Top Items:
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
The new comeback kid — If Barack Obama wins reelection in 2012, as is now more likely than not, historians will mark his comeback as beginning on Dec. 6, the day of the Great Tax Cut Deal of 2010. — Obama had a bad November. Self-confessedly shellacked in the midterm election …
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David M. Herszenhorn / New York Times:
Congress Sends $801 Billion Tax Cut Bill to Obama — WASHINGTON — Congress at midnight Thursday approved an $801 billion package of tax cuts and $57 billion for extended unemployment insurance. The vote sealed the first major deal between President Obama and Congressional Republicans …
David Rogers / The Politico:
Democrats concede budget fight to Republicans — Senate Democrats abruptly abandoned an omnibus budget bill for the coming year, pushing major spending decisions into the next Congress and giving Republicans immense new leverage to confront President Barack Obama priorities.
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, AMERICAblog Gay, New York Times, Cato @ Liberty, Questions and Observations, Liberty Pundits Blog, Fox News, Wonk Room, Right Turn, The Nation, Poliglot, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, TPMDC, Washington Post, Taylor Marsh, Gawker, National Review, ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*, Scared Monkeys, The Reaction, The Hill, JustOneMinute, Box Turtle Bulletin, Transterrestrial Musings, The Hill, Left Coast Rebel, The Gateway Pundit, The Page, Riehl World View, FrumForum, Good As You, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Nice Deb, Pam's House Blend, Doug Ross, CNN and Pat Dollard
PolitiFact:
PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: ‘A government takeover of health care’ — In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health insurance system.
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Kevin Sack / New York Times:
Judge Hints He May Rule Against Health Law — PENSACOLA, Fla. — A federal judge asserted on Thursday that it would be “a giant leap” for the Supreme Court to accept the Obama administration's defense of a central provision of the new health care law, suggesting he may become the second judge to strike it down as unconstitutional.
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, JustOneMinute, ACS Blog and Wonk Room
Linda Greenhouse / Opinionator:
The Revolution Next Time? — It has been 15 years since …
The Revolution Next Time? — It has been 15 years since …
Discussion:
Hit & Run and The American Scene
Megan McArdle / The Atlantic Online:
Government Arguing That Health Insurance Premiums Are Really Taxes?
Government Arguing That Health Insurance Premiums Are Really Taxes?
Discussion:
protein wisdom, theblogprof, Hit & Run, Bloomberg and Online NewsHour
Janet Adamy / Wall Street Journal:
Judge Leery of Health Mandate
Judge Leery of Health Mandate
Discussion:
New York Times, Right Turn, AmSpecBlog, Hit & Run and Law Blog
Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
$1.1 trillion spending bill collapses as GOP senators yank support — Senate Democrats have given up on their plan to pass a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill in the face of unified Republican opposition. — The bill's collapse will take with it more than 6,000 earmarks …
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Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Dems are earmark junkies but GOP goes straight — Press coverage of the budget frenzy on Capitol Hill has suggested that pork-barrel earmark spending is still a bipartisan problem, that after months of self-righteous rhetoric about fiscal discipline, Republicans and Democrats remain equal-opportunity earmarkers.
Discussion:
Hot Air and The Gateway Pundit
David Dayen / Firedoglake:
GOP Gets Chance to Cut Spending in February After Omnibus Collapses
GOP Gets Chance to Cut Spending in February After Omnibus Collapses
Discussion:
Weigel, TPMDC, The Caucus and TalkLeft
Jonathan Chait / The New Republic:
The GOP's Secret Senate Plan
The GOP's Secret Senate Plan
Discussion:
Balkinization and The Hill
Huma Khan / ABCNEWS:
Exclusive: Sarah Palin on 2012 Plans, Double Standards for Women — Palin Says Thinking About Presidential Run Is a ‘Prayerful Consideration’ — Sarah Palin is surveying the lay of the land to consider whether to make a presidential run in 2012, she told “Good Morning America” …
Discussion:
CNN, Wonkette, The Daily Dish, National Review, Politics Daily, Weigel and Daily Kos
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Huma Khan / ABCNEWS:
Sarah Palin: Tax Cut Deal is ‘Lousy,’ New Congress Should Take up Issue
Sarah Palin: Tax Cut Deal is ‘Lousy,’ New Congress Should Take up Issue
Discussion:
CNN, Online NewsHour and The Page
Fay Schlesinger / Daily Mail:
Snub for Obamas as Royal sources reveal they will not be invited to Prince William's wedding — President Obama and his wife Michelle will not be invited to Prince William's wedding next year. — Because Prince William is not yet heir to the throne, his wedding to Kate Middleton is not classed …
Discussion:
Fox Nation, Gothamist and Gawker
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Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:
Royal snub for the Obamas: No wedding invite from Prince William and Kate Middleton — Oh, the humiliation. Once not so long ago one of the world's top celebrities in his own right, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle did not make the cut for invitations to the royal wedding in London next spring.
