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Fareed Zakaria's Letter to the ADL — Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. I was delighted and moved to have been chosen for it in good measure because of the high esteem in which I hold the ADL. I have always been impressed by the fact …
Discussion:
Mediaite and The Daily Politics
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ADL: If mosque-builders really wanted to promote reconcilation, they'd move — Via Steve Benen, I see that Fareed Zakaria has decided to return an award betowed on him by the Anti-Defamation League in order to protest the organization's deeply misguided opposition to the Islamic center near Ground Zero.
Discussion:
Gothamist and Washington Monthly

Zakaria Returns ADL Prize — Fareed Zakaria is a mensch: … The details of the return aside, just think about the fact that the Anti-Defamation League has traditionally been in the business of doing things like handing out first amendment awards named after Hubert Humphrey to dudes with names like “Fareed Zakaria.”

ADL Letter to Fareed Zakaria — Dear Fareed: — I received your letter today and must say I am not only saddened but stunned and somewhat speechless by your decision to return the ADL Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize, you accepted in 2005.
Discussion:
Mediaite and Media Decoder


Museum of Tolerance backer: No to WTC mosque
Discussion:
TPMMuckraker, TalkLeft, The Reality-Based Community and Think Progress

Build the Ground Zero Mosque
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Think Progress, xpostfactoid and Jihad Watch

Fareed Zakaria Returns Anti-Defamation League Award Over Ground Zero Mosque
Discussion:
The Washington Note, Political Byline and The Moderate Voice

The Mosque Controversy & Religious Freedom
Discussion:
Jihad Watch and The Moderate Voice

Reminder to critics who think a mosque is offensive to the legacy …
Discussion:
The Blotter, JustOneMinute, American Power and Alan Colmes' Liberaland


Let gays begin marrying, Schwarzenegger urges — In an extraordinary court filing, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked Friday that gay marriages be allowed to resume immediately in California after a federal ruling that the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.
Discussion:
Towleroad News #gay, Outside the Beltway, American Power, The Huffington Post and Joe. My. God.
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GOP avoids gay marriage ruling — A U.S. district court judge's ruling to overturn Proposition 8 is garnering little protest from both parties. AP — When a federal judge in California last week ruled the state's ban on gay marriage unconstitutional, several political observers braced …
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway and Hot Air

Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown urges judge to allow same-sex marriages …
Discussion:
Lez Get Real, LAist, Politics Daily and Towleroad News #gay

Appeals court limits use of GPS to track suspects — A federal appeals court ruled for the first time Friday that police cannot use a Global Positioning System device to track a person's movements for an extended time without a warrant, clearing the way for the Supreme Court to decide …
Discussion:
TalkLeft, The Volokh Conspiracy, The BLT and Hullabaloo
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Kagan to Be Sworn in as 112th Supreme Court Justice
Discussion:
The Caucus, ACS Blog and City Room

Who Inspired Lindsey Graham to Vote for Elena Kagan's Confirmation?
Discussion:
Riehl World View


Franken most foul — When there is a local angle to a national story, the local press usually has a field day with it. That hasn't proved to be the case with the story regarding Minnesota Senator Al Franken's outrageous behavior in the Senate during Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's speech opposing …
Discussion:
Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, Minneapolis Star Tribune, alicublog, Right Wing News and Wonkette


Media Matters Gives Glenn Beck's Co-Hosts The Shirley Sherrod Edited Audio Treatment (Update) — Let's end the week with some Shirley Sherrod-ing - editing a clip to make it sound like a person is saying something that is actually the complete opposite of what they're saying.
Discussion:
Michelle Malkin, Sister Toldjah and Right Wing News

RNC adopts new 2012 presidential primary schedule — KANSAS CITY, MO. — The Republican National Committee adopted a new schedule for the 2012 presidential primaries Friday, agreeing to a plan worked out in concert with Democrats and designed to delay the start of the campaign season.
Discussion:
MyDD
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Steele: Pelosi ‘in the back of the bus’
Discussion:
Talking Points Memo and TPMDC

American VIP humiliated at airport — Prof. Donna Shalala, Clinton's secretary of health, arrives in Israel in order to fight academic boycott against Israel, claims she was held at Ben-Gurion Airport just because she has Arab last name — Itamar Eichner — This is not how she imagined her visit to
Discussion:
The Washington Note, Chronicle of Higher Education, Washington Wire and Mondoweiss

Taliban Kill 10 on Aid Trip in Afghanistan — KABUL, Afghanistan — Ten members of a foreign medical team — including six Americans and three women, all doctors and technicians — were shot to death on Thursday in a remote corner of the Hindu Kush in northern Afghanistan, officials confirmed Saturday.
Discussion:
Truthdig, Scared Monkeys and THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS


Spanish police close public beach for Michelle Obama's £250,000 Spanish holiday — Michelle Obama today faced a fresh wave of attacks over her lavish break in Spain with 40 friends, which could easily cost U.S. taxpayers a staggering £50,000 a day.


Battle Looms Over Huge Costs of Public Pensions — There's a class war coming to the world of government pensions. — The haves are retirees who were once state or municipal workers. Their seemingly guaranteed and ever-escalating monthly pension benefits are breaking budgets nationwide.
Discussion:
Balloon Juice and Gawker