memeorandum: Here's what one second of national debt looks like (Andrew Malcolm/Top of the Ticket)

12:45 PM ET, January 4, 2011

Top Items:

Strict Obstructionist — Mitch McConnell is a master manipulator and strategist— the unheralded architect of the Republican resurgence. Now that his relentless tactics have made his party victorious, he is poised to take down the president and win the Senate majority he covets …

Discussion: Yglesias, Ben Smith's Blog, Connecting.the.Dots, msnbc.com and Associated Press

The Politico:

House freshman throws a party - and GOP cringes — With Republican leaders anxious to set an austere tone for their ascendance into the House majority this week, the lavish fundraiser scheduled for Tuesday night at a trendy Washington hotel to benefit a dozen GOP freshmen is not exactly …

Discussion: National Review, Weigel, The Political Carnival, CNN, Weasel Zippers and Doug Ross

Wall Street Journal:

New Speaker Vows to Share Power—a Tricky Proposition — When John Boehner takes over one of the most powerful jobs in Washington this week, he says his first order of business is to make himself less powerful. — On Wednesday the new speaker of the House of Representatives plans to offer …

Discussion: Publius Forum, A plain blog about politics and Althouse

Paul Kane / Washington Post:
House Republicans set Jan. 12 vote on repeal of health-care law

Discussion: The Politico, Washington Monthly, Hotline On Call, The Foundry and Big Think

Erika Niedowski / The Hill:
Obama urges House, Senate GOP leaders to put politics aside

Discussion: CNN, Caffeinated Thoughts, Right Wing News and TPMDC

The Huffington Post:

Scalia: Women Don't Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? … WASHINGTON — The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Discussion: The Reaction, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Confederate Yankee, Hullabaloo, Balkinization, Scholars and Rogues, Arkansas Blog and Althouse

callawyer.com:

THE ORIGINALIST — Last October marked the 24th anniversary of Justice Antonin Scalia's appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Well known for his sharp wit as well as his originalist approach to the Constitution, Justice Scalia consistently asks more questions during oral arguments and makes …

Discussion: TalkLeft, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Washington Post, The Moderate Voice, Wonkette, Shakesville, Raw Story, Towleroad News #gay, AOL News, The BLT, Pam's House Blend and Advocate

Roger Pilon / Wall Street Journal:

Congress Rediscovers the Constitution — The House Republican majority has said it will require members to cite the specific authority for any bill they introduce. — If the new Congress to be sworn in on Wednesday is the tea party's cardinal achievement so far, its most symbolic achievement …

Discussion: protein wisdom, Cold Fury, National Review, Betsy's Page and Riehl World View

Brian Beutler / TPMDC:

GOP Plans To Implement The ‘Demon Pass’ They Once Decried — This week, House Republicans will resurrect an arcane tool that will give its Budget Chairman temporary, but unilateral authority to set federal spending levels for part of this year. — Welcome back to the so-called “Demon Pass” …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Talking Points Memo, Outside the Beltway and Arkansas Blog

Philip Rucker / Washington Post:
Incoming House GOP chairmen have a long list of issues to investigate

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, ThinkProgress, THEROOT.COM, The Hill and The Page

Marc Schultz / Publishers Weekly:

Upcoming NewSouth ‘Huck Finn’ Eliminates the ‘N’ Word — Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic by most any measure—T.S. Eliot called it a masterpiece, and Ernest Hemingway pronounced it the source of “all modern American literature.” Yet, for decades …

Discussion: The Daily Caller, AOL News, Gawker, Joe. My. God. and The Sundries Shack

Keith Staskiewicz / EW.com:
New edition of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ to lose the ‘n’ word

Discussion: JONATHAN TURLEY and Firedoglake

Helene C. Cooper / The Caucus:

Ron Klain Leaving Vice President's Staff — 10:26 a.m. | Updated It's not just President Obama who is looking for a new chief of staff. — Ron Klain, Vice President Joe Biden's chief of staff, is leaving his post at the end of January. — Mr. Klain will become president of Case Holdings …

Discussion: Michelle Malkin and The Page

Bloomberg:
Obama Said to Consider William Daley for Top White House Post

Roger Hickey / The Huffington Post:

Washington Post refused to print this: President Obama, Ignore the Advice of Your Enemies. Fight for Social Security and Medicare. — What's Your Reaction: — [Note: The following article was rejected by the Washington Post after I asked them to publish it, pointing …

Erik Wasson / The Hill:
Liberals fear betrayal by Obama on Social Security in new political climate

Discussion: Left Coast Rebel, Wake up America and msnbc.com

Gideon Rachman / Foreign Policy:

Think Again: American Decline — This time it's for real. — “We've Heard All This About American Decline Before.” — This time it's different. — It's certainly true that America has been through cycles of declinism in the past. Campaigning for the presidency in 1960 …

