Top Items:
Talking Points Memo:
Obama To Congress: Come To A Deal - Or Else — Following a meeting with congressional leaders at the White House on Friday, President Obama appeared before the press to urge all parties to take immediate action to reach a deal before a set of major tax increases and spending cuts kick in on Jan. 1.
Discussion:
PERRspectives and Balloon Juice
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Jonathan Allen / Politico:
Why they want to go over the cliff — Washington's Democratic and Republican power brokers have sent the message to the nation that going over the fiscal cliff is a worst-case scenario. But they're not acting that way, not at all. — Instead, many of them have calculated that it's better …
Discussion:
CNN, ABCNEWS, Washington Post, The Hill, Salon, Firedoglake, AMERICAblog, Guardian, Politicker, The Week, ABCNEWS, Business Insider, neo-neocon, Connecting.the.Dots, The Caucus, Taylor Marsh and New York Times
Ezra Klein / Wonkblog:
‘Come together’ breaks Washington apart — Twitter has been rather amused by Starbucks' plan to solve the fiscal cliff by scrawling “come together” on every peppermint mocha and salted caramel latte sold in the Beltway. — This will not bring people together. (EVA HAMBACH/AFP/Getty Images)
Discussion:
CANNONFIRE and Hullabaloo
New York Times:
Obama to Urge Fiscal Vote in Senate if Two-Party Talks Fail — WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday evening that progress had been made in make-or-break talks on the fiscal crisis and pronounced himself cautiously “optimistic,” as Senate leaders worked furiously toward an agreement …
Discussion:
The Hill, Taegan Goddard's …, Outside the Beltway and Balloon Juice
Manu Raju / Politico:
Reid, McConnell will try to cut deal — President Barack Obama called on Senate leaders to hammer out a last-minute deal to prevent taxes from rising on Americans across every income group, warning that he otherwise would push Congress to allow an up-or-down vote on an emergency fiscal package just before the new year's deadline.
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, The Lonely Conservative and Daily Kos
Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Optimism for ‘fiscal cliff’ agreement grows ahead of White House meeting
Discussion:
Politico and Booman Tribune
Brett Taylor / Twitchy:
Dude, where's Nancy Pelosi's car? Minority leader appears lost in parking lot
Discussion:
Associated Press and Right Wing News
Glenn Greenwald / Guardian:
GOP and Feinstein join to fulfill Obama's demand for renewed warrantless eavesdropping | Glenn Greenwald — The California Democrat's disgusting rhetoric recalls the worst of Dick Cheney while advancing Obama's agenda — To this day, many people identify mid-2008 as the time they realized …
Discussion:
Mother Jones, Wired, JustOneMinute, Techdirt, Hullabaloo, Firedoglake, The Raw Story, The Verge, The Atlantic Online, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Hit & Run
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Matt Sledge / The Huffington Post:
FISA Warrantless Wiretapping Program Renewed By Senate
Discussion:
The Hill, PostPartisan, Electronic Frontier Foundation, msnbc.com and The Daily Caller
Adam Serwer / Mother Jones:
Senate to Intel Agencies: We Don't Need to Know How Often You Spy on Americans
Discussion:
Cato Institute, Techdirt and The Raw Story
Ramsey Cox / The Hill:
Senate approves bill to reauthorize foreign surveillance programs
Discussion:
The Lonely Conservative, Hit & Run and The Maddow Blog
Paul Krugman:
A Double Shot of Misunderstanding — One of the enduring fantasies of the pundit class - most dramatically demonstrated by the ludicrous Politico piece on What Insiders Know - is that all we need to fix our economic problems is to get the great and the good together and bypass those pesky elected officials.
