Democrats concede budget fight to Republicans  —  Senate Democrats abruptly abandoned an omnibus budget bill for the coming year, pushing major spending decisions into the next Congress and giving Republicans immense new leverage to confront President Barack Obama priorities.

House tax vote could be delayed  —  A final House vote on President Obama's tax proposal could be delayed after Democratic leaders were forced to pull a procedural measure off the House floor Thursday.  —  The House was set to vote on the rule governing debate on the broad tax bill …

Blake Edwards, Prolific Comedy Director, Dies at 88  —  Blake Edwards, a writer and director who became a Hollywood master of screwball farces and rude comedies like “Victor/Victoria” and the “Pink Panther” movies, died Wednesday night in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 88.  —  Enlarge This Image

Visa, MasterCard Plunge as Fed Issues Rules to Cut Debit Fees  —  Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. plunged more than 10 percent in New York trading after the Federal Reserve Board proposed rules that could slash debit-card interchange fees by 90 percent.  —  The new rules, posted today by the Fed …

Government Arguing That Health Insurance Premiums Are Really Taxes?  —  The arguments on the health care mandate in Florida went forward today, with the government trying to clarify how the mandate is a tax, (though not in a way that would mean Barack Obama lied about raising taxes on people …

Where Freedom Goes to Die: The Center for Science in the Public Interest  —  I find it deeply disturbing that such a lawsuit was even contemplated in my country, even if it is likely to be thrown out on appeal: … One shudders to consider that when Patrick Henry stood up in St. John's Church and declared …

It Also Was Called The Soviet Union  —  I traveled extensively throughout the Soviet Union during the early 1980s, both with groups and on my own approved itineraries.  I also lived in Moscow, and had a chance to slip out of the ring road with Soviet friends into the countryside …

AND YET APOLOGISTS IN AMERICA WERE COMPARING HIM TO THE EARLY CHRISTIANS: Mao's Great Leap To Famine: “The worst catastrophe in China's history, and one of the worst anywhere, was the Great Famine of 1958 to 1962, and to this day the ruling Communist Party has not fully acknowledged the degree …

Olbermann Refuses To Correct Treatment Of Assange Rape Allegations On Twitter - Update  —  Update: Keith Olbermann has announced that he is suspending his Twitter account “until this frenzy is stopped.”  —  Update 2: This is serious.  He has even taken down his profile picture.

The Creepy, Lovesick Emails of Julian Assange  —  Julian Assange, the founder of the world's most notorious secret-sharing operation, has some embarrassing documents in his own past.  We've obtained a series of emails detailing his stalkery courtship of a teenager in his pre-Wikileaks days.

Meeks says minority contracts should only go to blacks  —  Mayoral challenger James Meeks scrambled Thursday to put out a political fire touched off by his suggestion that only African-Americans should be eligible for city contracts set aside for minorities and women.

100,000,000  —  Some time tonight, this site will receive its 100 millionth visit since October 2008.  It seems like an opportune moment for reflection.  —  We have told this story many times, but here it goes again: by 2002, Scott and I had been writing newspaper op-eds, magazine articles and research papers together for a decade.

First Thoughts: As bad as it gets?  —  New NBC/WSJ poll: If this is as bad as it gets for Obama, he's in good shape for 2012... If not, watch out... What's benefiting the president right now: a strong base and the fact the public finds him likeable... Palin's poor poll position …