The Commentariat -- December 19

My column in the New York Times eXaminer: "Ross Douthat decided early on to use his New York Times real estate to build the Church of Ross, which happens to be a Roman Catholic Church masquerading as an op-ed column.... Douthat usually does try to pretend he’s doing something other than scaring the bejeezus into his hapless readers, so in yesterday’s column he ostensibly wrote about the passing of celebrity writer Christopher Hitchens." The NYTX front page is here. ...

... Charles Pierce of Esquire was a little more put out by Douthat than was I. Here's his hilarious take: "For the sheer magnitude of its horsepucky, this column may well stand forever. Generations yet unborn will come and read it, just to stare out of the magnificent vista of presumption, self-regard, and tinpot piety the way people bring their children to look at the Grand Canyon." (And, damn, I can't believe I missed that plagiarism from The Dead, one of the finest novellas ever written. I take that back -- Douthat only borrowed one phrase, and it's a fairly generic one: "the living and the dead.")

One More Way Money Corrupts Washington: Prof. Thomas Edsall, in a New York Times op-ed: Former Democratic Members of Congress are among the top Washington lobbyists for the usual suspects. "... most incumbent members [of Congress], as they go about their daily routine of casting votes and attending committee meetings, must have in the back of their minds an awareness that they are likely to go into the influence-peddling business in the future. This knowledge inevitably influences – and arguably corrupts – their votes on legislation crucial to the interests most likely to hire them after they leave the halls of Congress."

There are only two choices for the House Republicans at this point. Pass this bipartisan compromise or else they alone will be responsible for letting taxes rise on the middle class. -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) ...

... Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "Economists are warning that the looming expiration of a temporary payroll tax cut — and the possibility that Congress will not extend it — would cause families to spend less and could sap strength from a fragile recovery." CW: ... which is exactly what Congressional Republicans want.

Freedom du Lac of the Washington Post: David Emanuel Hickman was the last American to die in the Iraq War. "Hickman, 23, was killed in Baghdad by a roadside bomb that ripped through his armored truck Nov. 14 — eight years, seven months and 25 days after the U.S. invasion of Iraq began."

Vaclav Havel, 1936-2011. New Yorker photo.

In his honor, may I say, as loudly as I can: Ronald Reagan Did Not Win The Cold War. RIP. -- Charles Pierce ...

... David Remnick of the New Yorker: "The death of Vaclav Havel comes in a month in which we mark the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Few voices did more to undermine the foundations of the Berlin Wall and the entire edifice of Soviet-imposed totalitarianism than this shy bourgeois, this sly, reticent, playwright and essayist."

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) in the New Jersey Star-Ledger: "Since my vote in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act 15 years ago, like tens of millions of Americans, I have reflected deeply and frequently about this issue.... So today, I am announcing my support for the Respect for Marriage Act, which repeals DOMA and ensures that all lawfully married couples — including same-sex couples — receive the benefits of marriage under federal law."

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "As [Attorney General Eric] Holder’s third year as attorney general draws to a close, no member of President Obama’s cabinet has drawn more partisan criticism. In an interview last week, Mr. Holder said he had no intention of resigning before the administration’s term was up, although he said he had made no decision about whether he would continue after 2012 should the president win re-election.

Paul Krugman: "China ... is emerging as another danger spot in a world economy that really, really doesn’t need this right now."

To get yourself in the holiday spirit, you won't want to miss the toy collection Fred Drumlevitch has assembled. He doesn't even include the usual horrible stuff. The theme here: teach your children well -- so they'll grow up to respect police brutality.

Evan Osnos of the New Yorker: "Kim Jong-il's ... failing health had been an official secret and a transparent fiction — the final act of a life lived in lies from his earliest childhood." ...

... AND Seth Abramovitch of Gawker treats us to "the ten most insane delusions of Kim Jong-il."

Right Wing World

The New Lazy, Unemployed Welfare Queens (Just Might Be the Republican Base). Mark Schmidt in The New Republic: "... in their zeal to shift the blame for joblessness to the jobless, House Republicans seem to have forgotten everything they should know about Unemployment Insurance, recasting it as if it were welfare. Strangely, many of the victims of this move are likely to be the GOP’s core constituency — UI beneficiaries are overwhelmingly white, middle-class, and older — and it’s hard to believe they’ll take kindly to the idea that they only have themselves to blame for their current hardship."

