memeorandum: BREAKING: House Democratic leaders pull the tax bill from the House floor (Fhardingj/CNN)

4:20 PM ET, December 16, 2010

Top Items:

Big Boost for Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal: Brown Backs Senate Bill — ABC News' Matthew Jaffe reports: — Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown today voiced his support for a stand-alone repeal of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, bringing the bill one vote over the 60-vote threshold …

Discussion: The Politico, The Hill, Balloon Juice, No More Mister Nice Blog, USA Today, TPMDC, Daily Kos, Little Green Footballs, Wonk Room, Weasel Zippers, Hot Air, Advocate, iOwnTheWorld.com, AMERICAblog Gay, Outside the Beltway and FrumForum

Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:

How Harry Reid can make time for DADT repeal — Now that Scott Brown and Olympia Snowe have come out for the stand-alone bill in the Senate to repeal don't ask don't tell, there's no longer any doubt as to whether there are the necessary 60 votes in the Senate to get this done.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Wonk Room, The Hill, Daily Kos and AMERICAblog Gay

David Kurtz / Talking Points Memo:
Do The Math — In a minor miracle considering last week's defeat …

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money

Evan McMorris-Santoro / TPMDC:
Scott Brown And Lisa Murkowski Back Standalone DADT Repeal Bill

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Salon, Gawker, The Note, Booman Tribune and The Hill

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
Battle of the Acronyms — The key background issue …

Discussion: Washington Monthly and TPMDC

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
COUNTING VOTES (AND IGNORING GOHMERT).... [Update: Revised head count here.]

Discussion: Political Correction RSS, Washington Post and AMERICAblog Gay

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:
BROWN BACKS DADT REPEAL.... There's no longer any question …

Discussion: TPMDC and Indecision Forever

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

GOP will paralyze Senate floor with reading of 1,924-page spending bill — Republicans will paralyze the Senate floor for 50 hours by forcing clerks to read every single paragraph of the 1,924-page, $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill. — Senate clerks are expected to read the massive bill …

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, Cubachi, Pundit & Pundette, The Powers That Be, Stop The ACLU, Weasel Zippers, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Outside the Beltway, Don Surber and Washington Monthly

Steve Benen / Washington Monthly:

OBNOXIOUS DELAYS FOR THE SAKE OF OBNOXIOUS DELAYS.... The irony is, those who've been whining the loudest about the poor politicians who have to work in mid-December are the same ones dragging out the process, preventing members from going home. — Yesterday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) …

Discussion: Pat Dollard, Balloon Juice and The Caucus

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
GOP looks to box in Obama on $1.1 trillion government spending bill

Discussion: The Powers That Be, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog and Washington Monthly

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Reid wages vigorous defense of earmarks in $1.1 trillion omnibus

Discussion: CNN

Wall Street Journal:
The 111th Congress's Final Insult

Discussion: The Hill, Betsy's Page, Right Turn and Hot Air

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
Sen. DeMint: 'We're trying to run out the clock' on omnibus

Discussion: The Reaction, Foreign Policy, FrumForum and The Politico

Russell Berman / The Hill:

House tax vote could be delayed — A final House vote on President Obama's tax proposal could be delayed after Democratic leaders were forced to pull a procedural measure off the House floor Thursday. — The House was set to vote on the rule governing debate on the broad tax bill …

Discussion: The Politico, Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Swampland, The Other McCain, Weasel Zippers, The Page, Shopfloor and Daily Kos

Fhardingj / CNN:

BREAKING: House Democratic leaders pull the tax bill from the House floor — Washington (CNN) - As the debate over how the tax cut bill will be brought to the floor and voted on was wrapping up, House Democratic leaders abruptly PULLED the “rule” from the floor because they don't know if …

Discussion: Firedoglake, msnbc.com, USA Today, Nice Deb and Sky Dancing

Patrick O'Connor / Washington Wire:
House Democrats Must Delay Tax Bill

Discussion: Say Anything and Pajamas Media

Jake Sherman / The Politico:
Tax deal hits speed bump in House

Discussion: RedState

George F. Will / Washington Post:

Could there be a Tet Offensive in Afghanistan? — Once when the French statesman Duc de Richelieu (1766-1822) was planning a military campaign, an officer placed a finger on a map, saying: “We shall cross the river at this point.” Richelieu replied: “Excellent, sir, but your finger is not a bridge.”

