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Swindle of the year — Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package.
Discussion:
Washington Wire, AmSpecBlog, theblogprof, Outside the Beltway, Clusterstock, protein wisdom, Top of the Ticket, Fausta's Blog, Commentary, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, The Politico, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Page, Liberty Pundits Blog, The Daily Caller, Althouse, Riehl World View and Wake up America
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Chuck Schumer vs. President Obama — It wasn't on the White House's official schedule, but on Nov. 22 Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) quietly slipped into the Oval Office on a self-appointed mission to steel Barack Obama for the tax cut fight. — Schumer, the newly anointed message guru …
Discussion:
Ezra Klein, Firedoglake, Los Angeles Times, Don Surber, Ben Smith's Blog, The New Republic, The Huffington Post, Taylor Marsh, RedState and The Foundry

The Tax Compromise Must Now Die — House Democrats have rejected the Senate's negotiated tax compromise. In a rowdy meeting in which one Democratic Congressman said loudly “F— the President,” the House Democrats turned Nancy Reagan and just said no. — Barney Frank still thinks it would pass, most likely with House Republicans.

Obama's Very Good Week — Over the past week we've seen …
Discussion:
Commentary, Eunomia, Pajamas Media, Open Left, Booman Tribune, Sister Toldjah and New York Times

Bill Clinton Stumps for President Obama-GOP Tax Cut Deal
Discussion:
The Politico and The Note


The dirtiest word in politics: Has Barack Obama been caught triangulating?
Discussion:
The Hill, Left Coast Rebel, Hot Air, Salon, Politics Daily and Washington Wire

Senator Jim DeMint on why he opposes the tax compromise
Discussion:
The Sundries Shack, Liberty Pundits Blog and iOwnTheWorld.com

Bill Clinton, back in the White House briefing room
Discussion:
Taylor Marsh, Outside the Beltway, BlogPost, Federal Eye, Gawker and HotAirPundit

How the White House will sell angry House Dems on tax cut deal
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Ezra Klein, TPMDC, Iowa Independent, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and The Reid Report

‘Filibernie’: Sanders blasts tax deal for five hours and counting — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is railing against President Obama's tax-cut package in a lengthy floor speech. — Sanders, one of the Senate's leading liberals, is protesting Obama's deal with Republicans …
Discussion:
The Politico, The Daily Caller, The Note, Weasel Zippers, The Confluence and Sky Dancing
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Bernie Sanders filibuster stalls Senate — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders launched a lonely but passionate seven-hour filibuster on the Senate floor Friday afternoon to protest a tax deal that liberals hate yet seems headed toward passage in the Senate. — An outspoken opponent …
Discussion:
Hot Air, The Fix, The Nation, NewsBusters.org, Newshoggers.com, The Note and National Review


Sanders' Long Senate Floor Speech Brings Attention to Details of Tax Cut Deal — Se. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (photo: origamidon) — Bernie Sanders has been speaking for almost four hours on the Senate floor, in what some are describing as a filibuster. — It's not a filibuster.
Discussion:
NPR, USA Today, Crooks and Liars, Colorlines and Sky Dancing


Sanders Launches Actual Filibuster Of Tax Cut Compromise — About three hours ago, just as he took the Senate floor, Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) staff, tweeted: “You can call what i am doing today whatever you want, you it [sic] call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech...”
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo and Harry's Place

Assange Lawyers Prepare for U.S. Spying Indictment — Attorney Says American Indictment Related to Espionage Act Imminent for Wikileaks Founder — Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, the man behind the publication of more than a 250,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Guardian, The Nation, Foreign Policy, TPM LiveWire, Clusterstock, The Enterprise Blog, Raw Story, Mediaite, TalkLeft, Boing Boing, News: News blog and The Agonist
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“A new WikiLeaks” revolts against Assange
Discussion:
The Firewall, PC Magazine, Mashable!, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Clusterstock, This Just In and Newshoggers.com, more at Techmeme »

The media's authoritarianism and WikiLeaks
Discussion:
Cato @ Liberty, Close Read, Gawker, Emptywheel, Open Left, Tablet Magazine, New York Times and South Capitol Street, more at Mediagazer »

