Top Items:
Peter Baker / New York Times:
Obama Freezes Pay for Federal Workers for Two Years — WASHINGTON — President Obama announced a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers on Monday as he sought to address concerns over sky-high deficit spending and appeal to Republican leaders to find a common approach to restoring the nation's economic and fiscal health.
RELATED:
The White House:
Fact Sheet: Cutting the Deficit by Freezing Federal Employee Pay — Because of the irresponsibility of the past decade, the President inherited a $1.3 trillion projected deficit upon taking office and an economic crisis that threatened to put the nation into a second Great Depression.
Charles Riley / CNNMoney.com:
Obama to freeze federal wages for 2 years — NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — President Obama will announce a two-year freeze in the wages of federal employees Monday, with the intention of saving $60 billion over the next 10 years. — Obama was scheduled to announce the proposal later Monday.
Discussion:
Wake up America, Outside the Beltway, AMERICAblog News, AmSpecBlog, iOwnTheWorld.com and The Agonist
Brian Beutler / TPMDC:
Obama's Federal Worker Pay Freeze Was Blasted By Democrats Months Ago — President Obama proposed a two year freeze on federal employee compensation today, just ahead of a Tuesday post-election meeting with the GOP leaders. The proposal was originally put forward by Republicans in recent months — and slammed by Democrats.
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online
New York Times:
Answers to Readers' Questions About State's Secrets — The New York Times is publishing State's Secrets, a series of articles about a trove of more than 250,000 American diplomatic cables that were originally obtained by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to exposing official secrets.
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Megan Carpentier / TPMMuckraker:
Bomb, Bomb Iran: The Top 5 Most Shocking Things About The Wikileaks — Yesterday, Wikileaks released a selection of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables dating from the mid-sixties to the present day — widely presumed to have been provided to them by the currently-incarcerated Private Bradley Manning …
Scott / Power Line:
The Times then and now — The New York Times is participating …
The Times then and now — The New York Times is participating …
Discussion:
The Politico, NewsBusters.org, ABC News, Pajamas Media, Nice Deb, The Daily Caller, Outside the Beltway, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Right Wing News, Michelle Malkin, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Patterico's Pontifications, Bark Bark Woof Woof, Prairie Weather, Hot Air, Balloon Juice, Runnin' Scared and The Gateway Pundit
Guardian:
US embassy cables: Verdict on the leaks about the Middle East
US embassy cables: Verdict on the leaks about the Middle East
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Informed Comment, Alastair Campbell and Telegraph, more at Mediagazer »
Michael Calderone / Yahoo! News:
Guardian editor says they gave cables to the NY Times
Guardian editor says they gave cables to the NY Times
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online, Wall Street Journal, Politics Daily, Watts Up With That?, Guardian, Stephen M. Walt, MiamiHerald.com, McClatchy Washington Bureau, News: News blog, democracyarsenal.org, Commentary, Newshoggers.com, National Review, CNET News, Outside the Beltway, Balloon Juice, The Nation and msnbc.com, more at Mediagazer »
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
WIKILEAKS HAMPERS U.S. DIPLOMACY.... American officials were bracing …
WIKILEAKS HAMPERS U.S. DIPLOMACY.... American officials were bracing …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, The Foundry, JustOneMinute, msnbc.com and TBogg
David Leigh / Guardian:
How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked
How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked
Discussion:
The Daily Beast, Telegraph, Runnin' Scared, Hot Air, PERRspectives, The Confluence, CANNONFIRE, Big Government, Questions and Observations, Commentary, Politics Daily, Gizmodo, The Staggers, Washington Post, Swampland, Power Line, Boing Boing, Weasel Zippers, The Huffington Post, The Reaction, News: News blog, The Agonist, Wake up America, Crooks and Liars, Pajamas Media, Associated Press, Gawker and The Lede, more at Mediagazer »
Pvictorwins / CBS New York:
King: WikiLeaks Release ‘Worse Than Military Attack’ — WASHINGTON (AP/1010 WINS/WCBS 880) — Hundreds of thousands of State Department documents leaked Sunday revealed a hidden world of backstage international diplomacy, divulging candid comments from world leaders and detailing occasional …
Discussion:
The Hill, CBS News, neo-neocon, Cubachi, Bloomberg, BBC, Liberty Pundits Blog, Wake up America, The Reaction, The Confluence, New York Times, Raw Story, LewRockwell.com Blog, Politics Daily, Guardian, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Riehl World View, Firedoglake, The Mahablog, Balloon Juice and The BRAD BLOG
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The Independent:
John Kampfner: Wikileaks shows up our media for their docility at the feet of authority — Mr Assange is an unconventional figure, a man who lives in the shadows and enjoys doing so — You should never shout “fire” in a crowded theatre. Once you have accepted this old adage, you accept that there are limits to free expression.
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Spiegel Online, Guardian and EU Referendum
Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Republican wants WikiLeaks labeled as terrorist group — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should review whether WikiLeaks can be declared a terrorist organization, according to a senior Republican. — Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), the incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee …
Jackie Calmes / New York Times:
Liberal Groups to Propose Routes to Smaller Deficit — WASHINGTON — As President Obama's fiscal commission faces a deadline this week for agreement on a plan to shrink the mounting national debt, liberal organizations will unveil debt-reduction proposals of their own in the next two days …
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Erik Wasson / The Hill:
Liberal groups blast Obama pay-freeze proposal, release alternative plan
Liberal groups blast Obama pay-freeze proposal, release alternative plan
Discussion:
protein wisdom
Myglesias / Yglesias:
The Left and the Budget
The Left and the Budget
Discussion:
Grasping Reality … and Alan Colmes' Liberaland
Mark Kirk / Chicago Tribune:
First priority? Control federal spending — Today is my first day in the U.S. Senate. With this honor comes a tremendous responsibility to accomplish much for our nation. — My top priority is turning our economy around. In Congress, we had a vigorous debate about the trillion-dollar stimulus.
