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Senate Dems unveil $1.1T spending bill — Senate Democrats have filed a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill that would fund the government through fiscal year 2011, according to Senate GOP sources. — The 1,924-page bill includes funding to implement the sweeping healthcare reform bill …
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Thune vs. Romney: First Skirmish of the Campaign for 2012 GOP Presidential Nomination? — ABC News' Jon Karl reports: — We may have just witnessed one of the first skirmishes of the campaign for 2012 Republican presidential nomination. — Speaking on the Senate floor …
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Reid threatens to keep Congress into next year — New spending bill totals $575.13 million per page — Forget about going quietly into the night. — Senate Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a broad agenda for an end-of-session sprint that, in other years, could be a whole year's worth of activity …
Discussion:
RedState, Pat Dollard and Weasel Zippers
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Revolt: Republicans Angry About Omnibus Spending Bill Decry ‘Total Mess’ — Republicans poring over a 1,924-page overarching spending bill proposed by Democrats to cover the rest of the fiscal year are threatening to grind the legislation to a halt, citing massive earmark spending, which …
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Democrats' budget bill: $1.1 trillion; 1,900 pages — Defying the political odds, Senate Democrats rolled out a year-end, governmentwide spending bill Tuesday that cuts more than $26 billion from President Barack Obama's 2011 requests even as it holds firm to thousands of the appropriations earmarks …
Discussion:
Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and FrumForum
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John Thune: Tax deal critics want higher taxes
Discussion:
AmSpecBlog and National Review
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Why I'm Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange — Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.
Discussion:
Hot Air, Guardian, NewsBusters.org blogs, PostPartisan, News: News blog, Michael Moore, New York Times, Mediaite, DownWithTyranny!, Sister Toldjah, Salon, The Lede, Stop the War Coalition …, Taylor Marsh, Gawker, newsfeed.time.com, Main page collection, The Atlantic Online, Left Coast Rebel, Politics Daily, Big Peace, The Stir By CafeMom, CNN, PC Magazine, The Nation, The Next Web, Firedoglake, Raw Story, The Gateway Pundit, PopEater, Shakesville, JammieWearingFool, The Other McCain, Threat Level, The Powers That Be, The Daily Caller, National Review, Gothamist, iOwnTheWorld.com and Wonkette, more at Techmeme »
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Photos: Here's The Manor Where Julian Assange Will Be Staying
Discussion:
Little Green Footballs, NewsBusters.org blogs and Boing Boing
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Liberals giving up tax fight — A House liberal who has led the effort to stop President Obama's tax compromise with the GOP says efforts to change the package are futile. — Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who just a week ago circulated a letter signed by 54 Democrats urging opposition to the deal, now says the “die is cast.”
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, Right Turn, Online NewsHour, Guardian, National Review, The Other McCain and msnbc.com
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House Democrats urge longer extension of unemployment benefits
Discussion:
The Politico and The Democratic Daily
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Marine Commandant Suggests Presence Of Gays Would Endanger The Lives Of Straight Marines — Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos — who has opposed repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell — suggested that if Congress lifts the ban against open service and allows gays …
Discussion:
Wonk Room, 67.59.172.92, Pam's House Blend, AMERICAblog Gay and Dennis the Peasant
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Marine commandant concluded DADT repeal may risk lives
Discussion:
Hot Air, Towleroad News #gay, American Power and Swampland
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Marine general suggests repeal of 'don't ask' could result in casualties
Discussion:
Washington Blade, Raw Story and PostPartisan
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Holbrooke's Last Words On Afghanistan Clarified As Being Part Of A Humorous Exchange By Obama Administration — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? … WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Tuesday that the reported last words of veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke, its point person on Afghanistan …
Discussion:
The Daily Caller, FrumForum, The American Independent, Washington Post and Checkpoint Washington
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Holbrooke's last words — The Washington Post first reported …
Discussion:
The Huffington Post, Gawker, the brain police, Swampland, Mudville Gazette, msnbc.com and New Atlanticist
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ROGER SIMON GIVES A STRAW MAN QUITE A LASHING.... The headline on Roger Simon's latest Politico column — “Class warfare is not the ticket” — was the first hint of trouble. As is probably clear to everyone, when the media establishment refers to “class warfare,” they're invariably complaining …
Discussion:
The New Republic and Balloon Juice
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Class warfare is not the ticket
Discussion:
Firedoglake and Democratic Strategist
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WHITE HOUSE APPOINTS JON BON JOVI — Actor. Poet. Musician. Performer. Rocker Jon Bon Jovi can now add one more title to his impressive resume: White House appointee. — On Tuesday, President Barack Obama signed an executive order establishing the White House Council for Community Solutions …
Discussion:
Michelle Malkin
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Amazing: WaPo Fails to Publish Own Poll on ObamaCare's Lowest Popularity Ever — A new ABC-Washington Post poll found ObamaCare sunk to its lowest popularity yet: 52 percent opposed, and only 43 percent in favor. ABC mentioned the poll without fanfare at the end of a Jake Tapper report …
Discussion:
Behind the Numbers
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The Inequality That Matters — Does growing wealth and income inequality in the United States presage the downfall of the American republic? Will we evolve into a new Gilded Age plutocracy, irrevocably split between the competing interests of rich and poor?
