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.
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Washington Monthly, Hot Air, Ben Smith's Blog, The Politico, The Plum Line, Fox News, AmSpecBlog, No More Mister Nice Blog, Taylor Marsh, American Thinker, The New Republic, Daily Kos, Shakesville, The Other McCain, Left Coast Rebel, The Gateway Pundit, The Page, Wonkette, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! and Whiskey Fire
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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, AmSpecBlog, AMERICAblog News, iOwnTheWorld.com and The Agonist
Brian Beutler / TPMDC:
Obama's Federal Worker Pay Freeze Was Blasted By Democrats Months Ago
Obama's Federal Worker Pay Freeze Was Blasted By Democrats Months Ago
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online
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 …
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Raymond Bonner / The Atlantic Online:
‘By Whatever Means Necessary’: Arab Leaders Want Iran Stopped
‘By Whatever Means Necessary’: Arab Leaders Want Iran Stopped
Discussion:
The Daily Dish, Solomonia, Wonk Room, Israellycool and RubinReports
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
WIKILEAKS HAMPERS U.S. DIPLOMACY.... American officials were bracing …
WIKILEAKS HAMPERS U.S. DIPLOMACY.... American officials were bracing …
Discussion:
The Foundry, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, JustOneMinute, msnbc.com and TBogg, more at Mediagazer »
Spencer Ackerman / Danger Room:
U.S. Chases Foreign Leaders' DNA, WikiLeaks Shows
U.S. Chases Foreign Leaders' DNA, WikiLeaks Shows
Discussion:
Yglesias, The Confluence, Gizmodo, Foreign Policy, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Guardian, more at Techmeme »
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, Alastair Campbell, Informed Comment and Telegraph, more at Mediagazer »
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 Atlantic Online, NewsBusters.org blogs, ABC News, Commentary, Pajamas Media, The Daily Caller, Nice Deb, Outside the Beltway, Right Wing News, Michelle Malkin, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Patterico's Pontifications, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Bark Bark Woof Woof, Prairie Weather, Balloon Juice, The Huffington Post and Hot Air
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:
Politics Daily, Guardian, CBS News, Telegraph, Bloomberg, neo-neocon, Cubachi, The Hill, Liberty Pundits Blog, Wake up America, BBC, The Reaction, New York Times, Raw Story, LewRockwell.com Blog, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Riehl World View, Firedoglake, The Mahablog, The BRAD BLOG and The Nation
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Sarah Palin / Facebook:
Serious Questions about the Obama Administration's Incompetence in the Wikileaks Fiasco — We all applaud the successful thwarting of the Christmas-Tree Bomber and hope our government continues to do all it can to keep us safe. However, the latest round of publications …
Discussion:
Spiegel Online, Guardian, Liberty Pundits Blog and News: News blog
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:
Spiegel Online, Firedoglake, 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 …
Erik Wasson / The Hill:
Liberal groups blast Obama pay-freeze proposal, release alternative plan — Representatives of three liberal advocacy groups on Monday blasted President Obama's proposed two-year freeze on federal civilian worker pay. — John Irons of the Economic Policy Institute, Tamara Draut of Demos …
Discussion:
protein wisdom
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Myglesias / Yglesias:
The Left and the Budget
The Left and the Budget
Discussion:
Grasping Reality … and Alan Colmes' Liberaland
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
RELATED:
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, Outside the Beltway, The Daily Dish, 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
Associated Press:
APNewsBreak: NJ must pay $271M for killing tunnel — TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey owes the federal government more than $271 million after canceling a rail tunnel connecting the state with New York, according to a debt notice obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
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
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, About.com US Liberal Politics, National Review, RedState, The Hill and ABCNEWS
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:
Michelle Malkin, Weasel Zippers, iOwnTheWorld.com, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, AmSpecBlog, NewsBusters.org, EU Referendum and Guardian
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
Ross Douthat / New York Times:
The Partisan Mind — Imagine, for a moment, that George W. Bush had been president when the Transportation Security Administration decided to let Thanksgiving travelers choose between exposing their nether regions to a body scanner or enduring a private security massage.
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online, Salon, The League of Ordinary … and Brilliant at Breakfast
Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:
Palin not seen as electable — Sarah Palin might think she could get elected President in 2012, but few Americans agree. Only 28% of voters in the country think that Palin is capable of defeating Barack Obama while 60% think she is not and 12% aren't sure.
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Outside the Beltway
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
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
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:
Left Coast Rebel, Hollywood Reporter, skippy the bush kangaroo, TBogg, Scared Monkeys, Gawker, Balloon Juice and Boing Boing