Alexander Bolton of The Hill: "Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Saturday afternoon blocked more than 50 judicial and executive branch nominees, demanding assurances that President Obama not make recess appointments during Christmas break. Republicans are wary of Obama appointing a director to the new agency tasked with implementing Wall Street reform during the congressional recess." ...

... Steve Benen: "We’re talking about Senate confirmation of qualified officials to serve in important government posts, who would be confirmed easily if given a vote.... Because the Senate Minority Leader says so, the Senate won’t be able to complete its legal responsibilities unless the president agrees not to use his legal authority."

Nicholas Confessore, et al., of the New York Times: "In what would be the final deal of his private equity career, [Mitt Romney] negotiated a retirement agreement with his former partners [at Bain Capital] that has paid him a share of Bain’s profits ever since.... The arrangement allowed Mr. Romney to pursue his career in public life while enjoying much of the financial upside of being a Bain partner as the company grew.... In the process, Bain continued to buy and restructure companies, potentially leaving Mr. Romney exposed to further criticism.... Moreover, much of his income from the arrangement has probably qualified for a lower tax rate than ordinary income under a tax provision favorable to hedge fund and private equity managers...." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... when Romney declares that Obama has been apologizing for America, or bowing to foreign leaders, or that he believes in American decline, he’s playing into right-wing fantasies. This, the right believes, is what a liberal sounds like.... But Romney ... [is] counting on the media either to cover up his lies, or pretend that both sides do it." ...

... AND from an exchange Romney had with Fox "News"' Chris Wallace, here's what Steve Benen learned: "Romney thinks $1,000 a year [via Obama's proposed tax cut] is a 'band-aid,' but $167 [via Romney's proposed tax plan] helps families make 'a brighter future.' The other problem here is simple dishonesty. Romney has spent the last several months telling voters his plan is focused on 'tax cuts for the middle class,' and he doesn’t intend to 'waste time trying to get tax cuts for wealthy people.' The reality, of course, is the exact opposite — Romney supports major tax breaks for the very wealthy, and as he conceded yesterday on Fox News, isn’t much focused on tax cuts for the middle class at all."

NEW. Jim Newell of Gawker on Newt Gingrich's precipitous drop in the polls: "When Gingrich was around 40% in the polls everywhere, his boost came largely from seniors — the ones who would be most likely to remember his catastrophic tenure as House Speaker. And yet they didn't, because now after just a few basic attack ads raising approximately .000000001% of the terrible, public information about Newt Gingrich, he's in free fall. What the hell, gramps?"

News Ledes

New York Times: "AT&T said on Monday afternoon that it had withdrawn its $39 billion takeover bid for T-Mobile USA, acknowledging that it could not overcome opposition from the Obama administration to creating the nation’s biggest cellphone service provider."

New York Times: "Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government was thrown into crisis on Monday night as authorities issued an arrest warrant for the Sunni vice president, accusing him of running a personal death squad that assassinated security officials and government bureaucrats. The sensational charges against Tariq al-Hashimi, one of the country’s most prominent Sunni leaders, threatened to inflame widening sectarian and political conflicts in Iraq...."

New York Times: "The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would devote three days in late March to hearing arguments in challenges to the 2010 health care overhaul law. A decision in the case is expected by the end of June."

Slam Dunk? Maybe Not. Wired: "A day after a government forensic expert testified that he’d found thousands of diplomatic cables on the Army computer of suspected WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, he was forced to admit under cross-examination that none of the cables he compared to the ones WikiLeaks released matched.... The defense also established that it’s possible Manning’s computer could have been used by someone else...." ...

     ... Or Maybe So. Update: "A government digital forensic expert examing the computer of accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning retrieved communications between Manning and an online chat user identified on Manning’s computer as 'Julian Assange,' the name of the founder of the secret-spilling site that published hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables."

