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Gulf Spill May Far Exceed Official Estimates … Watch the video of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill — This graphic requires version 9 or higher of the Adobe Flash Player. Get the latest Flash Player. — In this handout from BP, the main oil leak at the end of the riser pipe is seen underwater in the Gulf of Mexico.
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U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits — WASHINGTON — The federal Minerals Management Service gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species …
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Size of Oil Spill in Gulf Underestimated, Scientists Say — Two weeks ago, the government put out a round estimate of the size of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico: 5,000 barrels a day. Repeated endlessly in news reports, it has become conventional wisdom.

Obama rips executives, calls oil spill hearing a ‘ridiculous spectacle’ — President Barack Obama excoriated the companies involved in the Gulf oil spill Friday for failing to take responsibility. — In remarks from the Rose Garden after a meeting with cabinet officials about the ongoing spill …

If efforts fail to cap the leaking Deepwater Horizon wellhead …
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Mother Jones

BREAKING: We Have Elena Kagan's College Thesis — This proves Elena Kagan is an open and avowed socialist. The woman declares that socialists must stick together instead of fracture in order to advance a socialist agenda, which Kagan advocates. 1 — You can see for yourself right here (PDF).
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Judging Elena Kagan — This article appeared in the May 31, 2010 edition of The Nation. — Recommended by 1 — In what is by now an oft-quoted snippet from one of her law review articles, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan castigated the confirmation hearings of Justices Souter, Kennedy …

How I know Kagan isn't anti-military — The nomination of an anti-military leftist to the Supreme Court would make for a riveting story. But in the case of Elena Kagan, it's just not true. — When Kagan became dean of Harvard Law School in 2003, Harvard, like virtually every other law school …
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Kagan Scrutinized for Hiring Record at Harvard
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Tea party: Dark side of conservatism — Tea partiers proudly proclaim themselves conservatives. And rightly so. — Tea party protesters repeat the conservative catchwords of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, who built their careers fighting the “creeping socialism” of civil rights legislation, Social Security and Medicare.
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Media Demands, ‘Take Us To Your Leader, Sarah Palin!’ — Is Sarah Palin the leader of the Tea Party Movement? This is asked as a “gotcha” question by the liberal mainstream media of every spokesperson of the Tea Party Movement. The liberal mainstream media is so far out of touch …

The New Normal on Abortion: Americans More “Pro-Life” — For second year straight, “pro-life” and “pro-choice” closely matched — PRINCETON, NJ — The conservative shift in Americans' views on abortion that Gallup first recorded a year ago has carried over into 2010.
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Republican: Holder 'doesn't deserve to be attorney general' — A key House Republican on Friday said that Attorney General Eric Holder “doesn't deserve” to keep his job because of his handling of the failed Times Square bombing attempt. — House Homeland Security Committee ranking Republican Pete King …
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New Jersey Gov. goes off on reporter — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) had no patience for a reporter who questioned his “confrontational” tone. — At a press conference Thursday, Christie responded, “You know, Tom, you must be the thinnest-skinned guy in America …
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Yes, Even Orrin — Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah, has served in the upper chamber for 34 years. But he's up for reelection in 2012, and with voters eagerly tossing out incumbents, his “safe seat” may be anything but. “He's toast,” says Utah GOP delegate Saima Leon to Politico.
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Wall Street bigs $kip O's glitzy Apple gala — By JENNIFER FERMINO in NY and GEOFF EARLE and CHARLES HURT in DC — Wall Street bigs snubbed President Obama last night at a big-bucks campaign fund-raiser at The St. Regis hotel in Midtown. — The gala — where tickets went for as much as $50,000 …
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The good old days of low-information advertising — One of James Fallows's readers is skeptical about the long-term economics of online advertising: … What always interests me about this observation is the implication that offline advertising is similarly worthless.
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The Health Care Reform Already Costs More than We Thought it Would — There's been a spate of bad news recently about the health care bill. — Henry Waxman cancelled his War on Accounting, not because there was a sudden breakout of common sense on Capitol Hill, but because his committee's …

Book: Rahm “begged” Obama for days not to pursue ambitious health reform — Rahm Emanuel spent nearly a week in the summer of 2009 aggressively trying to talk Obama out of moving foward with an ambitious version of health care reform, and by his own admission “begged” him not to do it, a book out next week reports.

Charlie Crist unleashed: A wide-ranging interview with the newly independent one — ST. PETERSBURG — Something peculiar is going on with Charlie Crist. — He's on the cusp of losing public office, his lifelong party is attacking him mercilessly, and some of his closest friends are yanking …

Exclusive: McChrystal Says Despite Progress in Afghanistan, ‘Nobody is Winning’ — JEFFREY BROWN: I sat down with General Stanley McChrystal at the Pentagon this afternoon. — General McChrystal, welcome. — GENERAL STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL, U.S. commander in Afghanistan: Thank you.

The GOP's harsh immigration stance will cost it — Has the Republican Party become, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently charged, the “anti-immigrant party”? — The accusation is overbroad. Republicans (and others) who are offended by chaos at the southern border …

We're Not Greece — It's an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the crisis in Greece is making some people — people who opposed health care reform and are itching for an excuse to dismantle Social Security — very, very happy. Everywhere you look there are editorials and commentaries …

Glimmers of Hope — If you're elected president or prime minister in pretty much any country in the developed world today, you're faced with the same set of challenges: to reduce national deficits without choking off a fragile recovery; to trim the welfare state and raise taxes while still funding …