Discussion: Guardian, The Nation and Vox Popoli

Los Angeles Times:
Winning in Afghanistan — The buildup of U.S. forces …

Discussion: New York Times, Registan.net and Commentary

Karen DeYoung / Washington Post:
Obama says U.S. is ‘on track’ to achieve goals in Afghanistan

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Firedoglake, ThinkProgress, Online NewsHour, Taylor Marsh, Connecting.the.Dots, FrumForum, AMERICAblog News and Los Angeles Times

Helene Cooper / New York Times:
Obama Cites Afghan Gains as Report Says Exit Is on Track

Discussion: Politics Daily, FP Passport, Wonk Room and Wonkette

ABCNEWS:
Poll: Assessment of Afghanistan War Sours

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Hot Air, AOL News and Outside the Beltway

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

U.S. Tries to Build Case for Conspiracy by WikiLeaks — WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors, seeking to build a case against the WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for his role in a huge dissemination of classified government documents, are looking for evidence of any collusion in his early contacts …

Blue Texan / Firedoglake:
Clueless Time Editor: Julian Assange Will Be a “Footnote” in Five Years

Discussion: Geekosystem and Eschaton, more at Mediagazer »

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
Getting to Assange through Manning

Discussion: Confederate Yankee, Outside the Beltway, news.firedoglake.com and The Other McCain

New York Times:
WikiLeaks Founder Is Released on Bail

Discussion: AOL News, Gawker, ACS Blog, Wonkette, BBC, Bloomberg, The Lede, Politics Daily, Gothamist, Boing Boing, Foreign Policy, The Awl and Telegraph

Frank Dikötter / New York Times:

Mao's Great Leap to Famine — HONG KONG — The worst catastrophe in China's history, and one of the worst anywhere, was the Great Famine of 1958 to 1962, and to this day the ruling Communist Party has not fully acknowledged the degree to which it was a direct result of the forcible herding …

Discussion: Questions and Observations, The Peking Duck, Fausta's Blog and Althouse

Glenn Reynolds / Instapundit:

AND YET APOLOGISTS IN AMERICA WERE COMPARING HIM TO THE EARLY CHRISTIANS: Mao's Great Leap To Famine: “The worst catastrophe in China's history, and one of the worst anywhere, was the Great Famine of 1958 to 1962, and to this day the ruling Communist Party has not fully acknowledged the degree …

Discussion: Moe Lane and Cold Fury

Matt Lewis / Politics Daily:

John Boehner's Crying: Is He Drinking Too Much? … Incoming House Speaker John Boehner's recent interview on “60 Minutes” with Lesley Stahl, where he once again cried publicly, has created a minor controversy among pundits, with observers trying to figure out the cause of his unusual behavior.

Discussion: Taylor Marsh

Gail Collins / New York Times:

The Crying Game — We've had to adjust to so many strange developments lately. I'm sure we'll get used to having a speaker of the House who weeps a lot. — That would be John Boehner, the new guy. — “He is known to cry,” the outgoing speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told Deborah Solomon in The Times Magazine.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, The Business Insider, Opinionator, Brilliant at Breakfast, Daily Kos, The Atlantic Wire and Shakesville

John Cook / Gawker:

The Daily Beast Has Stopped Editing Meghan McCain — Meghan McCain is the illiterate daughter of a ruined man, which makes her “column” for the Daily Beast something of a challenge for her editors. But by the looks of today's offering, they've given up. — Were you wondering what McCain thinks …

Discussion: The Daily Beast and Mock, Paper, Scissors

Ezra Klein:

Orszag and Citigroup — James Fallows gently chides me and my paper for not writing more on Peter Orszag's decision to take an executive position with Citigroup. He's probably right to do so, though my silence was in part motivated by terror at having to try and add anything to this brilliant post …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Ben Smith's Blog, Yglesias, Grasping Reality … and Clusterstock

Ezra Klein:
What should public servants do after government?

Discussion: Yglesias

First Read / msnbc.com:

First Thoughts: As bad as it gets? — New NBC/WSJ poll: If this is as bad as it gets for Obama, he's in good shape for 2012... If not, watch out... What's benefiting the president right now: a strong base and the fact the public finds him likeable... Palin's poor poll position …

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Outside the Beltway, The New Republic and The Daily Dish

Michael Graham / Boston Herald:

Liberals cut down to size — Enough! — You can have your own politics, my liberal friends, you aren't entitled to your own facts. And your claims about the Obama/GOP tax deal are pure, fact-free fantasy. — Yesterday morning I endured watching a fertilizer-filled conversation on Fox 25 …

Discussion: Sense of Events, Cold Fury and Cafe Hayek

Ross Douthat:

The Strange Case for Mitt Romney — David Frum, puzzling over the inconsistencies in Mitt Romney's recent op-ed attacking the tax deal: … I hear similar things from Romney supporters (or people trying to convince themselves to be Romney supporters) with remarkable frequency.

Discussion: Eunomia, The Daily Dish, The New Republic and Commentary

Fox News:

Fox News Poll: Just 29 Percent of Voters Think Obama Will Win Re-Election — Barack Obama's second year as president is ending on a low note in the eyes of American voters, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. — The president continues to suffer from upside-down job ratings …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and The Gateway Pundit