Top Items:
Bloomberg:
Kerry Brings Paris a ‘Big Hug’ And James Taylor After Attacks — Secretary of State John Kerry, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit France since Islamic militant attacks in Paris left 17 dead, met with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and French President Francois Hollande to offer condolences this morning.
Discussion:
Mashable, Taylor Marsh, Bloomberg Politics, Outside the Beltway, Washington Free Beacon, neo-neocon, New York Magazine and Mediaite
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Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
That time John Kerry got James Taylor to sing 'You've got a friend' to France — Secretary of State John Kerry is in Paris after the White House apologized for not sending a high-ranking official to a massive unity rally after the terrorist attacks there. — And he brought a friend by the name of James Taylor.
Discussion:
RedState, Shakesville, Moe Lane and Hit & Run
Derek Hunter / The Daily Caller:
Apology Tour: John Kerry Brings James Taylor To Paris To Play 'You've Got A Friend' [VIDEO] — Under fire for being a no-show at the Paris March Against Terrorism, the Obama administration sent Secretary of State John Kerry to Paris today to give a “big hug” to the French.
Discussion:
protein wisdom, TPNN, The PJ Tatler and National Review
Matthew Lee / Associated Press:
Kerry offers ‘big hug’ to Paris after attacks
Kerry offers ‘big hug’ to Paris after attacks
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Fox News Insider and Associated Press
Michael D. Shear / New York Times:
Obama and Senator Robert Menendez Spar on How to Handle Iran — President Obama and Senator Robert Menendez traded sharp words on Thursday over whether Congress should impose new sanctions on Iran while the administration is negotiating with Tehran about its nuclear program, according to two people who witnessed the exchange.
Discussion:
The PJ Tatler, Booman Tribune and Washington Free Beacon
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Sarah Ferris / The Hill:
GOP tactics on ObamaCare move away from full repeal — Republicans are shifting their tactics on ObamaCare, an abrupt change from the party's “repeal-only” rhetoric that dominated the last five years of debate. — The GOP is coalescing around the idea that incremental changes …
Manu Raju / Politico:
Obama to Senate Dems: 'I'm going to play offense'
Obama to Senate Dems: 'I'm going to play offense'
Discussion:
US News, Daily Mail, Algemeiner.com, neo-neocon, Daily Kos, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Fox News and The Hill
Speaker.gov:
12 Taylor Swift GIFs for you — 1. Last week, President Obama announced his latest idea to provide “free” community college to millions of Americans. It sounded exciting at first... 2. But then, we got to thinking... 3. Free?! Is he using magic money? Nothing is free. So we did a little math.
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ThinkProgress, Weekly Standard, New York Times, TheBlaze.com, US News, Washington Post, The Verge, OnPolitics, New York Magazine and BuzzFeed
NASA:
NASA, NOAA Find 2014 Warmest Year in Modern Record — The year 2014 ranks as Earth's warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists. — The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000.
Discussion:
ThinkProgress, Washington Post, Vox, Chicago, The Verge, EcoWatch, Boing Boing and Climate Etc.
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Justin Gillis / New York Times:
2014 Was Hottest Year on Record, Surpassing 2010 — Last year was the hottest in earth's recorded history, scientists reported on Friday, underscoring scientific warnings about the risks of runaway emissions and undermining claims by climate-change contrarians that global warming had somehow stopped.
Discussion:
Gothamist
Jonathan Cohn / The Huffington Post:
Key Obamacare Official Stepping Down — A senior government official with almost unparalleled authority over the U.S. health care system is stepping down, ending a tenure that included one highly publicized, highly consequential failure on Obamacare as well as significant, if less heralded, successes.
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo, Hit & Run, Washington Post and Washington Free Beacon
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Robert Pear / New York Times:
Head of Medicare and Medicaid Is Stepping Down
Head of Medicare and Medicaid Is Stepping Down
Discussion:
The Daily Caller
Tim Alberta / National Journal:
Ben Carson to the GOP Establishment: I'm Not ‘Crazy’ — The political novice with eyes on 2016 auditions before the RNC and blames his zealot image on the mainstream media. — CORONADO, Calif. — Ben Carson—a Washington outsider, a world-renowned neurosurgeon, a favorite among tea-party insurgents …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, Liberaland, Mediaite and Joe. My. God.
