DeMint To Oppose “the Deal”  —  Senator JimDeMint just announced on my program that he will oppose the deal as well as a vote for cloture on the deal.  He is reluctant to criticize GOP Senate leadership, but believes the deal at a minimum has to be paid for, and that we need “a permanent economy” …

O'Donnell calls extending jobless benefits a ‘tragedy’  —  Christine O'Donnell on Tuesday compared the “tragedy” of extending unemployment benefits to Pearl Harbor and the death of Elizabeth Edwards.  —  “Today marks a lot of tragedy,” O'Donnell, the Tea Party-backed GOP Senate candidate from Delaware …

Obama Goes Medieval on the Left  —  Damn.  I skipped Obama's press conference today, but I guess that was a big mistake.  If my Twitter feed is anything to go by, progressive heads were exploding all over the intertubes.  Here is Philip Klein's summary:

Emmer to concede election to Dayton  —  Announcement today expected to end tight contest with Dayton  —  It's over.  —  Republican Tom Emmer will concede the 2010 Minnesota governor's race this morning to Democrat Mark Dayton, a Republican source with direct knowledge confirmed to the Pioneer Press.

Julian Assange's Great Luck  —  Why his arrest and jailing in the United Kingdom is good news for him.  —  A U.K. magistrates' court denied Julian Assange bail and jailed him this morning over charges filed in Sweden that he had violated sex laws in that country last summer.

Murmurs of Primary Challenge to Obama  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama's compromise with Republicans on extending tax cuts for the wealthy, which his self-described progressive critics see as a profound betrayal, is bound to intensify a debate that has been bubbling up on liberal blogs …

Obama's Deal to Extend High-Earner Tax Cuts Unpopular in Poll  —  Americans don't approve of keeping the breaks for upper-income taxpayers that are part of the deal President Barack Obama brokered with congressional Republicans, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.

At CNN, Talk Show Tensions  —  In one sweeping move, the 8 p.m. political talk show “Parker Spitzer” could have turned around CNN's flailing prime-time ratings, publicly rehabilitated the fallen New York governor Eliot Spitzer, and turned his co-host Kathleen Parker into a television star.

In Which Thomas Friedman Insults the Chinese By Pretending That He Can Think Like Them  —  Let's go to the tape: … Where to begin?  —  First off, fight over “how and where an airport security officer can touch” Americans is one that goes to the very core of privacy concerns that have been part …

New McCain, New DREAM.  —  John McCain has co-sponsored several previous versions of the DREAM Act, including the far more liberal 2003 version that didn't have an age cap.  The much narrower legislation under consideration this year, which would offer a path to citizenship for immigrants …

Scientists see fatal flaws in the NASA study of arsenic-based life.  —  On Thursday, Dec. 2, Rosie Redfield sat down to read a new paper called, “A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus.”  Despite its innocuous title, the paper had great ambitions.

Deserving of the DREAM  —  In the spring, when college admission letters arrive, America's local newspapers are filled with articles about students who have persevered against the odds, excelled at school and in their communities and made it into leading colleges and universities.

U.S. Drops Bid to Sway Israel on Settlements  —  WASHINGTON — After three weeks of fruitless haggling with the Israeli government, the Obama administration has given up its effort to persuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze construction of Jewish settlements for 90 days, a senior administration official said Tuesday.