Obama to Defend Health Law as Economic Benefit  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama leaves the White House on Wednesday for one of the capital's most struggling neighborhoods to talk about the economy, not simply to divert attention from his troubled Affordable Care Act but to explain how that law …

Shutdown part 2?  Democrats vow to block stopgap spending bill  —  House Democrats of all stripes are lining up against a stopgap spending bill that further entrenches the blunt sequester cuts.  —  GOP leaders could bring a vote as early as next week on a short-term continuing resolution …

Why the Third Way hates Sen. Elizabeth Warren  —  And the war is on.  —  The obsessive centrists of the punditverse were abuzz today with praise for supposed centrist Democratic organization Third Way and their grumbling op-ed condemnation of Democratic liberal populism in abstract and …

Obama: 'We're not going back'  —  President Obama declared Tuesday that ObamaCare “is working” and that “we're not going back,” as the White House looked to reboot its efforts to sell Americans on the president's signature healthcare law.  —  Obama said that “poor execution” …

Rush Limbaugh Knows Nothing About Christianity  —  Well, after Sarah Palin, another scholar of Catholicism has weighed in on Pope Francis.  Rush Limbaugh has a truly gold-star hathos alert in a recent diatribe, brilliantly titled: … Does it get more awesomely hathetic than that?

Medicaid expansion becomes weapon against GOP governors  —  It's widely accepted as an article of faith that Obamacare will be uniformly bad politics for Dems in 2014.  After all, the rollout is a disaster and majorities disapprove of the law, so how could it possibly be any other way, right?

Scott Walker campaign aide fired after tweets demeaning Hispanics  —  These tweets were sent from Taylor Palmisano's Twitter account.  Expletives have been blurred out.  —  For the second time in less than four months, Gov. Scott Walker has fired an aide for making demeaning comments about Hispanics on social media.

Newsweek Plans Return to Print  —  Newsweek, the struggling weekly magazine that ceased print publication last year, plans to turn the presses back on.  —  The magazine expects to begin a 64-page weekly edition in January or February, said Jim Impoco, Newsweek's editor in chief.

Google Puts Money on Robots, Using the Man Behind Android  —  PALO ALTO, Calif. — In an out-of-the-way Google office, two life-size humanoid robots hang suspended in a corner.  —  If Amazon can imagine delivering books by drones, is it too much to think that Google might be planning …

Low-Information Leadership  —  The president's problem right now is that people think he's smart.  They think he's in command, aware of pitfalls and complexities.  That's his reputation: He's risen far on his brains.  They think he is sophisticated.  —  That is his problem in the health insurance debacle.

Judge: Detroit can cut employee pensions  —  Unions and Detroit's public pension funds are protesting a federal judge's ruling that Detroit is eligible for bankruptcy.  The groups claim the city didn't negotiate in good faith, which is an eligibility requirement under Chapter 9.  (Dec. 3) AP

Guardian: We have published 1 pct of Snowden leak  —  The editor of the Guardian said Tuesday his newspaper has published just 1 percent of the material it received from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, and denied the paper had placed lives or national security at risk.

ALEC facing funding crisis from donor exodus in wake of Trayvon Martin row  —  • Rightwing lobby group appealing to major donors to return  —  • Internal documents reveal so-called ‘Prodigal Son Project’  —  • Network lost almost 400 state legislators over past two years

Dick Cheney Surprised by Facebook ‘Attack’ on Daughter Liz in Gay Marriage Spat  —  Former Vice President Dick Cheney reluctantly commented today on the rift between his two daughters Liz and Mary Cheney, saying that he was surprised that Mary, who is lesbian, and her wife attacked Liz on Facebook.

Obama's uncle allowed to remain in US, judge rules  —  A federal immigration judge today allowed President Obama's uncle, Onyango “Omar” Obama to remain in the United States, following a hearing in which the name of the president was invoked by the 69-year-old Kenyan who has been living here for some 50 years.