Rocco Parascandola / NY Daily News:
EXCLUSIVE: Married NYPD cop accused of kissing, groping rape victim after booze-filled night in Seattle — Detective Lukasz Skorzewski was investigating the rape of a 24-year-old woman when he flew to Seattle, drank with her all night and got physical with her in a hotel room, the college student alleges.
Discussion:
Raw Story, New York Magazine and Gothamist
Ian Millhiser / ThinkProgress:
If You Want To Understand What's Happened To The Supreme Court, You Need To Listen To Rand Paul — Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is an odd place to seek counsel on the Constitution. As a Senate candidate in 2010, Paul told a Louisville editorial board that he opposed the federal ban on whites …
Discussion:
Lawyers, Guns & Money
Ahiza Garcia / Talking Points Memo:
VIDEO: Ex-Navy SEAL Pretends To ‘Choke Out’ Obama — Chris Heben had an unusual year in 2014. — The former Navy SEAL made national headlines in March when he was shot by what he described as three black assailants. Then he was in the news again in September when prosecutors alleged he'd lied to police about the ordeal.
Adam Lusher / The Independent:
The mystery of shellshock solved: Scientists identify the unique brain injury caused by war — When the war poet Wilfred Owen wrote of “men whose minds the Dead have ravished” he was attempting to describe the mysterious effects of shellshock which started appearing during the First World War and of which he himself was a sufferer.
Discussion:
FOX News Radio
BBC:
Belgium Verviers plot ‘aimed to kill police’ — A suspected jihadist group targeted in a major anti-terror raid on Thursday had been planning to kill policemen in the street and at police stations, Belgian prosecutors say. — The planned attacks were imminent, they said …
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Jethro Mullen / CNN:
European counterterrorism officials scramble to identify potential threats
European counterterrorism officials scramble to identify potential threats
Discussion:
Washington Free Beacon, Algemeiner.com, Hot Air and The Daily Beast
David A. Graham / The Atlantic Online:
For Whom the Muezzin Calls — When I was working on the student paper at Duke, we'd get a letter to the editor once a year or so that would lament that the university had lost touch with its religious roots as Trinity College, a Methodist school. The correspondents would invariably cite …
Discussion:
Duke Today, New York Magazine, Gawker, Washington Post, Fox News, Friendly Atheist, American Spectator and Lawyers, Guns & Money
Peggy Noonan / Wall Street Journal:
Don't Do It, Mr. Romney — He'd have been a better president than Obama. That's not nearly enough. — Hershey, Pa. — A conversation with a Republican governor who is a possible presidential aspirant: — I told him I'd been thinking about something and wanted his response.
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Regime Change in Switzerland — Blogging will be limited for the next few days, unless I can resolve the tech problems here in Delhi. But I did want to say something about the Swiss de-pegging, beyond what I put in the column. — These days it's fairly widely accepted that it's very hard …
Discussion:
The Dish, TheMoneyIllusion, Washington Post, Marginal REVOLUTION and Discourse.net
Martin Matishak / The Hill:
Democrat condemns ‘shocking’ comments about Muslim lawmaker — A top House Democrat on Thursday condemned suggestions from conservative websites that Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), a Muslim, should not have been appointed to the House Intelligence Committee. — It has “come to my attention …
Discussion:
BizPac Review
Yvonne Dean-Bailey / Campus Reform:
All-women's college cancels ‘Vagina Monologues’ because it's not feminist enough — Mount Holyoke College, an all-women's school, announced in a campus-wide email that the Theatre Board has cancelled its annual production of the “Vagina Monologues.” — The board has decided to retire …
Discussion:
Power Line, Hit & Run, Jezebel, Mediaite, The Daily Caller, Althouse, Patterico's Pontifications and The PJ Tatler
Joan Walsh / Salon:
The real “family values” party: On paid sick leave, Dems lead U.S to 21st century — With Obama's moves to expand workers' paid family leave, U.S. may join rest of the world — no thanks to the GOP — President Obama continues his recent crusade to bring American social policy …
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Christopher Ingraham / Washington Post:
More than a third of American workers don't get sick leave, and they're making the rest of us ill
More than a third of American workers don't get sick leave, and they're making the rest of us ill
Discussion:
Slate, US News, Raw Story, The Dish and New York Times