Discussion:
BLACKFIVE and Sky Dancing
Peggy O'Hare / Houston Chronicle:
HPD knows names of 2 slain robbers — In the back room of a humble jewelry store and pawn shop in Houston's East End Thursday afternoon, a gunman tied Eva Castillo's wrists tightly — too tightly. She complained of the pain, so he loosened the bindings. Then Castillo's husband was ordered …
Discussion:
The Jawa Report, msnbc.com and JammieWearingFool
David Frum / FrumForum:
How Would President Romney Govern? — “Sincerity is everything - once you can fake that, you've got it made.” — There's Mitt Romney's problem in 1 sentence. He cannot fake sincerity. His insincerity is blatant, inescapable, clumsy and off-putting. Ross Douthat phrased the indictment …
Discussion:
Yglesias, The Daily Dish, Right Turn, Eunomia, The New Republic, Ben Smith's Blog and Commentary
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Jillian Rayfield / TPM LiveWire:
Breaking? Study Finds Fox News Viewers Are The Most Misinformed — To perhaps nobody's surprise, a study released this week finds that Fox News viewers are the most misinformed of any news consumers. — The University of Maryland study, called “Misinformation and the 2010 Election,” …
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice and TPMDC
KOCO Oklahoma City's Channel 5:
Feds Force Okla. Bank To Remove Crosses, Bible Verse — Federal Examiners Say Religious Decoration Inappropriate — PERKINS, Okla. — A small-town bank in Oklahoma said the Federal Reserve won't let it keep religious signs and symbols on display. — Federal Reserve examiners come every four years …
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers and The Gateway Pundit
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Wall Street Whitewash — When the financial crisis struck, many people — myself included — considered it a teachable moment. Above all, we expected the crisis to remind everyone why banks need to be effectively regulated. — How naïve we were. We should have realized …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, AMERICAblog News and Paul Krugman
Megan McArdle / The Atlantic Online:
The Limits of the Taxing Power — An interesting question emerges from one of my comment threads on whether or not congress should be able to use the taxing power to get over limits on its enumerated powers. — 1) Can Congress enact a $50,000 tax on second term abortions?
Discussion:
Lawyers, Guns & Money and Outside the Beltway
Glenn Harlan Reynolds / New York Post:
Columbia U. vs. the little guy — Tweet — We often hear politicians and pundits denounce property rights. Property rights, we're told, protect the fat cats against the needs of the public. They're a tool for keeping the little guy down. — Like a lot of what we hear from politicians and pundits …
Discussion:
Don Surber and Hit & Run
Sam Graham-Felsen / Washington Post:
Why is Obama leaving the grass roots on the sidelines? — In the wake of President Obama's deal to extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, pundits have focused on how Obama has alienated the left. But the issue isn't the left - it's the list.
Discussion:
The Huffington Post
Tom Shales / Washington Post:
With a star-studded guest list, ‘Larry King Live’ signs off for the last time — Lurching awkwardly between classy gestures and underwhelming torpor, “Larry King Live” breathed its last on CNN Thursday night, even if its star and founding father kept reminding viewers that though his program was ending …
Discussion:
American Power and The Page
Bob Egelko / San Francisco Chronicle:
NOW goes after Hooters for catering to kids — (12-16) 17:51 PST SAN FRANCISCO — The National Organization for Women filed complaints against local Hooters restaurants Thursday, but not for exploiting its scantily clad waitresses by subjecting them to leering and groping customers.
Discussion:
Sister Toldjah, Left Coast Rebel, The Confluence, The Powers That Be, Weasel Zippers, Moonbattery and Doug Ross
Jack Healy / New York Times:
In Seconds Before Blast, the Making of a Hero — BALAD RUZ, Iraq — As the suicide bomber clutched the detonator to his explosive belt, preparing to spray fire and shrapnel into a religious procession here, an Iraqi police officer named Bilal Ali Muhammad faced a choice between his own life and something larger.
Discussion:
FrumForum
David Brooks / New York Times:
Bigger Is Easier — President Obama faces an enormously difficult challenge over the next few weeks. — On the one hand, this moment is ripe for fundamental change. There is a pervasive sense that the nation is at a Sputnik moment when it either rises to face the international competition or it does not.
Discussion:
The New Republic, National Review, Hit & Run and Modeled Behavior
Larry Flynt / The Huffington Post:
Why I Am Donating $50,000 to WikiLeaks' Defense Fund — What's Your Reaction: — Let's get something straight: Julian Assange is a journalist. You can argue that he is not practicing journalism the way you think it should be practiced — releasing classified U.S. State Department documents — but he's a journalist nonetheless.
Discussion:
Sister Toldjah and Mediaite
Yves Smith / naked capitalism:
Banana Republic Watch: New York City More Unequal Than Chile — A newly released report, “Grow Together or Pull Further Apart? Income Concentration Trends in New York,” by the Fiscal Policy Institute (hat tip reader Thomas R) gives a picture of how New York City is now at Latin American levels of income disparity.
Discussion:
Runnin' Scared and ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*
Myglesias / Yglesias:
Tax and Spend — I'm a tax enthusiast, in part thanks to the work of Lane Kenworthy. But taxes are unpopular. So unpopular, in fact, that a combination of political opportunism and psychic revulsion from advocating for tax hikes leads progressives to spend a lot of time dreaming up ways …
Ezra Klein:
An incoherent Congress — The tax deal passed last night, and without changes. Liberals don't really like it. Conservatives don't really like it. Even people who supported the deal — myself included — don't really like it. It's tempting to say that this broad spectrum …
Discussion:
Mother Jones
The Huffington Post:
Senate Dems Set To Talk Filibuster Reform With Eye Toward Finalizing Package — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? … WASHINGTON — Some Senate Democrats leading the push for filibuster reform say they plan to discuss possible rule changes during a full caucus meeting, likely to be held on Friday …
Discussion:
NMPolitics.net, Wonk Room, FrumForum and Crooks and Liars