Public Policy Polling: "Newt Gingrich's campaign is rapidly imploding, and Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa. He's at 23% to 20% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Gingrich, 10% each for Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, 4% for Jon Huntsman, and 2% for Gary Johnson."

New York Times: "Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader who realized his family’s dream of turning his starving country into a minor nuclear-weapons power even as the isolated nation sank further into despotism, died on Saturday of a heart attack, according to the country’s state-run media." ...

... New York Times: "The death of Kim Jong-il provoked uncertainty, anxiety and calls for a peaceful succession on Monday as governments within the region and beyond awaited some signal from North Korea about its nuclear intentions and the prospects, if any, for a new relationship with the world beyond its borders."

Yesterday's News Bear Repeating. Washington Post: "The fate of a payroll tax cut extension backed by the White House and overwhelmingly passed by the Senate is uncertain after a restive House Republican conference expressed displeasure with the two-month deal. Faced with the uprising on his right flank, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) retreated Sunday from his previous support for the package, saying the House does not expect to approve that plan on Monday night after it returns to Washington." ...

     ... Update: "Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid on Monday rejected a demand from House Speaker John A. Boehner to reopen negotiations on a measure to extend a payroll tax cut, setting the Democratic-majority Senate on a collision course with the Republican-controlled House as a year-end deadline approaches. With a deadlock over the measure looming, Reid (D-Nev.) warned that millions of Americans could see their taxes rise by $1,000 next year because of what he called the 'intransigence' of GOP House members." New York Times story here.

New York Times: "A tense showdown between Pakistan’s powerful army and its besieged civilian government brought President Asif Ali Zardari hurrying back from Dubai early on Monday, after weeks of growing concerns by his supporters that the military has been moving to strengthen its role in the country’s governance."

New York Times: "Prince Walid bin Talal of Saudi Arabia announced a $300 million stake in the social media site Twitter, as the billionaire expands his holdings in the United States.The investment by Prince Walid and his investment company, Kingdom Holding, represents roughly 3 percent of the company."

Reuters: "Thousands of Czechs streamed through Prague Castle and the historical city centre on Monday to write condolences and bid farewell to Vaclav Havel, the playwright who became president after leading a "Velvet Revolution" to topple Communist rule."

The Commentariat -- December 18

The weekend Open Thread continues on Off Times Square. Yesterday's comments in the thread are interesting and substantive.

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Tom Friedman's interesting week. The NYTX front page is here. ...

... For more depth on the far-right "pro-Israel" bloc -- and Elliott Abrams' diatribe against Friedman in particular -- see Jim Lobe's commentary, also in NYTX. ...

... AND Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss reproduces the full Republican Emergency Committee for Israel ad against the Obama Administration. With commentary.

Prof. Michael Sandel, Episode 3, "Free to Choose":

Nicholas Kristof: "WHEN President Obama decides soon whether to approve a $53 million arms sale to our close but despotic ally Bahrain, he must weigh the fact that America has a major naval base here and that Bahrain is a moderate, modernizing bulwark against Iran."

Prof. Andrew Bacevich, in a Washington Post op-ed, sees the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as marking the end of the era of U.S. world dominance: "After Iraq, the future no longer bears the label 'Made in the USA.'” ...

... Roy Gutman of McClatchy News notes one legacy of the war: our two closest allies in the region -- Saudi Arabia and Iraq -- are not on diplomatic speaking terms. "Saudi Arabia refuses to set up an embassy in Baghdad, and while it has allowed Iraq to set up a mission in Riyadh, its officials receive Iraqi government officials only as private individuals." ...

... Not surprisingly, Maureen Dowd treats the same subject with considerably less heft, weaving in President Obama's teevee preference for the Showtime series "Homeland." "Homeland" is Dowd's favorite new series, too, but she finds Obama's interest in it "a little worrisome."

Alexander Bolton of The Hill: "Senate Democrats say the Obama administration will kill the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, a controversial issue in the debate to extend the payroll tax holiday."