Discussion:
Economix, Ross Douthat, Democracy in America, Ezra Klein, Free exchange, The Glittering Eye, Marginal Revolution, JustOneMinute and EconLog
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Actress Thora Birch Fired From ‘Dracula’ — The producers of the Off Broadway revival of “Dracula” fired their star actress Thora Birch on Friday, four days before the play's first performance, the production's director and Ms. Birch said in interviews on Monday.
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Amateur Hour: VA Judge Makes Elementary Error In Health Care Ruling — The Virginia federal district court judge who ruled yesterday that the individual mandate in the health care bill is unconstitutional is catching a lot of flack — and not just for having a financial interest in an anti-health care reform consulting firm.
Discussion:
Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Mother Jones, News Desk, American Prospect, TPMMuckraker, The Volokh Conspiracy, Law Blog, Concurring Opinions, New York Times, Patterico's Pontifications, ACS Blog, Washington Monthly, Daily Kos, Hullabaloo, Lawyers, Guns & Money, The New Republic and Blue Virginia
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Our World: The feminist deception — Nowhere is fraud at heart of feminist movement more apparent than in silence of inhumane treatment of women who live under Islamic law. — Talkbacks (38) - Opinion — Facebook — Twitter — Making the rounds on YouTube these days is a film …
Discussion:
NewsReal Blog and The Jawa Report
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Dan Choi Hospitalized; A Discussion About Our Community's Multi-Faceted Sacrifices — NOTE FROM PAM: Today brought news to our inbox that Autumn and I wanted to share with Blend readers in what we feel is an appropriate context. We learned that Dan Choi, who sacrificed his privacy …
Discussion:
Gawker and Joe. My. God.
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Air Force Blocks Sites With Leaked Cables — The U.S. Air Force is blocking its personnel from using work computers to view the websites of the New York Times and other major publications that have posted secret material obtained by WikiLeaks, people familiar with the matter say.
Discussion:
Mediaite, Gawker, Danger Room, Gizmodo, Guardian, Raw Story, TPMMuckraker and Foreign Policy, more at Mediagazer »
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Most Republican 2012ers Back the Tax Deal — Like I wrote in my piece on yesterday's tax vote, the failure of liberal and conservative groups to push their legislators to vote against it was really extraordinary. After slow-to-activate opposition campaign from* the Club for Growth …
Discussion:
The American Independent and The New Republic
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Ben Franklin's Nation — After you read this column, go to YouTube and search “Hans Rosling and 200 countries.” You'll see a Swedish professor describe the growth of global wealth and well-being over the past 200 years. — He presents an animated time-lapse chart.
Discussion:
Newshoggers.com
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GOP donors: We'll leave if Steele stays — Some of the Republican Party's most prominent donors reacted Tuesday with shock — and then fury — to Michael Steele's decision to seek re-election, bluntly warning that they would not raise money for the party if the controversial chairman wins another term.
Discussion:
The Gateway Pundit
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Obama's Judges Blocked At Historic Rate — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? … As the first congressional session of Obama's presidency draws to a close, what began as a slow process of confirmation has ballooned into a full-blown judicial crisis. The Senate has overseen the slowest pace …
Discussion:
The New Republic, ACS Blog, The Daily Dish, Main page collection, Washington Monthly, Hullabaloo and Associated Press
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The Top 50 Gawker Media Passwords — Readers of Gizmodo, Lifehacker and other Gawker Media sites may be among the savviest on the Web, but the most common password for logging into those sites is embarrassingly easy to guess: “123456.” So is the runner-up: “password.”
Discussion:
BlogPost, PC Magazine, The Atlantic Online, New York Times, Felix Salmon and The Moderate Voice, more at Mediagazer »
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Assange's Extremist Employees — Why is WikiLeaks employing a well-known Holocaust denier and his disgraced son? — Last week, I wrote that the widely-linked article positing that the CIA was behind a Swedish woman's accusation of rape against Julian Assange was authored by a Russian-born …
Discussion:
Harry's Place, Weasel Zippers, Hit & Run and The Local
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Carter: Biggest failure was '80 loss — Former President Jimmy Carter says his biggest failure during his term in the White House was that he didn't get to spend another four years there. — “I guess my biggest failure was not getting reelected,” he said in an interview with Big Think, referring to the 1980 presidential election.
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers and Winds of Change.NET
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Shuttle driver is charged in hit-and-run crash near Dulles — The driver of a speeding SuperShuttle van left a trail of damaged vehicles as he fled at least six hit-and-run crashes along Interstate 66 and the Dulles Access Road on Monday morning, police said.
Discussion:
Jihad Watch, Weasel Zippers and Atlas Shrugs