Discussion:
Washington Wire and CNN
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Pat Garofalo / ThinkProgress:
Mark Kirk: Extending Jobless Benefits Is ‘Misguided,’ …
Mark Kirk: Extending Jobless Benefits Is ‘Misguided,’ …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, New York Times and Prairie Weather
Borzou Daragahi / Los Angeles Times:
Blasts target Iranian nuclear scientists — One professor dies, another is injured on their morning commutes. The attacks prompt a stern warning by the head of IranÂ's atomic energy agency. — Reporting from Beirut — Two separate explosions killed a nuclear scientist and injured another …
Discussion:
JustOneMinute, The Daily Dish, Outside the Beltway, iOwnTheWorld.com and Sister Toldjah
RELATED:
Jim Hoft / The Gateway Pundit:
EXPLOSIONS IN TEHRAN - Nuclear Scientists Targeted, One Dead
EXPLOSIONS IN TEHRAN - Nuclear Scientists Targeted, One Dead
Discussion:
presstv.ir, Moe Lane and Daily Pundit
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
The Spanish Prisoner — The best thing about the Irish right now is that there are so few of them. By itself, Ireland can't do all that much damage to Europe's prospects. The same can be said of Greece and of Portugal, which is widely regarded as the next potential domino. — But then there's Spain.
Discussion:
A Fistful Of Euros, TalkLeft, Yglesias, Daily Kos, Zandar Versus The Stupid and Prairie Weather
Jeffrey Toobin / New Yorker:
PRECEDENT AND PROLOGUE — Momentous Supreme Court cases tend to move quickly into the slipstream of the Court's history. In the first ten years after Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 decision that ended the doctrine of separate but equal in public education, the Justices cited the case more than twenty-five times.
Discussion:
Lawyers, Guns & Money and Prairie Weather
Associated Press:
Oregon Muslim leaders fear retribution after plot — CORVALLIS, Ore. - Patrols around mosques and other Islamic sites in Portland have been stepped up as Muslim leaders expressed fears of retribution, days after a Somali-American man was accused of trying to blow up a van full of explosives during …
Discussion:
Moonbattery
RELATED:
Stuart Tomlinson / Oregonian:
Portland bomb plot suspect felt betrayed by family, thought living in U.S. was sin
Portland bomb plot suspect felt betrayed by family, thought living in U.S. was sin
Discussion:
Shakesville, ABCNEWS and TalkLeft
BBC:
Picasso's electrician reveals artist's ‘treasure trove’ — The works include a portrait of the late artist's first wife, Olga — A retired electrician in southern France who worked for Pablo Picasso says he has hundreds of previously unknown works by the artist.
Discussion:
Top World Stories, Runnin' Scared, This Just In, Marginal Revolution and Gawker
Anita Gates / New York Times:
Leslie Nielsen, Actor, Dies at 84 — Leslie Nielsen, the Canadian-born actor who in middle age tossed aside three decades of credibility in dramatic and romantic roles to make a new, far more successful career as a comic actor in films like “Airplane!” and the “Naked Gun” series, died on Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 84.
Discussion:
Hollywood Reporter, Left Coast Rebel, Associated Press, skippy the bush kangaroo, TBogg, Scared Monkeys, Gawker, Balloon Juice and Boing Boing
Ezra Klein:
What happens when Medicare controls costs too well — There's one school of thought that says Congress is incapable of controlling costs in Medicare, and then there's, well, this: … One of the dirty little secrets of the health-care system is that Medicare has done a much better job controlling costs …
Discussion:
Yglesias, Grasping Reality … and Overcoming Bias
Lori Montgomery / Washington Post:
Democrats warm to tax-cut compromise — A faction of congressional Democrats is making a push to persuade President Obama to consider a compromise on tax policy that would leave only the nation's 315,000 richest households facing higher taxes in January. — Over the past few days …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, National Review, RedState and The Hill
Karen Tumulty / Washington Post:
American exceptionalism: an old idea and a new political battle — Is this a great country or what? — “American exceptionalism” is a phrase that, until recently, was rarely heard outside the confines of think tanks, opinion journals and university history departments.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, The Plum Line, Achenblog, Pirate's Cove and The New Republic
Louise Gray / Telegraph:
Cancun climate change summit: scientists call for rationing in developed world — Global warming is now such a serious threat to mankind that climate change experts are calling for Second World War-style rationing in rich countries to bring down carbon emissions.
Discussion:
iOwnTheWorld.com, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Weasel Zippers, NewsBusters.org, EU Referendum and Guardian
Washington Post:
‘The criminalization of politics’ — THERE IS LITTLE DOUBT that former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) schemed to get around a Texas law prohibiting corporate contributions to political campaigns. Mr. DeLay's state political action committee accepted $190,000 in (legal) corporate contributions.
Discussion:
National Review
Susan Crabtree / The Hill:
Rep. Waters wants ethics trial now — Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is calling on the ethics committee to hold her public ethics trial before the end of the year. — “I am here because I am disappointed that the committee has chosen not to hold my hearing,” she said.
Discussion:
CNN, The Politico, The Page and Sunlight Foundation
Peg Tyre / New York Times:
A's for Good Behavior — A few years ago, teachers at Ellis Middle School in Austin, Minn., might have said that their top students were easy to identify: they completed their homework and handed it in on time; were rarely tardy; sat in the front of the class; wrote legibly; and jumped at the chance to do extra-credit assignments.
Discussion:
PoliPundit.com, Joanne Jacobs and Althouse