Top Items:
New York Times:
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 …
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Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
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:
Balloon Juice
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
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.”
Jane Hamsher / Firedoglake:
Fiscal Commission Final Report — Get your fresh catfood! — FDL has obtained a copy of the Catfood Commission final report in advance of its official 9:30 release. — It can be downloaded here: PDF — Their reigning spirit of self-importance comes through on the very first page: “The Moment of Truth.”
Discussion:
Paul Krugman, Salon, Wake up America, Crooks and Liars and Lawyers, Guns & Money
Brian Beutler / TPMDC:
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 …
John Stanton / Roll Call:
House May Block Food Safety Bill Over Senate Error — A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate's lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.
Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
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:
ThinkProgress, TPMDC, Wonk Room, Daily Kos, FrumForum and National Review
Lori Montgomery / Washington Post:
Commission's final deficit report preserves controversial spending …
Jake Sherman / The Politico:
House Democrats set Thursday tax vote
Discussion:
CNN, The Huffington Post and Swampland
Ezra Klein:
Republicans give their definition of ‘bipartisanship’
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, Moe Lane and Facebook
David Leonhardt / New York Times:
In Tax Cuts, the Options Run Short
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Fox News, Gallup, The Politico, The Hill, Washington Post, Gawker, The Caucus, Politics Daily, Wake up America, Connecting.the.Dots, Prairie Weather, The Hill, TalkLeft and Unfogged
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
GOP readies rarely-used procedural attack on EPA aggression
Discussion:
Sister Toldjah and The Politico
Chris Good / The Atlantic Online:
All About the Tax Cuts — Nothing will happen in Congress …
Discussion:
Washington Post, Colorlines, RedState, Prairie Weather and Hotline On Call
Ross Douthat:
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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Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
The moral standards of WikiLeaks critics — (updated below - Update II) — Time's Joe Klein writes this about the WikiLeaks disclosures: … Do you have that principle down? If “a single foreign national is rounded up and put in jail” because of the WikiLeaks disclosure — even a …
Discussion:
The Daily Dish, Swampland, Guardian, Left Coast Rebel and zunguzungu
The Huffington Post:
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:
Guardian, The Plum Line, Verum Serum, Raw Story, The New Republic, ABCNEWS and CNN
Allahpundit / Hot Air:
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 and Right Wing News
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Ewen MacAskill / Guardian:
WikiLeaks website pulled by Amazon after US political pressure
Discussion:
RedState, Spiegel Online, Washington Post, The Firewall, Mediaite and Boing Boing, more at Techmeme »
Peter Svensson / Associated Press:
WikiLeaks site kicked off Amazon's servers
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Gawker, Gizmodo and Zandar Versus The Stupid, more at Techmeme »
Ed Rollins / CNN:
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:
JustOneMinute, Hot Air and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion
Tara Palmeri / New York Post:
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 …
Myglesias / Yglesias:
Bowles-Simpson vs Current Law — Surely the strangest thing about the Bowles-Simpson debt reduction plan is that, relative to current law, it . . . increases the public debt load over the next ten years: — Obviously starting around 2020 or so Bowles-Simpson starts doing better than current law …
Discussion:
FT Alphaville, Daily Kos and Grasping Reality …
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Yves Smith / naked capitalism:
Matt Stoller: End This Fed — By Matt Stoller, the former Senior Policy Advisor for Rep. Alan Grayson. His Twitter feed is @matthewstoller … Something new is happening around the contours of monetary policy. It's becoming part of our popular political landscape.
Discussion:
New Deal 2.0, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Wall Street Journal, Firedoglake and Suburban Guerrilla
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Chris Cillizza / The Fix:
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:
ThinkProgress, CNN, TPMDC, Mediaite and Gawker
RELATED:
Alexander Mooney / CNN:
Cheney to co-host fundraiser for Cino in RNC race
Discussion:
The Hill, The Daily Caller, FrumForum, The Politico, Ben Smith's Blog and TPMDC
Robin Bravender / The Politico:
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:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Washington Post, Watts Up With That?, Wonkette and Hit & Run
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
The Right Under Bush vs The Left Under Obama — Ross sharpens his point: … On the last point, I don't believe drone attacks are morally more troubling than torture (if Ross reads his catechism, he'll come to the same conclusion) - and dismayed that Ross would use the Orwellian term …
Discussion:
Ross Douthat and Comments from Left Field
David Dayen / Firedoglake:
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:
CNBC
Molly K. Hooper / The Hill:
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 Politico and CNN Political Ticker
Jon Bershad / Mediaite:
Pentagon Spokesman: We Could Have Shut Down WikiLeaks, But We Decided Not To — Throughout all the fallout of WikiLeaks' latest release, many have been asking why the government didn't stop the organization before the cables were released (For instance, Glenn Beck compared it to the ease with which they shut down other illegal sites).
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Taylor Marsh and Weasel Zippers
Radley Balko / Hit & Run:
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
Juliet Eilperin / Post Carbon:
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 Huffington Post, The Gateway Pundit, Hot Air, The Foundry, Virginia Politics Blog, Weasel Zippers, Pajamas Media and Moe Lane
Townhall.com:
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:
The Confluence and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion
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