Top Items:
Jim Demint / Wall Street Journal:
We Won't Back Down on ObamaCare — Fighting a law that is unfair, unworkable and unaffordable is reasonable and necessary. — Now that the government shutdown has ended and the president has preserved ObamaCare for the time being, it's worth explaining why my organization, the Heritage Foundation …
RELATED:
Politico:
Donors' frustration with GOP mounts — Republican donors were horrified in November after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into losing campaigns for president and Congress with nothing to show for it. A year later they're appalled by how little has changed, angered by the behavior …
Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
Harry Reid On Vitter And His Obamacare Amendment: ‘He Just Is Not Playing With A Full Deck’ — WASHINGTON — As the showdown over raising the nation's debt limit and funding the government entered its final week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could sense “desperation” seeping into the Republican Party.
Discussion:
The Hill, Talking Points Memo, Weasel Zippers and Mediaite
Michael M. Grynbaum / New York Times:
At Al Smith Dinner, Colbert Doesn't Spare Politicians — When the comedian Stephen Colbert took to the dais on Thursday for his keynote speech at the Al Smith white-tie charity dinner, the annual gathering of New York's Roman Catholic elite, he immediately flashed a sly glance at Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, sitting a few seats away.
Discussion:
Whispers in the Loggia, PERRspectives, The Week, Politico, Capital New York, Politicker, Post Politics, Gothamist and The Dish
Jonathan Cohn / The New Republic:
The Truth About the Obamacare Rollout — The feds botched the website. But the states are doing much better. — The federal government is open and paying its bills, which means you can start looking at the other big story from the past few weeks: The startup of Obamacare's marketplaces.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly and National Review
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Yuval Levin / National Review:
Assessing the Exchanges
Assessing the Exchanges
Discussion:
JustOneMinute, Washington Monthly, Hot Air, Weekly Standard, The Strata-Sphere and The Dish
Ryan Cooper / The Plum Line:
Here's a ‘grand bargain’ for ya: Tax cuts for $1 trillion in infrastructure spending — With the government shutdown over, the serious political discussion moves to the budget talks, already in progress. But it's already obvious the talks are likely to go nowhere, because Republicans won't give any ground on new revenues.
Discussion:
Hullabaloo, No More Mister Nice Blog, Achenblog, Eschaton, National Review and The Dish
RELATED:
Jeffrey Young / The Huffington Post:
Obamacare Website Failure Threatens Health Coverage For Millions Of Americans — A broken website imperils the largest expansion of the American safety net since the Great Society. — More than two weeks into the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov, the website created …
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Nick Budnick / Oregonian:
Oregon cuts tally of people lacking health insurance by 10 percent in two weeks
Oregon cuts tally of people lacking health insurance by 10 percent in two weeks
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Wonkblog, Weekly Standard and ThinkProgress
Wall Street Journal:
Health Website Woes Widen as Insurers Get Wrong Data — Insurers say the federal health-care marketplace is generating flawed data that is straining their ability to handle even the trickle of enrollees who have gotten through so far.
Discussion:
Washington Wire, The Verge, Weasel Zippers, National Review, Health Care Policy …, The Lonely Conservative and Corrente
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Jonathan Tasini / Playboy:
PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: BERNIE SANDERS — At a time when politicians—particularly members of Congress—are almost universally reviled and blind partisanship seems to dictate the fate of every piece of legislation, one U.S. senator stands out as a unique voice. — Bernie Sanders has been a senator from Vermont since 2006.
Discussion:
Politico, The Daily Caller, Independent Journal Review, Weasel Zippers and E2-Wire
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:
Trust in Government Nears Record Low, But Most Federal Agencies Are Viewed Favorably — 62% Have Positive View of Federal Workers — Public trust in the government, already quite low, has edged even lower in a survey conducted just before the Oct. 16 agreement to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Talking Points Memo, The Fix and Taegan Goddard's …
Alan Cowell / New York Times:
Saudi Arabia Rejects Security Council Seat — LONDON — Assailing what it called double standards at the United Nations, Saudi Arabia took the surprising step Friday of declining an invitation to take a rotating seat on the Security Council just one day after it was chosen to join the body for a two-year term.
Discussion:
The Monkey Cage, Defense One, Outside the Beltway, UN Dispatch and ThinkProgress
Alexandra Jaffe / Ballot Box:
McConnell challenger nabs big endorsement — Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) primary challenger got a boost Friday with the endorsement of a prominent national conservative group, the Senate Conservatives Fund. — The endorsement of Matt Bevin comes just days after the fund blasted McConnell …
Discussion:
Politico, The Dish and The Right Scoop
Scott Bauer / Minneapolis Star Tribune:
APNewsBreak: Walker calls for positive GOP message — MADISON, Wis. — Republican Gov. Scott Walker is using his new book to renew his criticism of 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and raise his own national profile as a reformer who took on public sector unions and won.
