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The Dickishness Of The GOP — What we've observed these past two years is a political party that knows nothing but scorched earth tactics, cannot begin to see any merits in the other party's arguments, refuses to compromise one inch on anything, and has sought from the very beginning to do nothing but destroy the Obama presidency.
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online, Doug Ross, Riehl World View, Connecting.the.Dots, Daily Kos, Balloon Juice and Little Green Footballs
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ALL 42 SENATE REPUBLICANS ANNOUNCE HOSTAGE PLAN.... The AP had an item late last night, noting that Senate Republicans were circulating a letter, “quietly collecting signatures” on a plan to “block action on virtually all Democratic-backed legislation unrelated to tax cuts and government spending.”


Republicans give their definition of ‘bipartisanship’ — Here's the story of bipartisanship since the election. President Obama asked the House and Senate Republican leaders, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, to the White House on Nov. 18 to talk through a compromise on the Bush tax cuts and other pressing agenda items.
Discussion:
The Caucus, Moe Lane, The Impolitic and Facebook


Delaying Vote, Debt Panel Splits on Taxes and Spending — WASHINGTON — The chairmen of President Obama's debt-reduction commission have been unable to win support from any of the panel's elected officials for their proposed spending cuts and tax increases, underscoring the reluctance …
Discussion:
The Note, CNN, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, msnbc.com, New York Times, Politics Daily, National Review, RedState, Scarecrow's myFDL diary, Indecision Forever, Washington Monthly, A plain blog about politics, Top of the Ticket, The Moderate Voice, Commentary, Daily Kos, Hot Air and Prairie Weather

Kyl: Tax deal needs to get done by Monday to pass START in lame-duck — Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said Wednesday that President Obama must reach a deal on extending the Bush tax cuts by Monday if a nuclear arms treaty has a chance of passing the Senate by the end of the year.
Discussion:
TPMDC, Wonk Room, ThinkProgress, Daily Kos and FrumForum


DADT No More? Republicans Threaten To Block All Dem Initiatives — Just hours after Democrats and Republicans agreed to bargain on tax cuts, and fewer hours still after Defense Secretary Robert Gates implored Congress to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell this year, word leaked that Republicans …

House Democrats set Thursday tax vote
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, CNN and Swampland

Rep. Pence: The Best Thing For The Unemployed Is Tax Cuts For Millionaires
Discussion:
Daily Kos, Washington Monthly and Capital Gains and Games blogs

GOP readies rarely-used procedural attack on EPA aggression
Discussion:
Sister Toldjah and The Politico

The Ambitions of Julian Assange — Will Wilkinson makes the case for Julian Assange: … If it's the best we can hope for, then we're in even more trouble than I thought. The problem of the permanent state is a real one, but occasional mass data dumps like the one WikiLeaks just provided …
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The moral standards of WikiLeaks critics
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Guardian, Agence France Presse, Swampland, TPMDC, Left Coast Rebel and zunguzungu


Wikileaks' Assange in UK, police know where: report
Discussion:
Hit & Run and The Jawa Report

Ted Strickland: Democrats Suffering From ‘Intellectual Elitism’ — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? … WASHINGTON — Fresh off a narrow loss in his gubernatorial re-election campaign, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland on Wednesday offered some somber and sober-minded criticism for his own party and president.
Discussion:
No More Mister Nice Blog, The League of Ordinary …, The New Republic, Guardian, Verum Serum, Raw Story, The Plum Line, ABCNEWS and CNN

Pentagon: We could have shut down Wikileaks but chose not to — I hope he's telling the truth. Because if our cyberwar unit is so weak that they can't hit a few servers in Sweden, then I, for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords. The key question: Was this decision driven chiefly by military or political concerns?
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, Gothamist, ABCNEWS and Right Wing News
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WikiLeaks website pulled by Amazon after US political pressure
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, Spiegel Online, RedState, Washington Post, The Firewall, Mediaite and Boing Boing, more at Techmeme »

Boehner to create women's restroom adjacent to House floor — Speaker-designate John Boehner (R-Ohio) intends to commandeer a swanky office space adjacent to the House floor and build a women's restroom for female lawmakers. — For years, men have had the luxury of using facilities located adjacent …
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, The Politico, CNN Political Ticker and American Power


