Dec 16, 2014 8:56am <\/p>\n
By MICHAEL FALCONE (@michaelpfalcone) <\/p>\n
NOTABLES <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
THE ROUNDTABLE <\/p>\n
ABCs RICK KLEIN: CIA 1, Senate Democrats 0? The new ABC News\/Washington Post poll suggests that the firestorm started by the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA tactics is already settling down if it wasnt settled down from the start. The poll out Tuesday morning finds a near-majority (49 percent) convinced that the CIA did engage in torture. A larger portion of voters (59 percent) say it was justified, while 53 percent say it produced valuable information. That puts the public on the opposite side of the Senate Democrats who prepared and long pushed for the reports release, in the hopes of having the national debate the nation didnt or couldnt in the scary and secretive aftermath of 9\/11. Its not just former Vice President Dick Cheney who remembers 9\/11 as the date that changed everything, up to and including what we should or could be doing to terrorism suspects. The most startling number in the poll may be one that looks forward: Only 2 in 10 Americans say they would flatly rule out torture in future cases. <\/p>\n
ABCs SHUSHANNAH WALSHE: Hillary Clinton appeared with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday bringing attention to an initiative to help improve the tracking of data about women and girls worldwide. The project, Data2x, is a joint venture of the Clinton Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the United Nations Foundation. There was no 2016 or political talk at the event, instead Clinton stressed her longtime focus on improving the lives of women and girls around the globe, something we are sure to hear if she does make a run official. She said the data must be combed through in order to build a case strong enough to convince skeptics based on hard data and clear eyed analysis that creating opportunities for women and girls across the globe, directly supports everyones security and prosperity and therefore should be an enduring part of our diplomacy and development work. Bloomberg introduced the possible presidential candidate calling her a great Secretary of State, a great senator for New York and the billionaire even joked to the crowd: If my mother and father knew that I was on a first-name basis with Hillary Clinton, it would be a very big deal. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
WHAT WERE WATCHING <\/p>\n
LIBERTARIAN TAKEOVER: THADDEUS MCCOTTER PREDICTS A NEW WORLD ORDER FOR GOP. Former Republican presidential candidate Thaddeus McCotter is not himself a libertarian, but the former Michigan congressman predicts an approaching libertarian takeover of the Grand Old Party. At least, thats the premise of his new book, Liberty Risen: The Ultimate Triumph of Libertarian-Republicans. The reality is you want to conserve whats best but you want to go forward, you want to go forward from the industrial era to the Internet age, McCotter told ABCs RICK KLEIN Yahoo News JON WARD, hosts of Top Line in a recent interview. Government has to be reorganized for the future. Though he sees the march toward libertarianism as inevitable with the rise of the millennial generation, which he sees as forcing change within the party, he qualifies that this trend is gradual and has been going on for quite some time. http:\/\/yhoo.it\/1zlF6NW<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n View original post here:<\/p>\n What Americans Really Think About Torture<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dec 16, 2014 8:56am By MICHAEL FALCONE (@michaelpfalcone) NOTABLES THE ROUNDTABLE ABCs RICK KLEIN: CIA 1, Senate Democrats 0? The new ABC News\/Washington Post poll suggests that the firestorm started by the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA tactics is already settling down if it wasnt settled down from the start. The poll out Tuesday morning finds a near-majority (49 percent) convinced that the CIA did engage in torture. Continue reading