Samuel Freedman in the New York Times' "On Religion": "It would be upsetting enough if a well-financed, well-organized mass movement had misrepresented a television show, insulted an entire religious community and intimidated a national corporation. What makes the attack on 'All-American Muslim' more disturbing — and revealing — is that it was prosecuted by just one person, a person unaffiliated with any established organization on the Christian right, a person who effectively tapped into a groundswell of anti-Muslim bigotry.... If there is any upside to the campaign against 'All-American Muslim,' it is that national scrutiny has cut Mr. Caton down to size. Several major companies that he claimed had stopped advertising — Home Depot and Campbell’s Soup — issued statements saying they had done no such thing." ...

... Alyssa Rosenberg of Think Progress lists companies who did not pull their "All-American Muslim" ads despite pressure from and claims made by Caton.

... Update: How about This? EarlyAmerica.com: "George Washington urged Congress in his first inaugural address to propose amendments that offered 'a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen and a regard for public harmony.' ... Congress responded by submitting Amendments to the Constitution providing for essential civil liberties.... Of the original twelve, Articles 3-12 were ratified. Accordingly, in 1791 these articles became the first ten amendments to the Constitution.....known collectively as The Bill of Rights." I'd call the Bill of Rights a pretty big accomplishment, Mr. President Barack. (See following entry for evidence of my close personal relationship with the President:)

I just got this nice note from One of the Best Presidents Ever:

Marie --

Early this morning, the last of our troops left Iraq.

As we honor and reflect on the sacrifices that millions of men and women made for this war, I wanted to make sure you heard the news.

Bringing this war to a responsible end was a cause that sparked many Americans to get involved in the political process for the first time. Today's outcome is a reminder that we all have a stake in our country's future, and a say in the direction we choose.

Thank you.

Barack

Right Wing World

Ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the influential Des Moines Register endorses Mitt Romney. ...

... MEANWHILE, AP: "Newt Gingrich tried to quiet unrelenting campaign criticism that he acknowledged had taken a toll as Mitt Romney stepped up insider attacks Saturday in hopes of regaining front-runner status with the first presidential vote little more than two weeks away." ...

I'm going to let the lawyers decide what is and what is not lobbying, but when it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, typically it's a duck. -- Mitt Romney, on Newt Gingrich's claim that Freddie Mac employed him as an historian

... Frank Bruni offers no new insights, but he does give us a run-down of some of Newt Gingrich's most megalomaniacal claims. ...

... Even Crazier after All These Years. Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "Never one to be accused of timidity, Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich is turning up the volume of his ongoing assault on 'activist judges' so high that even conservatives say he is going too far. In a half-hour phone call with reporters Saturday, Gingrich said that, as president, he would abolish whole courts to be rid of judges whose decisions he feels are out of step with the country.... Judicial experts, including conservatives, are questioning the constitutionality of Gingrich’s stance. The Constitution ... provides only for impeachment as the way to remove bad judges. To do so by other means, [experts] say, is an encroachment on judicial independence and an affront to the separation of powers doctrine that underlies the entire document." ...

Overall, he’s racing towards a cliff. It may be expedient to appeal to specific voters in primaries or caucuses, but it’s a constitutional disaster. Americans want courts that can uphold their rights and not be accountable to politicians. When you get to the point where you’re talking about impeaching judges over decisions or abolishing courts or calling them before Congress, it’s getting very far away from the American political mainstream. -- Bert Brandenburg, director of the nonpartisan Justice at Stake

Opinion of a Candidate Who Is Not Going to Be President about a (Former) Candidate Who Is Not Going to Be President: Herman Cain has all the characteristics of the type of person I would bring forward. -- Rick Perry, responding to a question about whether or not he would choose Cain for his Cabinet

Local News

Harbor Shores. The town of Benton Harbor can be seen in the distance, upper left. New York Times photo.Jonathan Mahler in the New York Times Magazine: "During its heyday as a racially mixed, economically vibrant manufacturing center through the 1960s, Benton Harbor, [Michigan,] grew into a home to more than 20,000 people. Today its population is closer to 10,000, about 90 percent of whom are black. The per capita income of its residents is roughly $10,000; about 60 percent of its population is on some form of public assistance.... On the northern edge of Benton Harbor, just beyond the grim grid of housing projects, shuttered storefronts, boarded-up homes and junk-laden yards that dominate much of the town, sits an emerald oasis known as Harbor Shores..., a resort development. At its heart is a pristine Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course that ... overlooks Lake Michigan.... The juxtaposition of Benton Harbor’s impoverished population and its two rising monuments to wealth ... make it almost a caricature of economic disparity in America. But at the same time, it offers a window into one possible future for towns across the country...." Thanks to reader Jay J. for the link.