Palin, I knew Reagan. You're no Reagan. — Editor's note: Ed Rollins, a senior political contributor for CNN, is senior presidential fellow at the Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency at Hofstra University. He is a principal with the Dilenschneider Group, a global public relations firm.
Discussion:
Mediaite, Hot Air, JustOneMinute and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion


County Recorder in Massachusetts Goes After MERS — This is one of those mind-blowing days, one I don't feel like I have much of a grip on. But with all the despair with the federal government, the power structure that protects the banks at all costs, etc., it's worth looking at some potential good news for a change.
Discussion:
Zandar Versus The Stupid
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For immediate release — The Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday posted detailed information on its public website about more than 21,000 individual credit and other transactions conducted to stabilize markets during the recent financial crisis, restore the flow of credit to American families and businesses …
Discussion:
Fortune, FT Alphaville, Associated Press, DealBook, Open Congress and Calculated Risk
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Matt Stoller: End This Fed
Discussion:
New Deal 2.0, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Wall Street Journal, Suburban Guerrilla and Firedoglake


In memoriam: House climate committee — The House Democrats' prized global warming committee died quietly on Wednesday. — It was four years old. — Created in 2007 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to draw attention to the causes and effects of climate change …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Hot Air, Watts Up With That?, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Wonkette and Hit & Run
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Pelosi Climate Panel Dies in Republican Sweep of House
Discussion:
Michelle Malkin and The Gateway Pundit


Obama administration reimposes offshore oil drilling ban — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Wednesday afternoon that the Obama administration will not allow offshore oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as part of the next five-year drilling plan …
Discussion:
The Gateway Pundit, Hot Air, The Huffington Post, The Foundry, Weasel Zippers, Virginia Politics Blog, Pajamas Media and Moe Lane


Co-host spittin' mad over Spitzer — Tweet — Eliot Spitzer's TV sidekick is so fed up with playing second fiddle to the hooker-loving ex-gov that she's threatening to walk, sources told The Post yesterday. — Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker actually stormed off the set of the …

Ensign says he no longer is target of Justice Department probe — Nevada's Republican Sen. John Ensign said he no longer is the target of an investigation by the Department of Justice related to an alleged coverup of an affair with the wife of a former top aide.
Discussion:
Booman Tribune, The Hill, TPMMuckraker and msnbc.com
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You Are No Longer Free To Move About the Country — Janet Napolitano said last month that we should expect to soon see tighter restrictions at bus, train, and marine transportation centers, too. Here's a report about TSA, Border Patrol, and local police setting up a checkpoint at a Greyhound station in Tampa.
Discussion:
Emptywheel


Dick Morris and Eileen McGann Hillary Is Up to Her Old Tricks — The Wikileaks documents show that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has, as Voltaire said about the Bourbon kings of France, learned nothing and forgotten nothing. — Her request that American diplomats at foreign postings …
Discussion:
Taylor Marsh, The Confluence and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

RNC official admits to a “cashflow challenge” — In a memo sent to vendors Tuesday, the Republican National Committee's chief administrative officer acknowledged that the committee is facing a “cashflow challenge” and that many of those who provided political services to it during the 2010 election …
Discussion:
CNN, ThinkProgress, TPMDC, Mediaite and Gawker

Diplomats Noted Canadian Mistrust Toward U.S. — WASHINGTON — In early 2008, American diplomats stationed in Ottawa turned on their television sets and were aghast: there was an “onslaught” of Canadian shows depicting “nefarious American officials carrying out equally nefarious deeds in Canada …
Discussion:
Balloon Juice


Google Set to Launch E-Book Venture — Google Inc. is in the final stages of launching its long-awaited e-book retailing venture, Google Editions, a move that could shake up the way digital books are sold. — The long-delayed venture—Google executives had said they hoped to launch this summer …
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars, VentureBeat, Law Blog, TechCrunch, Media Decoder and Engadget, more at Mediagazer »

The Madrid Cables — In Spain, the WikiLeaks disclosures have dominated the news for three days now. The reporting has been led by the level-headed El País, with its nationwide competitor, Público, lagging only a bit behind. Attention has focused on three separate matters …
Discussion:
The Daily Dish, Raw Story and Hullabaloo