Levi's Story — A study on “When Marriage Disappears: The Retreat from Marriage in Middle America” was published Monday by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values.
Discussion:
The Daily Dish
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Levi Johnston and the marriage decline — National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez has a long interview today on a new report headed, “The Retreat from Marriage in Middle America.” — The author, W. Bradford Wilcox, found a growing gap between the marriages of the affluent and well-educated …

BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL — Obama honors Nobel winner with statement about himself — There was an extraordinary scene at the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo Friday morning. The prize went to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was barred by the Chinese government from attending the ceremony.
Discussion:
The Note, The White House, Hot Air, The Jawa Report, South Capitol Street, Shot in the Dark, Commentary and JammieWearingFool
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SOCIAL SECURITY'S HUMBLE ORIGINS.... When President Obama was doing his best to defend his tax deal with congressional Republicans to the left the other day, he emphasized to his allies that “in order to get stuff done, we're going to compromise.” — To bolster his case, the president noted …
Discussion:
Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, Online NewsHour and Open Left
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The Strategic Mistake of a Decade. — Now that the Senate has killed DADT repeal, I wonder if anyone remembers this? … Democrats and moderate Republicans responded with a “Gang of 12” that would preserve the judicial filibuster while allowing some of Bush's nominees to go through.
Discussion:
Yglesias


Richard Wolffe mocks Palin and C.S. Lewis as just “a children's author” — I don't know if I should expect any better from ignoramuses from MSNBC, but this is supposedly a “respectable news organization” with shallow and arrogant individuals who only live to ridicule and belittle without thinking.
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, The Other McCain, Dennis the Peasant, Liberty Pundits Blog and iOwnTheWorld.com

Wow I am disgusted by Peter Orszag's move to Citigroup — This morning's New York Times includes a nice column by Peter Orszag about disability. It begins with the words “I will begin a new job for Citigroup in January, so this is my last article.” Page 6 of the business section provides …
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online, AMERICAblog News, Sunlight Foundation and DealBook
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Dismantling The safety Net, One Program At A Time
Discussion:
New York Times and Eschaton

A bill to provide for the repeal of the Department of Defense policy concerning homosexuality in... Overview … The text of this legislation is not yet available on GovTrack. It may not have been made available by the Government Printing Office yet. — Introduced — Referred to Committee
Discussion:
Wonk Room, Prop 8 Trial Tracker and Joe. My. God.
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Pelosi To Senate: Send Me A Stand-alone DADT Repeal And I'll Pass It
Discussion:
PostPartisan, The White House, Towleroad News #gay, Blog For Arizona, Mother Jones and Talking Points Memo


Introducing “The Cannabis Closet” — Longtime Dishheads will remember that rather extraordinary reader email thread that had to do with secret middle-class, mainstream marijuana use - for medical and non-medical reasons. The thread “The Cannabis Closet” began with one reader email in March 2009 …
Discussion:
Dennis the Peasant and South Capitol Street

IKE'S SPEECH — Afew months ago, Grant Moos was closing his boathouse, near Hackensack, Minnesota, as he does every summer, tying up loose ends, sweeping up debris. This year, though, his sister Kathy insisted that it was finally time to do something about six cardboard boxes that for decades …


From Audacity to Animosity — No president has alienated his base the way Obama has. — We have not in our lifetimes seen a president in this position. He spent his first year losing the center, which elected him, and his second losing his base, which is supposed to provide his troops.
Discussion:
Firedoglake
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Gov.-elect Rick Scott hints at school vouchers for all at St. Petersburg rally — ST. PETERSBURG — Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott on Thursday blew the door wide open to the idea of a voucherlike program for all students, saying he's working with lawmakers to allow state education dollars …
Discussion:
Ben Smith's Blog
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Public school advocates fear Scott's voucher-like proposal
Discussion:
Washington Monthly and Jay Bookman

House and Senate budget chiefs: Prepare for cuts — Americans should prepare themselves for spending cuts by Congress next year, the chairmen of the House and Senate's budget committees said Friday. — Both Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee …
Discussion:
The Politico

The Great College-Degree Scam — With the help of a small army of researchers and associates (most importantly, Chris Matgouranis, Jonathan Robe, and Chris Denhart) and starting with help from Douglas Himes of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Center for College Affordability and Productivity …
Discussion:
Instapundit, Maggie's Farm, EconLog and Hit & Run