Rachel Stassen-Berger of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch resigned from her leadership post the day after fellow Republicans confronted her about allegations that she had an 'inappropriate relationship' with a staff member.... Koch, the state's first female majority leader, was widely considered a hard-working and savvy campaigner who helped Republicans win control of the Senate last year for the first time in four decades.... Not long after the news conference, Michel announced that Michael Brodkorb, who was Koch's powerful communications chief, was no longer employed as a Senate staffer, effective Friday.... Koch, 40, is married and has a teenage daughter."

News Ledes

Reuters: "The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq on Sunday, ending nearly nine years of war that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and left a country grappling with political uncertainty."

Reuters: "The euro zone will pursue measures to tackle its sovereign debt crisis this week by offering more cash to the IMF and long-term liquidity to banks, while moving towards tighter fiscal rules, after ratings agency Fitch cast doubt on it ability to forge a decisive response."

Reuters: "Rescuers searched for more than 800 people missing in the southern Philippines on Sunday after flash floods and landslides swept houses into rivers and out to sea, killing more than 650 people in areas ill-prepared to cope with storms."

New York Times: "Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who wove theater into politics to peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia and become a hero of the epic struggle that ended the Cold War, has died. He was 75.... Mr. Havel was his country’s first democratically elected president after the nonviolent 'Velvet Revolution' that ended four decades of repression by a regime he ridiculed as 'Absurdistan.' As president, he oversaw the country’s bumpy transition to democracy and a free-market economy, as well its peaceful 1993 breakup into the Czech Republic and Slovakia."

Politico: "House Republicans are in full revolt in the wake of Senate passage of a two-month payroll tax holiday package, casting serious doubt on the fate of a bill that already has President Barack Obama’s approval. In a private conference call on Saturday afternoon, rank-and-file House Republicans complained bitterly about the contents of the deal...." Update: Reuters story here. ...

     ... Think Progress Update: "Appearing on Meet the Press today, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said he and his members oppose the Senate bill."

New York Times: "Egypt’s military rulers escalated a bloody crackdown on street protesters on Saturday, chasing down and beating unarmed civilians, even while the prime minister was denying in a televised news conference that security forces were using any force."

AP: "CNN star Piers Morgan may be known to Americans as an empathetic English interviewer, but it's his past at the heart of Britain's troubled tabloid newspaper world that is being trotted out before the cameras this week.... Morgan's rise to the top will be revisited Tuesday, when the former editor appears by videolink at a judge-led inquiry into the ethics and practices of Britain's scandal-tarred press."

The Commentariat -- December 17

We have an Open Thread on today's Off Times Square.

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Charles Blow's really stupid piece in today's Times: "The Times employs a brilliant statistician – Nate Silver – but Silver does not have a regular column that appears in the print edition of the paper. Blow does. This week, he didn’t have time to write it. Maybe he was busy buying holiday gifts for the kids. What we readers got was a pre-winter snow job that misinterprets poll results in a way that helps Republican politicians and attempts to make Americans look stupider than we are." If you were taken in by Blow's column, as almost all of the early commenters were, read my column. The NYTX front page is here.

President Obama's weekly address. The transcript is here:

Chris Spannos of the New York Times eXaminer has a fascinating article on the New York Times' scant coverage of Bradley Manning's court proceedings. As Spannos points out, "If found guilty Manning could prove to be one of the Times’ most important sources since Daniel Ellsberg." So why is the Times' giving so little coverage to Manning? -- apparently none in the dead-tree edition; a short post in the online edition. Here Spannos talks with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange about Manning and the Times:

     ... Links to more segments of the interview here. ...

... Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "Adrian Lamo, the hacker who betrayed the alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning to the US authorities, has said it would be to his 'lasting regret' were the soldier to be given a lengthy custodial sentence." And, boo-hoo, his fellow-hackers don't like him anymore. See also Spannos above on Lamo.

