Top Items:
Chicago Sun Times:
Reid pressured Blagojevich not to appoint Jackson Jr. to Obama's U.S. Senate seat — Days before Gov. Blagojevich was charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, top Senate Democrat Harry Reid made it clear who he didn't want in the post …
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Lynn Sweet / Chicago Sun Times:
Roland Burris tells Lynn Sweet: ‘We are the senator’ — NO CIRCUS? Says he'll try to avoid a scene when he shows up to claim seat — WASHINGTON — Roland Burris, being Roland Burris, put it to me this way Friday when we talked: “We are the senator.” — And we, that is he …
Discussion:
The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, TalkLeft, Daily Kos, TIME.com, Moonbattery, TPM Election Central and Wall Street Journal
Manu Raju / The Politico:
Coleman may lose office until election is decided — When the 111th Congress convenes on Tuesday, Norm Coleman may be out of an office, even though his Senate race remains far from settled. — Coleman's first term officially expires at noon on Saturday, and he is locked …
Laurence H. Tribe / Forbes:Blagojevich And The Constitution — The Senate doesn't have to seat Burris.
Haaretz:
Israel launches ground offensive in the Gaza Strip — Palestinian witnesses said the artillery barrage caused a large explosion in Gaza City as well as a series of blasts stitching the nearby frontier with Israel. — Channel 10 television quoted a witness as saying that Israel …
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Fox News:
Israeli Ground Forces Cross Border Into Gaza Strip — DEVELOPING: Israeli ground forces began moving across the border into the northern Gaza Strip in an escalation late Saturday night of the weeklong offensive against Hamas. — The incursion was confirmed to FOX News by Israeli defense officials …
Associated Press:
IDF begins shelling northern Gaza for 1st time since op began — For the first time since the start of Operation Cast Lead, the IDF began firing artillery shells into northern Gaza on Saturday afternoon, IDF officials said. — According to reports, the artillery units were attacking targets …
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Telegraph, Hot Air, Gateway Pundit, Agence France Presse, A Blog For All and Ynetnews
Ron Ben-Yishai / Ynetnews:
IDF artillery targets Gaza — IDF escalating attacks? For first time since Gaza op's start, IDF artillery units shell targets in Strip. Meanwhile, Air Force hunts for senior Hamas terror activists in Strip, hits dozens of targets Saturday; Hamas officer killed after car hit by aircraft
Khalid al-Ansary / Reuters:
U.S.-installed Iraqi ex-PM says Bush “utter failure” — BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Former U.S.-installed Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has denounced the policies of President George W. Bush as an “utter failure” that gave rise to the sectarian venom that ravaged his country.
Dave Rochelson / Change.gov:
American Recovery and Reinvestment — In this week's weekly address, President-elect Barack Obama lays out the challenges that face us in the new year, and his plan for taking them on. — “We need an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that not only creates jobs in the short-term …
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David Kocieniewski / New York Times:
Rangel Pushed for a Donation; Insurer Pushed for a Tax Cut — On April 21, 2008, Representative Charles B. Rangel met with officials of the American International Group, the now-troubled insurance giant, to ask for a donation to a school of public service that City College of New York was building in his honor.
Roni Caryn Rabin / New York Times:
A New Cigarette Hazard: ‘Third-Hand Smoke’ — Parents who smoke often open a window or turn on a fan to clear the air of second-hand smoke, but experts now have identified another smoking-related threat to children's health that isn't as easy to get rid of: third-hand smoke.
Discussion:
Villainous Company
Justin Lahart / Real Time Economics:
Ignoring the Oracles: You Are With the Free Markets, or Against Them — It's hard to tell what's more striking about Raghuram Rajan's 2005 presentation at the Kansas City Fed's Jackson Hole symposium — the way many of the dangers he laid out came to pass, or the way he was attacked, and then discounted.
Cynthia Dizikes / Los Angeles Times:
Khat — is it more coffee or cocaine? — ‘FLOWER OF PARADISE’: In East African countries like Somalia, khat leaves have been used as a stimulant and social tonic. But in the U.S. khat is illegal, and increased demand is leading to clashes between narcotics officers and immigrants.
Julian Sanchez / Law & Disorder:
Reinventing conservatism, one tweet at a time — Since the humbling results of the November election came in, the conservative movement has been scrambling to assess what happened—and to figure out how to prevent it from happening again. Much of this effort, in light of the Obama campaign's …
Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Senate recount proceeds as high court seeks more ballot information — A statewide review that is adding wrongly rejected absentee ballots to the Senate recount moved toward a conclusion today. Meanwhile, all were waiting for a decision by the state Supreme Court on a Coleman motion to modify the review procedure
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