Discussion:
Politico
Bloomberg:
Republican Civil War Erupts: Business Groups v. Tea Party — A battle for control of the Republican Party has erupted as an emboldened Tea Party moved to oust senators who voted to reopen the government while business groups mobilized to defeat allies of the small-government movement.
Discussion:
Liberaland, Talking Points Memo, The Raw Story, Crooks and Liars, Daily Kos, Hot Air and Independent Journal Review
Mike Tipping:
On tape, Gov. LePage justifies cutting taxes for millionaires with wildly inaccurate claim — LePage holds a chart during a 2010 debate. - Robert F. Bukaty | BDN — A hallmark of Governor Paul LePage's administration has been his advocacy for income and estate tax breaks …
Discussion:
Crooks and Liars
Massimo Calabresi / TIME:
Ted Cruz Failed To Disclose Ties To Caribbean Holding Company — An old college friendship led to financial entanglement with a Jamaican private equity firm and a British Virgin Islands holding company. Neither was disclosed during his 2012 campaign. — Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz …
Discussion:
Gawker and Talking Points Memo
Eric Lach / Talking Points Memo:
Kansas Supreme Court Suspends Ex-Attorney General Over Abortion Investigation — The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday indefinitely suspended former Attorney General Phillip Kline (R), who investigated abortion doctor George Tiller, from the practice of law in the state.
Discussion:
Kansas City Star
Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:
Redskins and reason — In re the (Washington) Redskins. Should the name be changed? — I don't like being lectured by sportscasters about ethnic sensitivity. Or advised by the president of the United States about changing team names. Or blackmailed by tribal leaders playing the race card.
Discussion:
Gawker, PostPartisan, Shakesville, Los Angeles Times, Politico, Lawyers, Guns & Money and TheBlaze.com
Jeremy Herb / The Hill:
Obama nominates former Pentagon lawyer to replace Napolitano — President Obama on Friday officially named his former top lawyer at the Pentagon as his choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security. — “He demonstrated again and again the qualities that will make him a strong secretary of Homeland Security.”
Discussion:
CNN
Peggy Noonan / Wall Street Journal:
Noonan: The Wisdom of ‘Mr. Republican’ — What advice would Robert Taft have for the tea party and the GOP establishment?
Discussion:
alicublog and No More Mister Nice Blog
Michael Martinez / CNN:
Four things we learned from government shutdown — (CNN) — Whew, it's all over, folks — the twin crises of government shutdown and national default countdown. At least for now. — This one wasn't easy. And we'll be talking about it for a while. — That's just one of the four lessons …
Discussion:
The Reaction
The Atlantic Online:
How the GOP Slowly Went Insane — The current moment in politics came about slowly, not suddenly, but it doesn't make it any less of a national emergency. — When I was a kid, all I knew about Michael Jackson was that he was crazy. He had a monkey named Bubbles and some kind of oxygen chamber …
Discussion:
CANNONFIRE
Chris Geidner / BuzzFeed:
Cory Booker Plans To Start Marrying Same-Sex Couples At 12:01 A.M. Monday — The senator-elect is slated to marry the couples in the wake of a trial-court ruling requiring marriage equality in the Garden State. The only question is whether the New Jersey Supreme Court will put same-sex couples' weddings …
Discussion:
Advocate, New Jersey Online, Outside the Beltway, CNN, Towleroad News #gay, Taylor Marsh, ThinkProgress, Weasel Zippers, Liberaland and GLAAD
Kimberly Craig / WXYZ-TV:
Walmart employee fired after trying to help assault victim in store parking lot — HARTLAND, MI (WXYZ) - “The last thing I expected was to not have a job,” said Kristopher Oswald, 30, who was fired from Walmart this week after he intervened to help a woman who was apparently being assaulted in the parking lot of the store.
Discussion:
Gawker, Associated Press, The Raw Story and Outside the Beltway
Tom Kludt / Talking Points Memo:
FreedomWorks CEO: ‘A Real Possibility’ That The GOP Splits In Two — FreedomWorks chief Matt Kibbe said Friday said that divisions on the right could cause the Republican Party to split in two. — During an apperance on CSPAN, the tea party leader responded to a piece in The Washington Times indcating …
Discussion:
Daily Kos and The Raw Story
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
The Damage Done — The government is reopening, and we didn't default on our debt. Happy days are here again, right? — Well, no. For one thing, Congress has only voted in a temporary fix, and we could find ourselves going through it all over again in a few months.
Discussion:
Washington Monthly, Daily Kos and DownWithTyranny!