 ... Also of interest to people who live in the New York City area is a public discussion about mainstream media’s representation of OWS and lessons for the new year, to be held Tuesday, December 20, from 7:30 pm ET to 9:30 pm at the Brecht Forum at 451 West Street in Lower Manhattan. Spannos will be one of the panelists. More information and map here.

Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "... in the weeks since Occupy Wall Street was evicted from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, relations between the demonstrators and Trinity Wall Street, a church barely one block from the New York Stock Exchange, have reached a crossroads. The displaced occupiers had asked the church, one of the city’s largest landholders, to hand over a gravel lot, near Canal Street and Avenue of the Americas, for use as an alternate campsite and organizing hub. The church declined, calling the proposed encampment 'wrong, unsafe, unhealthy and potentially injurious.'” ...

... Karen McVeigh of the Guardian: "Archbishop Desmond Tutu has waded into an ecclesiastical row over a New York church's refusal to allow protesters from Occupy Wall Street to camp on a vacant lot it owns. The South African activist and retired church leader urged Trinity Church to heed the pleas of demonstrators to allow the camp and, failing that, at least to stop any violence or arrests at the site during a day of action this Saturday to mark its three month anniversary."

** Adam Serwer of Mother Jones has a reality check on the National Defense Authorization Act about which I've been pretty upset, based on reports from the usually fairly reliable sources: the Guardian, the New York Times editors, Glenn Greenwald (on the facts, anyway). Serwer writes, "It does not, contrary to what many media outlets have reported, authorize the president to indefinitely detain without trial an American citizen suspected of terrorism who is captured in the US. A last minute compromise amendment adopted in the Senate, whose language was retained in the final bill, leaves it up to the courts to decide if the president has that power.... Still..., it is the first concrete gesture Congress has made towards turning the homeland into the battlefield, even if the impact in the near term is more symbolic and political than concrete." Read his whole post. ...

... Steve Benen: "President Obama has been facing quite a bit of criticism from the left over the NDAA’s provisions, and that’s understandable.... That said, if I’m making a list of those responsible for the NDAA’s most odious measures, the White House wouldn’t be on top. I’d start, obviously, with congressional Republicans whose misguided worldview intended to make the NDAA even more offensive, but it was a whole lot of congressional Democrats who went along with them." ...

... Sen. Al Franken, on why he voted against the bill. ...

... CW: other than Serwer, I can't find anyone who will write dispassionately about this bill, so I can't offer anything I think is definitive. That's partly on purpose, & it brings up a point that has broad application, an application that makes Constitutional "originalists" look as silly as they are: you can't decide the "intent" of the framers of the Constitution -- 200 years ago -- or a single bill -- yesterday -- because the "framers" do not agree. They have different intents and different aims -- they hope a bill will be interpreted in a certain way, but even they often know they've written something ambiguous to get it past the opposition.

Gail Collins: No matter what the occasion, it's always a great opportunity to restrict women's reproductive rights. And everybody does it! ...

... Amanda Marcotte in Slate: "Seems the Obama administration will be disappointed, if they were hoping for an end to the backlash against HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius making the unprecedented move of overruling the FDA's decision to make Plan B emergency contraception available over the counter without age restrictions. For one thing, the legal manuevering is far from over, with a federal judge specifically recommending to the Center for Reproductive Rights that they reopen a 2005 lawsuit against the FDA, and add Kathleen Sebelius as a defendant."

Prof. William Gould, in a New York Times op-ed: "UNLESS something changes in Washington, American workers will, on New Year’s Day, effectively lose their right to be represented by a union. Two of the five seats on the National Labor Relations Board, which protects collective bargaining, are vacant, and on Dec. 31, the term of Craig Becker, a labor lawyer whom President Obama named to the board last year through a recess appointment, will expire. Without a quorum, the Supreme Court ruled last year, the board cannot decide cases."

