Top Items:
Abby D. Phillip / ABC News:
Republicans and Tea Party Activists in ‘Full Scale Civil War’ … Years of growing friction between the Republican Party leaders and its Tea Party faction has erupted into what one conservative said today was “full-scale civil war.” — House Speaker John Boehner, whose strategies …
Discussion:
CNN, Talking Points Memo, Liberaland, The Heritage Foundation, NationalJournal.com and The Impolitic
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The Hill:
House approves budget deal, handing major victory to Boehner — The House on Thursday approved a two-year budget deal that turns off $63 billion in sequester spending cuts, handing a major victory to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio.). — Large majorities in both parties backed the bill in a 332-94 vote.
Discussion:
Hot Air, American Spectator and Instapundit
Brian Beutler / Salon:
Obama's shutdown critics look like morons after budget deal — Guess what, tired Beltway pundits: Obama's successful leadership from October brought an end to GOP hostage-taking — Back in August and September, two opposing analytical frameworks dominated the media's coverage of the government shutdown and debt limit hostage crises.
Discussion:
Politico and Connecting.the.Dots
Sahil Kapur / Talking Points Memo:
John Boehner: Conservative Groups Have ‘Lost All Credibility’ (VIDEO) — House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on Thursday held firm in his criticism of outside conservative groups after a war of words Wednesday, questioning their credibility and saying they've gone “over the line” …
Discussion:
Liberaland, The Fix, Washington Post, Daily Kos, Guardian and Hot Air
Ginger Gibson / Politico:
Pelosi on deal: ‘Embrace the suck’ — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told Democratic House members at a meeting Thursday morning to “embrace the suck” and encouraged enough members to back the budget deal on the floor to allow passage, according to an attendee of the meeting.
Discussion:
Hot Air, Talking Points Memo, CNN, The Plum Line, Weasel Zippers, NBCNews and Daily Kos
Jake Sherman / Politico:
House passes bipartisan budget deal — After a tumultuous and politically divisive year, the House ended 2013 on a rare bipartisan note by passing a budget deal supported by a nearly equal number of Republicans and Democrats. — The chamber voted 332-94 to approve the two-year budget deal crafted …
Discussion:
Guardian, Outside the Beltway and Business Insider
Emma Dumain / Roll Call:
Boehner: Conservative Outside Groups ‘Have Lost All Credibility’
Discussion:
Hawkings Here
Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:
Morning Plum: Top pollster advises Dems to go on offense on Obamacare
Discussion:
Mediaite, Weasel Zippers, Talking Points Memo, Hullabaloo, Washington Post, New York Times, Washington Monthly, Wonkblog, First Read and The Week
Andrew Stiles / National Review:
Boehner: Conservative Groups ‘Have Lost All Credibility’
Discussion:
Power Line and FreedomWorks
The Hill:
Dems threaten budget deal
Discussion:
his vorpal sword, Heritage Action for America, ThinkProgress, Los Angeles Times and Washington Monthly
Bloomberg:
Republicans Get the Better End of the Budget Deal
Discussion:
National Review, Instapundit, The New Republic and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion
Geoff Earle / New York Post:
Pelosi on budget deal: ‘Embrace the suck’
Discussion:
Ed Driscoll, Althouse, Talking Points Memo, The Gateway Pundit and CNN
Hadas Gold / Politico:
Megyn Kelly: Jesus and Santa were white — On Wednesday night Megyn Kelly declared on her Fox News show that both Santa Claus and Jesus were white. Discussing a piece in Slate by Aisha Harris about a black versus white Santa, Kelly that “just because it makes you feel uncomfortable it doesn't mean it has to change.”
Discussion:
The Reaction, Mediaite, Washington Monthly, WorldViews, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Daily Banter and Gawker
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Aisha Harris / Slate:
What Fox News Doesn't Understand About Santa Claus — Earlier this week, I argued that our image of Santa Claus should no longer be a white man, but, instead, a penguin. I hoped the piece would come across as a little tongue-in-cheek, while at the same time expressing my real concern …
Discussion:
This Is Brad DeLong's … and Talking Points Memo
Angie Drobnic Holan / PolitiFact:
Lie of the Year: ‘If you like your health care plan, you can keep it’ — It was a catchy political pitch and a chance to calm nerves about his dramatic and complicated plan to bring historic change to America's health insurance system. — “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it …
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Philip Klein / Washington Examiner:
HHS ‘encourages’ insurers to fix problems created by Obamacare
Discussion:
Hot Air and Weekly Standard
John Bacon / USA Today:
Official who OK'd Obama birth papers dies in crash — One person is dead after a small plane crashed off the island of Molokai, Hawaii. Officials say the other eight people on the plane survived. (Dec. 12) AP — Hawaiian Health Director Loretta Fuddy was killed in a small plane crash off Hawaii.
