memeorandum: DeMint blesses fiscal commission's tax reforms (Michael O'Brien/The Hill)

12:40 PM ET, December 2, 2010

Top Items:

David M. Herszenhorn / New York Times:

Senate Republicans Threaten Tax Dispute Blockade — WASHINGTON — Not even 24 hours after President Obama met with senior Republican Congressional leaders and expressed hopes for a “new dialogue,” renewed partisan fury engulfed the Senate on Wednesday, as Republicans threatened to block …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, TPMCafe, The Caucus, Ezra Klein, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, CNN, Booman Tribune, The Other McCain and Connecting.the.Dots

EconomistMom.com:

Can We Do the Non-Crazy Thing with the Bush Tax Cuts? — I am no longer going to “let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” I am no longer going to try to talk people into seeing that the “right” thing to do with the Bush tax cuts would be to let them all expire.

Discussion: Yglesias, The Caucus, Roll Call and Grasping Reality …

Wall Street Journal:

Tax Cuts Likely to Be Extended Temporarily — Republicans and Democrats Wednesday sat down to negotiate a compromise on extending Bush-era income tax cuts—an effort that could be the first step toward a deal this month that many strategists in both parties believe will temporarily extend current tax rates for all income levels.

Discussion: Ezra Klein, The Hill, Taylor Marsh, The Politico, ABCNEWS, Raw Story, Foreign Policy, The Huffington Post, CNN, ECHIDNE of the snakes and TPMDC

Ezra Klein:

Obama's bad poker — On page 116 of “The Promise,” Jonathan Alter describes President Obama's approach to the stimulus as “bad poker.” “Instead of holding his cards close, and then sweetening the pot for Republicans with tax cuts in the final negotiations, [Obama] offered nearly $300 billion …

Discussion: Washington Post, Washington Monthly and Balloon Juice

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Parties dare each other as tax debate heats up

Discussion: ABCNEWS, The Note, New York Times, Guardian, RedState and The Politico

Carrie Budoff Brown / The Politico:
Hopes for cooperation dashed

Discussion: FT Alphaville, PostPartisan, Taylor Marsh and ABCNEWS

Wall Street Journal:

Hedge Funds Tapped Rescue Program — Hedge funds and investors whose bearish trades on housing helped them profit amid the credit crisis were among those that benefited from a U.S. government emergency rescue program to kick-start lending, according to Federal Reserve data released Wednesday.

Discussion: Yglesias and Seeing the Forest

Tony Pugh / McClatchy Washington Bureau:

Fed wants to strip a key protection for homeowners — WASHINGTON — As Americans continue to lose their homes in record numbers, the Federal Reserve is considering making it much harder for homeowners to stop foreclosures and escape predatory home loans with onerous terms.

Discussion: Zandar Versus The Stupid

Thomas M. Hoenig / New York Times:
Too Big to Succeed — THE world has experienced a severe …

Discussion: DealBook and Prairie Weather

Washington Post:
Fed aid in financial crisis went beyond U.S. banks to industry, foreign firms

Discussion: Don Surber, Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney.com, Post Tech and Corrente

Reid Wilson / Hotline On Call:

Tea Party Caucus Takes $1 Billion In Earmarks — Members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus may tout their commitment to cutting government spending now, but they used the 111th Congress to request hundreds of earmarks that, taken cumulatively, added more than $1 billion to the federal budget.

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, ThinkProgress, Washington Monthly, TPMDC and Florida Independent

Susan Crabtree / The Hill: Watchdogs team up with Tea Party to defend ethics office from calls to close

Molly K. Hooper / The Hill:
Tea Partiers resist GOP healthcare repeal tactic

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Richard E. Cohen / The Politico:

GOP to upend spending process — House Republicans seem intent on blowing up the staid appropriations process when they take power in January — potentially upending the old bulls in both parties who have spent decades building their power over the federal budget.

Discussion: Hot Air, Sister Toldjah, Questions and Observations and Pirate's Cove

Washington Post:

The Republican case for ratifying New START — Republican presidents have long led the crucial fight to protect the United States against nuclear dangers. That is why Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush negotiated the SALT I, START I and START II agreements.

Discussion: Congress Blog, The Plum Line, RedState, New York Times, Daily Kos and Federal Eye

Lynn Zinser / New York Times:
Russia and Qatar Earn World Cup Bids

Discussion: Tablet Magazine, FrumForum, The New Republic and TBD All News

Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:

It took a guy to do this? House Speaker-elect John Boehner orders a change to benefit just 71 members — For some reason it took a male Speaker of the House to accomplish this: — The nearly six dozen female members of the incoming House of Representatives will have a new restroom …

Discussion: Reuters and Hot Air

Molly K. Hooper / The Hill:
Boehner to create women's restroom adjacent to House floor

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Reuters, CNN, American Power and The Moderate Voice

Roxana Tiron / The Hill:

McCain: Repeal of 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy ‘premature’ — Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Thursday urged Congress to take time to scrutinize a 10-month Pentagon study on the implications of repealing the “Don't ask, don't tell policy,” calling it “premature” to rush through legislation scrapping …

Discussion: The Politico

Fred Kaplan / Slate:
John McCain has run out of reasons to block the repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell.”

