Top Items:
Jessica Van Sack / Boston Herald:
Poll shocker: Scott Brown surges ahead in Senate race — + Recent Articles + Recent Blog Entries + Email + Bio — Riding a wave of opposition to Democratic health-care reform, GOP upstart Scott Brown is leading in the U.S. Senate race, raising the odds of a historic upset that would reverberate …
Discussion:
Pajamas Media, Commentary, The Strata-Sphere, Taylor Marsh, Outside The Beltway, Blue Mass. Group, Power Line, The Confluence, Townhall.com, RedState, Ruby Slippers, Boston Globe, Fox News, MyDD, Scared Monkeys, PoliBlog, The Lonely Conservative, Politics Daily, The Note, NO QUARTER, Washington Wire, The Daily Caller, Gateway Pundit, Ben Smith's Blog, Weasel Zippers, Sister Toldjah, The Natural Truth, The Jawa Report, Michelle Malkin, National Review Online, No Sheeples Here, Left Coast Rebel, race42008.com, Hot Air, The Corner on National …, Riehl World View and TPMDC
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Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Massachusetts: ‘Bottom has fallen out’ of Coakley's polls; Dems prepare to explain defeat, protect Obama — Here in Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, a growing sense of gloom is setting in among Democrats about the fortunes of Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley.
Mickey Kaus / Kausfiles:
How Health Care Reform Could Crash — Poll watcher Sean Trende (if that really is his name) thinks Massachusetts GOP challenger Scott Brown may have peaked too soon. Hmm. Doesn't necessarily look like it. .... Mark Blumenthal has some guidance for reading and reconciling all the Mass. polls …
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
OK, It's a Toss-Up — Earlier today I tweeted about how there wasn't enough evidence to describe the Massachusetts special election as a “toss-up”, as some other forecasters have done, based on the information available to us at that time. — Well, now there's some new evidence.
Washington Post:
White House nears deal on health care — Gripped by a building sense that its window of opportunity could be closing, the White House on Thursday broke the last major logjam blocking enactment of far-reaching health-care legislation, cutting a deal with organized labor on how to tax high-cost insurance policies.
Discussion:
Commentary, Beat the Press, Boston Globe, The Politico, Swampland, Capital Gains and Games blogs and The Page
Red Mass Group:
Coakley: “You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn't work in the emergency room” — Last evening, while on Broadside with Jim Braude, I told Jim that Scott Brown was trying to prevent Nuns like the Sisters of Charity that taught me from performing medical procedures contrary to their religious beliefs.
Glen Johnson / Associated Press:
Mass. Senate poll shows shift toward GOP candidate — BOSTON — A new poll in the Massachusetts Senate race shows a shift in favor of the Republican Party and a potential disaster for President Barack Obama and his Democratic political agenda in Tuesday's special election.
Jessica Taylor / The Politico:
Suffolk U. poll: Brown up by 4
Suffolk U. poll: Brown up by 4
Discussion:
Boston Herald, The Other McCain, AmSpecBlog, CNN, The Daily Caller, Hot Air and The Political Carnival
Michael Cooper / New York Times:
3rd-Party Candidate Named Kennedy Could Tip Senate Race in Massachusetts
3rd-Party Candidate Named Kennedy Could Tip Senate Race in Massachusetts
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, The Note, Boston Herald, Boston Globe, The Caucus, Bloomberg, The Fix and Political Punch
Jordan Fabian / The Hill:
Officials quickly stamp out talk of Boise State football team's appearance — The White House on Thursday quickly took away the possibility of Boise State University's football team joining the national champions Alabama at an honorary Rose Garden ceremony.
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Amanda Terkel / Think Progress:
Limbaugh stands by his Haiti remarks, tells critical caller she's a ‘bigot’ with ‘tampons in her ears.’ — Yesterday, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh controversially said that President Obama was going to try to use the devastating Haitian earthquake to boost his credibility with the …
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David Axelrod / Washington Post:
What Karl Rove got wrong on the U.S. deficit — For its Topic A feature last Sunday, The Post invited a panel of political operatives to offer their advice to the Democratic Party on strategy for 2010 [Sunday Opinion, Jan. 10]. Improbably, one of the operatives asked was Karl Rove …
Discussion:
The Hill, Think Progress, Politics Daily, Raw Story, The Politico, The Swamp, The Page, Ezra Klein, Washington Times and The Political Carnival
The Politico:
‘Very angry’ Dem sounds alarm — Democrats moved closer to a final deal on health care reform Thursday — and for some vulnerable members, the end can't come soon enough. — In an emotional talk with other Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee this week, North Dakota Rep. Earl Pomeroy …
Jason Horowitz / Washington Post:
Former Tennessee congressman Harold Ford Jr. — Harold Ford Jr. has gone viral. — “You can judge from the editorials in the city, and just the response in the city and in the state that people don't want party bosses telling anyone that you can't run,” Ford said in a phone interview between meetings …
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog
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Dorothy Rabinowitz / Wall Street Journal:
Martha Coakley's Convictions — The role played by the U.S. Senate candidate in a notorious sex case raises questions about her judgment. — The story of the Amiraults of Massachusetts, and of the prosecution that had turned the lives of this thriving American family to dust, was well known to the world by the year 2001.
Discussion:
The Natural Truth, Michelle Malkin, Riehl World View, NO QUARTER, The Lonely Conservative, Betsy's Page and RedState
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
One year out: President Obama's fall — What went wrong? A year ago, he was king of the world. Now President Obama's approval rating, according to CBS, has dropped to 46 percent — and his disapproval rating is the highest ever recorded by Gallup at the beginning of an (elected) president's second year.
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Bankers Without a Clue — The official Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission — the group that aims to hold a modern version of the Pecora hearings of the 1930s, whose investigations set the stage for New Deal bank regulation — began taking testimony on Wednesday.
Damian Paletta / Wall Street Journal:
Consumer Protection Agency in Doubt — Dodd Weighs Dropping Idea of Creating Independent Body in Bid to Get Financial Regulatory Revamp Passed This Year — Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd is considering scrapping the idea of creating a Consumer Financial Protection Agency …
Jon Walker / Firedoglake:
Exclusive: Arkansas Democrat Vic Snyder Trailing Tim Griffin 39% to 56%; Individual Mandate Penalty Unpopular with 3 of 4 Voters — FDL/SurveyUSA poll, 1/11-1/13, likely voters, Margin of Sampling Error: ± 3.9% … In a new SurveryUSA poll sponsored by Firedoglake …
Ian Swanson / The Hill:
White House budget director blames old computers for ineffective government — A big reason why the government is inefficient and ineffective is because Washington has outdated technology, with federal workers having better computers at home than in the office.