Discussion:
Gawker, Liberaland, Weasel Zippers, Talking Points Memo, Mediaite and AMERICAblog News
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Kevin Drum / Mother Jones:
Vermont Is Kicking Everyone's Ass at Signing Up People for Obamacare — Which states are doing the best at signing up people for Obamacare? Business Insider has a state-by-state chart here showing the number of people who have completed the process 100 percent: they've actually chosen …
Discussion:
Firedoglake, The Dish and Business Insider
Ezra Klein / Wonkblog:
Obamacare exposes Republican hypocrisy on health care — Now that HealthCare.Gov is on a clear path to functionality, Republicans are having to come to terms with the fact that Obamacare will not conveniently collapse before anyone can purchase insurance. If the law is going to fulfill …
Discussion:
Washington Center …, Yahoo! News, Washington Monthly and NationalJournal.com
Andrea Peyser / New York Post:
Flirty Obama owes us an apology — Maybe he went into sugar shock over a Danish pastry. — The president of the United States, leader of the free world, standard-bearer for everything upright, good and wholesome about the nation he leads, lost his morality, his dignity and his mind …
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Freedom Outpost, Mediaite, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, The Democratic Daily, BBC, Weasel Zippers, Gothamist, blogs.afp.com, Salon, Guardian, Fox News and Yahoo! News
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Carie Canterbury / Canon City Daily Record:
Mother of girl involved in ‘kissing’ discipline speaks out — Boy was suspended for two days after second kissing incident — The mother of a girl involved in the case of a 6-year-old Cañon City school boy being suspended for a second violation of giving a classmate unwanted kisses …
Discussion:
CNN, Wall Street Journal, The Daily Caller, Villainous Company, The PJ Tatler, Shakesville, Althouse and ABC News
Joy Wilke / Gallup:
Tea Party Favorability Falls to Lowest Yet — Fifty-one percent view it unfavorably — PRINCETON, NJ — For the first time, a slim majority of Americans say they have an unfavorable opinion of the Tea Party movement. About one-third view the movement favorably, a new low.
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway, The Fix, The Week, Post Politics and Democratic Strategist
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The Atlantic Online:
Mandela and the Question of Violence … I have the misfortune of being near the end of Tony Judt's Postwar at a moment when of the great figures of our history, Nelson Mandela, has passed. Judt's gaze is relentless. He rejects all grand narratives, skewers Utopianism (mostly in the form of Communism) …
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Jonathan Easley / The Hill:
Cummings: ObamaCare like Mandela's fight against apartheid
Discussion:
CNN, Reuters, Weasel Zippers, National Review and Jammie Wearing Fools
Ted Mann / Wall Street Journal:
Governors Spoke Privately About Bridge Controversy — Chris Christie Complained to Andrew Cuomo That His Appointee Was Pressing too Hard for Answers — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week to complain about a Cuomo appointee's handling of a growing controversy …
Discussion:
Transportation Nation and Politico
Paul Krugman:
Unprecedented Austerity — As many people have noted, a strange thing has happened on the fiscal policy front. Intellectually, the case for austerity has pretty much collapsed, having been reduced at this point to the Three Stooges Theory: we're supposed to consider austerity a success …
Discussion:
Business Insider, Discourse.net, EconLog, Campaign for America's Future, Economist's View and Mother Jones
Associated Press:
MISSING AMERICAN IN IRAN WAS ON UNAPPROVED MISSION — You are here — Home » United States government » Missing American in Iran was on unapproved mission — WASHINGTON (AP) — In March 2007, retired FBI agent Robert Levinson flew to Kish Island, an Iranian resort awash with tourists …
Discussion:
Gawker and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »
Reid J. Epstein / Politico:
Biden: My ancestors 'didn't all come here legally' — Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that some of his ancestors came to the United States illegally and said it's fruitless to compare the immigration system of the 1800s to today's. — “My great-great grandparents came escaping …
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, Weasel Zippers, Talking Points Memo and rubber hose
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Sibel Edmonds / Sibel Edmonds' Boiling Frogs:
BFP Breaking News- Omidyar's PayPal Corporation Said To Be Implicated in Withheld NSA Documents — The U.S. Government, An Implicated Billionaire, Fortune-Seeking Journalists & A Public in the Dark — Update 1: It is unfortunate to see how the subject (Greenwald & friends) …
Discussion:
Firedoglake and The Daily Banter
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