The Washington Post
By Ed O'Keefe and Joe Davidson
Bowing to Republican political pressure and growing budget concerns, President Obama will announce a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers Monday, according to administration sources.
The freeze applies to all federal employees -- including civilian employees of the Defense Department, and will not impact step increases or bonuses for federal workers, according to sources.
By Glenn Kessler
A vast treasure trove of secret State Department cables obtained by the Web site WikiLeaks has exposed the inner workings of U.S. diplomacy, as well as bluntly candid assessments by American diplomats, according to news organizations granted advance access to the more than 250,000 confidential documents.
By Ben Pershing
Advocates for giving the District full voting rights in the House brimmed with confidence four years ago as the Democratic takeover of Congress seemed to move their long-standing goal closer to reality.
Two years later, when President Obama was elected, that confidence turned to near-certainty. "I really can't think of a scenario by which we could fail," Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said in November 2008.
The New York Times
By Beth Slovic
Portlanders call Pioneer Courthouse Square the city’s living room.
But on Sunday, two days after federal law enforcement officials arrested Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, and accused him of plotting to bomb the square during a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, it was more subdued.
Workers were preparing the brick-covered plaza for the 15th annual Holiday Ale Festival that starts on Wednesday. Private security officers patrolled the area. And visitors were still puzzled by the news of the plot.
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON — Francis Brady enjoys a six-figure salary and generous benefits at the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, but as a retired Marine lieutenant colonel he and his family remain on the military’s bountiful lifetime health insurance, Tricare, with fees of only $460 a year. He calls the benefit “phenomenal.”
USA Today
By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY
SEOUL — South Korea's president told his nation today that he feels he failed to protect them from a deadly North Korean artillery barrage last week. As he spoke, U.S. and South Korean warships participated in military exercises in the Yellow Sea.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haitians entered election day hoping for the best. Within hours, ballot boxes were ripped to pieces, protesters were on the streets and nearly every presidential hopeful was united against the government.
Add it to Haiti's list: Already reeling from a catastrophic earthquake, one of the world's poorest economies, storms, a deadly cholera epidemic and unrest over U.N. peacekeepers, the Caribbean nation could now be on the edge of full-on political turmoil.
By Steve Strauss
I have an amazing Thanksgiving story to share today, and I even found a way to make it relevant to business. (Please note a few minor details have been changed to protect privacy): A beloved old family friend named Ben had planned on stopping by before we all headed out together.
Slate
Sonia Van Gilder Cooke
PR Week
Jaimy Lee
NEW YORK: American Express is preparing for "Small Business Saturday," an integrated program that partners with Facebook and is aimed at encouraging cardholders to shop at small businesses on November 29.
American Express Open, the small business division, announced the launch of “Small Business Saturday” on November 8. M Booth & Associates, the unit's PR AOR, is providing support.
Lindsey Siegriest
NEW YORK: American families are taking a healthier approach to food shopping, but those shopping for convenience and to appease children find it more difficult, according to a recent M Booth study.
The Better4You Shopper Profile Survey, released by M Booth's Better4You practice, found that 52% of those surveyed said their purchases are healthy and 42% of families said their children are eating better than they were two years ago.
The Los Angeles Times
By Paul Richter and Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington —
U.S. diplomats have been directed by Washington to gather detailed data on their foreign counterparts, including the kinds of information usually sought by spies, according to diplomatic cables made public Sunday.
By Richard Simon Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
The day her long-awaited ethics trial was supposed to begin, Rep. Maxine Waters (D- Los Angeles) stepped up her attack on the case against her.
"I have been denied basic due process,'' Waters said Monday, standing in front of the empty Capitol Hill hearing room where the charges against her were to have been heard by a bipartisan panel of eight fellow lawmakers. Earlier this month, the trial was put off indefinitely.
By Karen E. Klein
Dear Karen: My business was incorporated by an online service on the last day taxes were due for the year. Had it waited one more day, I could have saved $800.
Answer: Your experience shows that dates matter when it comes to filing legal documents. And, although online services can be convenient and inexpensive, it is incumbent on the entrepreneur to research details or hire a professional to help.
The Wall Street Journal
By JANET HOOK
Congressional Democrats, under pressure from their liberal wing, are preparing to put up a fight over tax relief for wealthier Americans before they agree to any compromise with Republicans that could extend the Bush-era breaks.
With the lame-duck Congress reconvening Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) may hold a vote mid-week on legislation that would extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts only for families with income less than $250,000, while allowing the upper brackets to expire.
By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS
Spurred by incentives in the federal health-overhaul law, hospitals and doctors around the country are beginning to create new entities that aim to provide more efficient health care.
But these efforts are already raising questions about whether they can truly save money, or if they might actually drive costs higher.
Media Post
by Thom Forbes
No matter where I went this weekend, I could not avoid food. I'm not talking about eating it -- though that was an issue, too. It was impossible to avoid thinking about it.