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Washington Monthly and Guardian

Washington Post:
'Don't ask, don't tell' repeal efforts stalled by GOP plan

Discussion: AMERICAblog Gay and The Hill

David Corn / Mother Jones:

Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe — A WikiLeaks cable shows that when Spain considered a criminal case against ex-Bush officials, the Obama White House and Republicans got really bipartisan. — Post Comment — In its first months in office …

Discussion: Firedoglake, Emptywheel, Philly.com, Corrente and Raw Story

Scott Horton / Harper's:
The Madrid Cables — In Spain, the WikiLeaks disclosures …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Daily Dish, Hullabaloo and Boing Boing

The Independent:

RTC — Receiving / paying for stolen property IS a crime. Once the official request to not release classified information was issued the release IS a crime. In the US the maximum penalty for that crime is death. — Mark Anthony — Why haven't British police arrested WikiLeaks boss …

Discussion: New York Times, Reuters, msnbc.com, Raw Story, YID With LID, The Other McCain, Barcepundit, Time, Gawker and HotAirPundit

Dana Milbank / Washington Post:

A strange way to honor the founding fathers — Republicans gained control of the House last month on a promise to “restore the Constitution.” So it is no small irony that one of their first orders of business is an attempt to rewrite the Constitution. — On Tuesday, Rep. Rob Bishop …

Discussion: Althouse, Instapundit, Wonk Room, Raw Story and Outside the Beltway

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

Fox is quickly becoming the second-chance employer for fiery figures — Don't panic. Fox is hiring. — The leading cable news network and its business news offshoot, Fox Business Network, have made a habit of signing up reporters and media personalities who've found themselves on the wrong side in employee-employer spats.

Rachel Slajda / TPMMuckraker:

How Lieberman Got Amazon To Drop Wikileaks — Early this week, after hacker attacks on its site, Wikileaks moved its operation, including all those diplomatic cables, to the greener pastures of Amazon.com's cloud servers. But today, it was down again and mid-afternoon we found out the reason …

Discussion: Salon, VentureBeat, The Moderate Voice, Guardian, Gawker and Talking Points Memo, more at Techmeme »

Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Pentagon: We could have shut down Wikileaks but chose not to

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Outside the Beltway, The Firewall, Reuters and Gothamist

Ben Geman / The Hill:

Midwestern senators counter colleagues' bid to kill expiring ethanol tax break — A bipartisan group of Corn Belt senators — led by Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Finance Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — are calling on Senate leaders …

Discussion: RedState and AmSpecBlog

Ezra Klein:

Andy Stern takes on America's second deficit — “Do we really need another deficit-reduction plan?” I ask Andy Stern. I like this stuff, but even I'm getting exhausted by the endless parade of plans, each just slightly different than the last, and none with an obviously supportive constituency in Congress.

Elisha Bala-Gbogbo / Bloomberg:

Nigeria to Charge Dick Cheney in Pipeline Bribery Case — Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) — Nigeria will file charges against former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and officials from five foreign companies including Halliburton Co. over a $180 million bribery scandal, a prosecutor at the anti-graft agency said.

Discussion: Raw Story and Emptywheel

Glen Bolger / Public Opinion Strategies:

GOP Will Retain House Control in 2012 — Guaranteed. — Control of the House of Representatives after the 2012 elections will still belong to the Republicans. IF Barack Obama stages a political comeback (which is certianly within the realm of possibility), Democrats will start the presidential coattails drumbeat.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:

DeMint blesses fiscal commission's tax reforms — Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) gave his blessing on Thursday to the series of tax reforms called for by President Obama's fiscal commission. — DeMint, an influential conservative, said he was intrigued by the tax proposals made on Wednesday by the fiscal panel …

Discussion: CBS News and AmSpecBlog

Neil King Jr / Washington Wire:

Kasich: Don't Count Obama Out in 2012 — Does last month's election suggest that President Barack Obama is toast in 2012, particularly in key states like Ohio? Many Republicans think so. But that state's next governor, Republican John Kasich, isn't among them.

Discussion: The Politico

Steve Kraske / Kansas City Star:

Republican Steelman plans to run for Senate from Missouri — Missouri Republicans may be forced to confront a contentious primary in 2012. — Sarah Steelman on Wednesday announced plans to run for the U.S. Senate. The former state treasurer and state senator — who ran unsuccessfully …

Discussion: AmSpecBlog and The Other McCain