — President Barack Obama will address House Republicans next week at their annual retreat in Baltimore, deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton said Tuesday afternoon. — It's a show of bi-partisanship after a year rife with tumult in the relationship between …
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Wall Street Journal:
Tax on Investment Income Is Weighed — Health-Bill Negotiators Consider Extending Medicare Levy as They Face Pressure to Ease Proposed Hit on Generous Insurance Plans — WASHINGTON — House and Senate negotiators are considering applying for the first time the Medicare payroll tax …
Kevin Diaz / Hot Dish Politics:
Palin, Bachmann Tea Party sessions closed to press — It looks like the revolution will not be televised, after all. — At least not the Tea Party's revolution. — Word from Nashville on Monday was that the First National Tea Party Convention next month will be closed to the press …
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Liz Robbins / New York Times:
Quake Rocks Haiti, Causing Widespread Damage — A powerful earthquake of 7. magnitude rocked Haiti just before 5 p.m. Eastern time, 10 miles southwest from the highly populated capital of Port-au-Prince, according to the United States Geological Survey, leveling a hospital and causing widespread damage …
Discussion:
News Hounds
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Michael Isikoff / Newsweek Blogs:
Chuck Norris Hunts for Obama's ‘Secret Vault’ as Interpol Conspiracy Theories Get Wilder — The conspiracy theories about President Obama's executive order on Interpol are getting wilder by the day. — Invoking no less an authority than Glenn Beck, movie tough guy (and political activist) …
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WorldNetDaily:
Obama's secret vault — On Glenn Beck's Jan. 7 show, Beck was rightly puzzled regarding the exact purpose of President Obama's Dec. 16 signing of an executive order “designating Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) as a public international organization entitled to enjoy certain privileges, exemptions and immunities.”
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
Divorce Rates Higher in States with Gay Marriage Bans — Over the past decade or so, divorce has gradually become more uncommon in the United States. Since 2003, however, the decline in divorce rates has been largely confined to states which have not passed a state constitutional ban on gay marriage.
Peter H. Stone / Under The Influence:
Health Insurers Funded Chamber Attack Ads — Just as dealings with the Obama administration and congressional Democrats soured last summer, six of the nation's biggest health insurers began quietly pumping big money into third-party television ads aimed at killing or significantly modifying …
Discussion:
The Atlantic Politics Channel, Think Progress, Firedoglake, The Politico and White House.gov Blog Feed
Harold Ford Jr / New York Post:
Ford: I'm gearing up for Senate race — It's true: I am strongly considering running for the United States Senate. — I do so because our best as a nation has always come when we test our ideas and ourselves, and when we trust competition to refine the steel of our convictions and the truth of our arguments.
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, The Fix, Gawker, The Greenroom, PostPartisan, Glenn Thrush's Blog, Post Politics, Open Left, New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Caucus, Politics Daily, Taylor Marsh, Ben Smith's Blog, ATTACKERMAN, The Corner on National …, The Page, The Hill, Commentary, Hotline On Call, Clusterstock and Top of the Ticket
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CNN:
CNN Poll: Americans split on success of Obama presidency — Washington (CNN) - Americans are giving Barack Obama a split decision on his first year in office, according to a new national poll. — Forty-eight percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday …
Discussion:
Top of the Ticket, Hot Air, The Swamp, The Plum Line, Moonbattery, The Page, Commentary and Washington Monthly
Ben Pershing / Washington Post:
House to vote on Obama's first veto — On Dec. 30, President Obama quietly issued his first veto. On Wednesday, the House will vote on whether to override that veto. Except Obama didn't really oppose the bill he vetoed, and the House doesn't really want to override it. — Confused?
Marc Ambinder / The Atlantic Politics Channel:
“Halperin/Heilemann Deep Background” And The Sourcing Talmud — Peeling back the curtain a bit, I've had more than a few discussions with trusted sources over the past day or so about whether certain information imparted to me is on “deep background” — meaning, to me, that it can be published …
Gavin Lee / BBC:
Strange reunion — Why would a former Guantanamo Bay prison guard track down two of his former captives - two British men - and agree to fly to London to meet them? — “You look different without a cap.” — “You look different without the jump suits.” — With those words, an extraordinary reunion gets under way.
Peter Hamby / CNN:
Palin to address alcohol industry event in Las Vegas — Washington (CNN) - Las Vegas and alcohol probably aren't the first two things that come to mind at the mention of Sarah Palin, but the former vice presidential candidate is about to change that. — At least that's according to Craig Wolf …
Discussion:
The Political Carnival
David Brooks / New York Times:
The Tel Aviv Cluster — Jews are a famously accomplished group. They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates. — Jews make up 2 percent of the U.S. population …
Denver Post:
Sources: Hickenlooper intends to enter guv's race — Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper has told top Democrats he intends to run for governor, sources tell The Denver Post. — Hickenlooper has been meeting with key advisers since Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter last week unexpectedly announced he was dropping his re-election bid.
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Poll: More Think Health Care Reform Isn't Ambitious Enough — Could Obama's dip to new lows on health care be driven partly by the fact that the reform proposal isn't ambitious enough? — The internals of the new CBS poll suggest that this could be the case: They show that more people …
Discussion:
Wonk Room, Open Left, Daily Kos, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Ezra Klein, The Page and Eschaton
Vince Lattanzio / Press Association:
Sick Passenger on “Do Not Board” List Flies Out of Philly — An investigation has been launched to find out why a man with an extremely contagious disease was allowed to fly out of Philadelphia International Airport. — The man, who's infected with Tuberculosis, boarded a US Airways bound …
Mercury News:
Tom Campbell to drop out of governor's race to run for U.S. Senate — In a move that will rock the state's political landscape, former Silicon Valley Congressman Tom Campbell will announce Thursday that he is dropping out of the California governor's race to run for the U.S. Senate seat …
Discussion:
Riehl World View