Were you as surprised as I was to learn that Del Monte Foods, which was by taken over by private equity firms led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, has nothing to do with fresh fruit and produce (that's a company called Fresh Del Monte)? KKR, which is as savvy as they come when it comes to cash flow, is putting its $4 billion bet on canned and processed foods for man and beast.
by Joe Mandese
Social media may have reached critical mass as a consumer medium, but its role as a mass advertising medium is still emerging. But if the initial findings of a comprehensive tracking study of Americans' use of social media are any indication, it may prove to be more than just a powerful "listening tool" for marketers." The findings, which are being released today from "The Faces of Social Media," a joint research venture of Knowledge Networks and MediaPost Communications' Center for Media Research, indicate that social media has already attained the kind of advertising influence and acceptability as advanced forms of TV advertising such as video-on-demand and HDTV.
Politico
By BEN SMITH
The first victims of the leaked cables released Sunday are anyone who shared secrets with American diplomats, especially Arab leaders who saw their private security deals — and their insistence that those deals be kept from their people — published online with undiplomatic bluntness.
But the main effect of the many details of American diplomacy revealed in the thousands of documents obtained and released by WikiLeaks was to deepen the damage to their intended targets: U.S. foreign policy, prestige and power.
By JOHN BRESNAHAN
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is calling on the House ethics committee to schedule her ethics trial on three counts of violating House rules before the end of the lame-duck session.
That trial was set to begin on Nov. 29, but Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the ethics committee, announced 10 days ago that it would be delayed after the panel uncovered new evidence. No date has been set for the hearings, signaling the case could drag on into 2011.
By JOHN BRESNAHAN
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) wants the House to issue a formal reprimand — rather than the more serious censure — as his punishment for violating ethics rules.
Sources with knowledge of Rangel’s plans also said the 80-year-old New York Democrat will ask the House ethics committee, which found him guilty of 11 ethics violations Nov. 16, for permission to speak to the full House before any sanction is carried out.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) exhorted Republicans on Sunday to stop “playing politics and hiding behind the skirts of Jon Kyl” on the START treaty.
McCaskill, who appeared on "Fox News Sunday" with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), made the comments during a pointed but polite exchange over ratification of the treaty in the Senate, in which Graham questioned whether the preamble would allow the Russians to opt out if the United States continues to research missile defense.
The influential Tea Party Patriots group is starting to take sides in key House chairmen races, pushing for Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) over Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) for the Appropriations panel.
The group has also criticized Rep. Fred Upton's (R-Mich) as not quite conservative enough to chair the Energy and Commerce committee.
The organization is also sending out information about contenders for House gavels ahead of a conference call Monday evening in which some of the lawmakers are scheduled to participate. The steering committee will hear from chairmen candidates this week.
The Huffington Post
By Julie Pace
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration ordered government agencies Monday to immediately review procedures for safeguarding classified information in the wake of the disclosure of thousands of secret State Department documents.
According to a memo obtained by The Associated Press, the Office of Management and Budget told agencies to establish security assessment teams to ensure that employees do not have broader access to classified information than what is needed to do their jobs.
By Emily Swanson
A survey released Monday finds strong support for allowing openly gay and lesbian soldiers to serve in the military, but key groups that traditionally support Republicans oppose the idea.
The survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, shows that 58% of adults favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly, whereas 27% said they opposed allowing it. A majority of both men and women, as well as both Democrats and independents also support allowing open service.
By Susan Blumenthal, M.D.
Science matters. By generating new knowledge and fueling innovation, science provides solutions to national and global health challenges. And that is why I am delighted to be included in this year's Rock Stars of Science educational campaign -- released today -- supported by GQ magazine and the Geoffrey Beene Foundation. The initiative shines a spotlight on science and scientists, underscoring the urgent need for increased investments in research to find cures for the diseases that devastate people's lives, strategies to promote better health, as well as to attract young people to careers in medical and public health research and practice.
By David Katz, M.D.
Since the only other options are vegetable, mineral, and bacteria-like things, I trust we can all agree that we are animals. We have a tendency to speak about ourselves as if we are something else, apart from nature altogether -- but there is no place for us but the animal kingdom. And along with that comes an innate animal vitality. We are neglecting it to our collective detriment.
By Gary Anderson
It was business as usual on Friday as David Steiner apparently has agreed to provide Bloomberg with the waiver he needs to appoint Cathleen Black as the new chancellor of education for New York City.
Cathleen Black is as embarrassingly ignorant of education as sure-to-be presidential candidate Sarah Palin is of national and geopolitical issues. Steiner, though should know better.
By Tom Raum
WASHINGTON — Newly empowered Republicans say President Barack Obama would subject as much as half the nation's small business income to job-withering tax increases. Obama and his Democratic allies argue that allowing taxes to rise on the wealthiest Americans would affect only a handful of small business owners.
Talking Points Memo
Jillian Rayfield
Bryan Fischer defended the American Family Association against the Southern Poverty Law Center's "hate group" designation , arguing that "what the SPLC calls 'myths' about homosexuality turn out to be what neutral observers call 'truths' about homosexuality."
The SPLC added the AFA to its list of hate groups last week, arguing that in recent years, the AFA "has seemed to specialize in 'combating the homosexual agenda.
Eric Lach
In the wake of a number of gay students' suicides this fall, and a national conversation about bullying, Exodus International, a group dedicated to "freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ," announced that it would no longer sponsor The Day of Truth. An annual event that encourages students to "counter the promotion of homosexual behavior," The Day of Truth has been organized as a counter-event to the much larger, Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network-sponsored Day of Silence held every April.
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