Top Items:
Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:
Obama Is Set to Shuffle His Staff — WASHINGTON — President Obama is planning the first major reorganization of his administration, preparing to shuffle several positions in the West Wing as he tries to fortify his political team for the realities of divided government and his own re-election.
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Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
Obama's new start — Riding the lamest of ducks, President Obama just won the Triple Crown. He fulfilled (1) his most important economic priority, passage of Stimulus II, a.k.a. the tax cut deal (the perfect pre-re-election fiscal sugar high - the piper gets paid in 2013 and beyond); (2) …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Power Line, The Moderate Voice, Daily Kos and Booman Tribune
Carol E. Lee / The Politico:
Obama library fight pits Chicago vs. Honolulu — HONOLULU - As President Barack Obama prepares to battle with Republicans for a second term, another fight is already brewing: where to enshrine his legacy once he leaves office. — The effort to play host city to Obama's presidential library …
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
The Humbug Express — Hey, has anyone noticed that “A Christmas Carol” is a dangerous leftist tract? — I mean, consider the scene, early in the book, where Ebenezer Scrooge rightly refuses to contribute to a poverty relief fund. “I'm opposed to giving people money for doing nothing,” he declares.
Discussion:
Paul Krugman, NewsBusters.org blogs, EconLog, The Mahablog and Newshoggers.com
Jo Becker / New York Times:
U.S. Approved Business With Blacklisted Nations — Despite sanctions and trade embargoes, over the past decade the United States government has allowed American companies to do billions of dollars in business with Iran and other countries blacklisted as state sponsors of terrorism, an examination by The New York Times has found.
Discussion:
Politics Daily, Washington Post, The Gateway Pundit, Commentary, The Daily Caller, Taylor Marsh, FrumForum, Firedoglake and Fausta's Blog
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Bridget Johnson / The Hill:
Treasury defends 10,000 exceptions to Iran, other sanctions — The Treasury Department is defending its nearly 10,000 exceptions granted to companies to skirt around sanctions on Iran and other countries blacklisted as state sponsors of terrorism. — reported Thursday that the waivers …
Discussion:
Reuters and Weasel Zippers
Russell Berman / The Hill:
Biden sees ‘inevitability’ for gay marriage — Vice President Joseph Biden said in a television interview Friday that “there's an inevitability for a national consensus on gay marriage.” — The vice president, who backs civil unions but not same-sex marriage, weighed in on the issue …
Discussion:
CNN and No More Mister Nice Blog
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George Stephanopoulos / George's Bottom Line:
Exclusive - Biden: White House to Hold Line on Taxes in 2012; ‘Inevitability’ of National Consensus on Gay Marriage; Air Bases May Remain in Afghanistan Past 2014 — The president's primary negotiator for the tax cut deal on Capitol Hill told me the administration will hold the line in two years …
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, New York Magazine, TPMDC and Towleroad News #gay
Associated Press:
Biden says gay marriage ‘inevitable’ — WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden said Friday that the country is evolving on the issue of gay marriage and he thinks it's inevitable there will be national consensus. — He said on ABC's “Good Morning America” the same thing is happening …
Discussion:
AMERICAblog Gay and Outside the Beltway
Karoun Demirjian / Las Vegas Sun:
For Harry Reid, it's been the best of times, worst of times — Reid's year has been filled with political victories, personal trials and some compromises — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid meets reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2010.
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Russell Berman / The Hill:
Reid: My job will be ‘easier’ next year — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says his job will be “easier” in the 112th Congress, despite a slimmer Democratic majority and a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. — “It's going to be much easier than it was,” Reid told the Las Vegas Sun.
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers
Daily Mail:
We misunderestimated him: Bush's memoir sells 2m copies in a month - nearly as many as Bill Clinton's sold in six years — For someone who mangled words on a regular basis, it's an impressive feat. — Former U.S. President George W Bush's memoir has sold an astonishing two million copies since …
Discussion:
The Gateway Pundit and theblogprof
yosemite.epa.gov:
News Releases By Date — EPA Home - Newsroom - News Releases By Date - EPA to Set Modest Pace for Greenhouse Gas Standards / .... EPA to Set Modest Pace for Greenhouse Gas Standards / Agency stresses flexibility and public input in developing cost-effective and protective GHG standards for largest emitters
Discussion:
Politics Daily and New York Times
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Juliet Eilperin / Washington Post:
EPA vows to enforce curbs on emissions
EPA vows to enforce curbs on emissions
Discussion:
AmSpecBlog, The Foundry and Post Carbon
Bryan Fischer / afa.net:
Whoops: homosexuals lose “get out of jail free” card — According to National Review Online, there may be a whole lot of homosexuals who just got an unpleasant surprise. With the repeal of the law prohibiting homosexual service in the United States military, they just lost their “get out of jail free” card.
Discussion:
Never Yet Melted, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Truth Wins Out and Right Wing Watch
Jim Bergamo / KVUE-TV:
Woman arrested at ABIA after refusing enhanced pat down — Early Wednesday morning, a computer glitch shut down a security checkpoint for a couple of hours at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The line snaked out the door as many travelers waited for more than an hour and some missed their flights.
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers and Raw Story
Tim May / The Columbus Dispatch:
Pryor, four other Ohio State football players receive five-game suspensions in 2011 — Terrelle Pryor and four of his Ohio State teammates will be suspended from the first five games of the 2011 season because of NCAA violations, the school and NCAA announced today.
Discussion:
MarkDaniels.Blogspot.com
Luke Harding / Guardian:
It's all politics, claims Julian Assange — WikiLeaks founder says it would be ‘politically impossible’ for Britain to extradite him to the US — Julian Assange said today that it would be “politically impossible” for Britain to extradite him to the United States, and that the final word …
Discussion:
Raw Story, Mediaite and Harry's Place
BBC:
God often surprises us, says Pope in BBC broadcast — The recording followed months of negotiations between the BBC and the Vatican — God is faithful to his promises but often surprises us by how he fulfils them, the Pope has said in his first BBC radio broadcast.
Discussion:
Guardian, sisu and LewRockwell.com Blog
BBC:
Cuba puts ‘imperialist’ US Wikileaks online — President Raul Castro says the cables show the US still acts as the “world's policeman” — Cuba says it will publish on the internet more than 2,000 US diplomatic cables released by the website Wikileaks. — The aim is to highlight US …
Discussion:
The Nation and Outside the Beltway
Wall Street Journal:
Job Offers Rising as Economy Warms Up — As the economy gradually recovers, some big U.S. companies are cranking up their recruiting and advertising thousands of job openings, ranging from retail clerks and nurses to bank tellers and experts in cloud computing.
NY Daily News:
Bloomberg's aides provided political support for Ground Zero mosque, released emails show — Mayor Bloomberg's top deputies went to great lengths to help the developers of a planned mosque near Ground Zero - even drafting a letter to the community board for them.
Discussion:
American Thinker, Atlas Shrugs, Gothamist, Weasel Zippers and JammieWearingFool
Christian Science Monitor:
Would global warming be so bad? — Guest blogger Stefan Karlsson presents his take on global warming, more often called ‘global climate change.’ — What has always troubled me the most with the view that we needs to stop “climate change” in the form of “global warming” is the idea that it would be bad if the Earth became warmer.
Discussion:
Althouse