Discussion:
Mother Jones, Politico, Balloon Juice, Business Insider and The Week, more at Mediagazer »
Rachel Weiner / Post Politics:
John Kerry, Vicki Kennedy, DSCC support Ed Markey for Senate — The Democratic establishment inside and outside Massachusetts is quickly lining up behind Rep. Ed Markey (D) in the likely special election for Sen. John Kerry's seat. — Kerry himself is supporting the longtime House member …
Discussion:
Boston Herald, Associated Press, The Fix, The Maddow Blog, Daily Kos and The National Memo
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Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Senate Republicans refuse to confirm Kerry until Hillary testifies about Benghazi
Discussion:
Washington Monthly and Pirate's Cove
Chicago Tribune:
Grim milestone: Austin shooting apparently 500th homicide in Chicago — Gave Bates smiled through tears as she swiped her hand across her phone, flipping through pictures of her cousin playing around and striking goofy poses. — “He was a lot of fun, very good at imitating people,” Bates said of Nathaniel T. Jackson, 40.
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers and Shot in the Dark
RELATED:
Tom Kludt / Talking Points Memo:
Tea Party Leader: Romney Was ‘The Worst Candidate In History’ — Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips on Thursday disputed that President Obama claimed a mandate in November's election, arguing that his re-election victory came over “the worst candidate in history in Mitt Romney.”
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars
Harry J Enten / Guardian:
How polarisation in Washington affects a growing feeling of partisanship | Harry J Enten — Legislators may no longer feel they have reason to play to the middle making Washington seem more divided than ever — “Can a divided House stand?” is a question that Nate Silver posed in a blogpost Thursday.
Discussion:
Taegan Goddard's …, theGrio, msnbc.com and The Maddow Blog
RELATED:
Alex Isenstadt / Politico:
The logic of House GOP intransigence
Discussion:
Los Angeles Times, Wake up America, Booman Tribune and CNN
Don Mecoy / Daily Oklahoman:
Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby to defy federal law requiring contraception coverage for employees, attorney says — Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby will defy a federal law that requires employee health care plans to provide insurance coverage for types of contraception that the firm's owners consider to be …
Discussion:
Angry Black Lady Chronicles, Gawker and ABCNEWS
Dallas Morning News:
Exclusive: David Dewhurst campaign says aide stole at least $600,000 — Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (front), receiving an endorsement during his U.S. Senate campaign from former rival Craig James, had hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from his state political accounts by an aide, his campaign says.
Discussion:
The Fix, Talking Points Memo, Ballot Box, Politico and Post Politics
Associated Press:
Paintings Outrage Islamic Hard-Liners in Pakistan — Pakistan's leading arts college has pushed boundaries before in this conservative nation. But when a series of paintings depicting Muslim clerics in scenes with strong homosexual overtones sparked an uproar and threats of violence by Islamic extremists, it was too much.
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers and Jihad Watch
Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:
Obama Orders Pay Raise for Biden, Members of Congress, Federal Workers — President Barack Obama issued an executive order to end the pay freeze on federal employees, in effect giving some federal workers a raise. One federal worker now to receive a pay increase is Vice President Joe Biden.
Discussion:
Michelle Malkin, The Gateway Pundit, Weasel Zippers, Twitchy and The Lonely Conservative
Chelsea Karnash / CBS Philly:
3 Officers Wounded After Suspect Opens Fire At Gloucester Township Police Station — CLEMENTON, NJ (CBS) — Police and rescue crews responded to the Gloucester County Municipal Building on Chews Landing Road this morning after shots were fired inside the Gloucester Township police station.
Discussion:
Runnin' Scared, Gawker, The Raw Story and The Hinterland Gazette
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Garett Sloane / New York Post:
Rage against rules — Instagram revolt — Instagram users outraged over new rules made good on their threat to dump the popular photo-sharing app. — The app, which Facebook acquired for $1 billion earlier this year, may have shed nearly a quarter of its daily active users in the wake of the debacle …
Discussion:
Techdirt, Talking Points Memo, Mashable!, Wired, Business Insider, Inside Facebook, The Verge, The Week, NYT Bits and TechCrunch, more at Mediagazer »
Jason Volentine / KASW-TV:
Sheriff Arpaio sending armed posse to protect schools — PHOENIX — Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Thursday that he plans to deploy his armed volunteer posse to protect Valley schools from the kind of violence that happened in the Connecticut shooting tragedy.
Discussion:
AMERICAblog, Mediaite and The National Memo
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