John Rossomando / The Daily Caller: The ACLU's untold Stalinist heritage

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Obama May Bypass Guantánamo Rules, Aides Say — WASHINGTON — President Obama's legal advisers, confronting the prospect of new restrictions on the transfer of Guantánamo detainees, are debating whether to recommend that he issue a signing statement asserting that his executive powers …

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Politics Daily, Daily Kos, Weasel Zippers, ProPublica, Wonkette, Outside the Beltway, Prairie Weather, Oliver Willis, Emptywheel, TalkLeft and TigerHawk

Alexander Mooney / CNN:

TRENDING: Palin re-tweet raises questions — (CNN) - Normally, it's what Sarah Palin tweets that makes news. This time it's what she has re-tweeted. — The former Alaska governor Monday relayed a comment from gay conservative pundit Tammy Bruce, who was expressing her criticism …

Discussion: The Politico, Politics Daily, Gawker, The Note and Runnin' Scared

Jason Millman / The Hill:

Report: At least one Dem likely to vote for repeal — At least one Democrat who voted against the healthcare reform law will likely vote for repeal next week, according to a report. — Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.), one of 34 House Democrats who voted against the reform law, told Fox News he would likely vote for repeal.

Discussion: Weasel Zippers

Fox News:
House GOP Health Care Repeal Could Pick Up a Few Dem Votes

Discussion: Ballot Box, Michelle Malkin, rules-republicans.house.gov, Wake up America and National Review

Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:

Here's what one second of national debt looks like — If you're like most people not involved with drug trafficking, you don't often actually see U.S. money with more than one or two zeroes on it, as in $50 or $100. — Thus, Monday's news that the national debt was approaching the legal limit …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers

Mark Knoller / CBS News:
National Debt Tops $14 Trillion

Discussion: The Media Consortium, NewsReal Blog, Weasel Zippers, Scared Monkeys, Taylor Marsh, Patterico's Pontifications, Raw Story and Hot Air

Steven Greenhouse / New York Times:

Strained States Turning to Laws to Curb Labor Unions — Faced with growing budget deficits and restive taxpayers, elected officials from Maine to Alabama, Ohio to Arizona, are pushing new legislation to limit the power of labor unions, particularly those representing government workers, in collective bargaining and politics.

Discussion: Economix and Gawker

Gil Ronen / Arutz Sheva:

Vulture in Saudi Custody Suspected as Mossad Agent — Follow Israel news on and . — Saudi Arabian security forces have captured a vulture that was carrying a global positioning satellite (GPS) transmitter and a ring etched with the words “Tel Aviv University.”

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, Israel Matzav and Sense of Events

David Dayen / news.firedoglake.com:

Ohio Ruling: No Substitution of Foreclosure Documents in Robo-Signing Cases — Thanks to an obscure ruling from the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, mortgage lenders in the Cleveland, Ohio area trying to substitute new documents for ones found to be faulty will have 30 days to explain …

Discussion: Balloon Juice

Philip Caulfield / NY Daily News:

Chilling photo captures Philippines politician's killer moments before he is shot dead — A politician in the Philippines who was shot dead while taking a photograph of his family on New Year's Day captured his killer on camera just seconds before the assassin fired the fatal shots.

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications

Steve Everley / American Solutions:

Top Five Things Obama Has Done to Raise Gasoline Prices — With gasoline currently above $3 per gallon nationwide and economists expecting that price to rise even further in 2011, America should be getting serious about producing more of its own resources. But instead of focusing on how to bring …

Discussion: Questions and Observations, Wizbang, The Foundry, Michelle Malkin and The Volokh Conspiracy

Glenn Harlan Reynolds / The Atlantic Online:

The Unexpected Return of ‘Duck and Cover’ — Sixty years ago, in 1951, Ray Maurer and Anthony Rizzo produced a film for the federal government's Civil Defense agency in response to Soviet nuclear tests. Featuring an animated turtle named Bert and real-life schoolchildren from New York …

Leslie Scism / Wall Street Journal:

Insurers Sued Over Death Bets — Scrutiny on Secondary-Market Policies That Paid Investors When Others Died — New investor lawsuits are emerging amid the wreckage of an investment boom in life-insurance policies that spectacularly collapsed. — The suits involve the secondary market in life policies …

Discussion: The Agonist and The Volokh Conspiracy

Ruy Teixeira / Washington Monthly:

Make government more effective, not smaller — s you prepare for your State of the Union address, Mr. President, no doubt you're getting plenty of advice about how you should respond to the two great challenges facing your administration: a stinging 2010 electoral defeat and a sputtering economic recovery.

Discussion: The Glittering Eye