Victor Gilinsky, a former NRC member, writing in a New York Times op-ed on the application for renewal of the Westchester County, New York, Indian Point nuclear reactor license: "... we now know that radioactive material in the melted fuel can escape to contaminate a very large area for decades or more. It doesn’t make sense to allow such a threat to persist a half-hour’s drive from our nation’s largest city."

David Dayen of Firedoglake writes a provocative post titled "Republicans demand to kill the Keystone XL pipeline." CW: He has a point. And with a different president he'd be right. But giving a choice to President Pretzel A. Rollover, along with his Interior Secretary Ken Dig-In Salazar, practically guarantees the pipeline deal will go through if Democrats cave to this particular Republican demand.

Mitt Romney likes the Ryan-Wyden Kill Medicare Plan (which quickly became "Ryden") because he says he invented it. But Jed Lewison of Daily Kos, with backing from Center for Budget & Policy Priorities analysis, reminds us that "Because Medicare would [no] longer be a single payer system, it would become less efficient and would be in a worse position to keep costs down. Meanwhile, the fact that beneficiaries would be getting a subsidy rather than insurance means that either (a) their share of medical costs would grow or (b) public health care spending would grow even faster than before. Either way, the idea is a stinker."

A lovely tribute to Christopher Hitchens, and to any well-lived life, from Christopher's brother Peter Hitchens. Thanks to a reader for the link. ...

... ** NEW. AND for a well-wrought view from the loyal opposition, I highly recommend Glenn Greenwald's column on the hagiographic nature of the coverage of Hitchens' death & of Ronald Reagan's.

Right Wing World

Mitt Romney's New Look, via Media Matters:

     ... Romney sure looks presidential, doesn't he? Fox "News" later corrected the graphic.

News Ledes

... A transcript of the President's remarks is here.

New York Times: Hundreds of protesters and an untold number of NYPD officers converged on Trinity Church in downtown Manhattan after the church declined to allow Occupy Wall Street to set up an encampment in its vacant lot.

New York Times: "Flash floods in the southern Philippines on Saturday sent water gushing into homes, killing more than 400 people and surprising families who fled to rooftops clutching children, officials said."

Reuters: "Deeply divided U.S. lawmakers on Friday eked out an agreement to extend payroll tax cuts for just two months, and only after Democrats bowed to Republican demands on a controversial oil pipeline. The deal, which still needs approval of the full Senate and House of Representatives, fell far short of President Barack Obama's push for a one-year extension of the tax relief and long-term unemployed benefits to boost the country's fragile economic recovery." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "The Senate agreed Saturday to extend the payroll tax cut for two months, in a deal that would avert a New Year’s tax increase for millions of workers. The agreement, approved in an 89-to-10 vote, also would require the administration to decide quickly whether to allow construction of a controversial transcontinental oil pipeline. President Obama had demanded that Congress extend the tax holiday, but Republicans had refused to go along unless the White House agreed to an accelerated decision on the pipeline."

New York Times: "In a major surprise on the politically charged new health care law, the Obama administration said Friday that it would not define a single uniform set of 'essential health benefits' that must be provided by insurers for tens of millions of Americans. Instead, it will allow each state to specify the benefits within broad categories."

Reuters: Bradley Manning, "an American Army intelligence analyst suspected of being behind the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history, made his first court appearance on Friday, sitting stone-faced as military prosecutors launched their case against him." The New York Times story is here. ...

     ... AP Update (via the NYT): "An Army appeals court has rejected the defense’s effort to remove the presiding officer in the military hearing for [Bradley Manning] the soldier accused of the largest leak of classified material in American history."

Al Jazeera: "Egyptian soldiers with batons have charged into Tahrir Square, the focal point of anti-military demonstrations in the capital, on the second day of violent clashes with protesters. The renewed fighting on Saturday came as Egypt's health ministry reported nine people were killed and more than 350 others injured since Friday when soldiers stormed an anti-military protest camp outside the parliament building, a short distance from Tahrir." With video. Al Jazeera's liveblog on Egypt is here.

Reuters: "Syrian forces killed 13 people on Friday during widespread protests against President Bashar al-Assad, activists said, a day after Syria's big power ally Russia sharpened its criticism of Damascus in a draft United Nations resolution." Al Jazeera's liveblog on Syria is here.