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Postal Service to Cut Saturday Mail — ABC OTUS News - US Postal Service to End Saturday Mail Delivery (ABC News) — Apparently trying an end-run around an unaccommodating Congress, the financially struggling U.S. Postal Service says it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to disburse packages six days a week.
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USPS to announce Saturday service cuts in effort to slash costs
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New York Times, The Hill, Hot Air, msnbc.com, Poynter, Scared Monkeys, Washington Monthly, americanthinker.com and Gawker, more at Mediagazer »

Postal Service plans to end Saturday mail delivery by August
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Mashable!, AllThingsD, alan.com and Post Politics

Postal Service plans to end Saturday mail delivery by August
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Crooks and Liars, Wonkblog and The Awl


Hagel Tells Lawmakers He Can't Provide Details On Speaking Engagements, Foreign Funders — “He is basically telling Senators they have no right to know if he has been unduly influenced by foreign governments or foreign agents over the last five years. What is he hiding?” GOP aide says.
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GOP senators call for delay in Hagel committee vote — Two senior GOP members of the Senate Armed Services Committee told The Cable Tuesday that they won't consent to a committee vote on Chuck Hagel's nomination to be secretary of defense until the former Nebraska senator discloses …

Rubio to deliver GOP response to Obama's State of the Union — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will deliver the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address on February 12. — Rubio's response will be delivered in both English and Spanish, according to Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) office.
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Karl Rove Is Not a Conservative
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nation.foxnews.com, The Week, Hot Air, Cold Fury and First Read


Rove's ‘No More Akins’ Group Outrages Conservatives
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Crooks and Liars, Politico, americanthinker.com, Examiner and Washington Examiner

How to beat Karl Rove at his own game
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Little Green Footballs, BREITBART.COM, The Fix, CNN, The Maddow Blog, Booman Tribune and Conservative Hideout 2.0


Floyd Corkins pleads guilty to Family Research Council shooting — (AP/ABC7) - A man accused of shooting a security guard inside the downtown Washington headquarters of a conservative Christian lobbying group pleaded guilty Wednesday in connection with the shooting.
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Jammie Wearing Fools, Weasel Zippers, Bob Owens, NewsBusters and Joe. My. God.
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US Attorneys' office links shooting at FRC, high-capacity magazines
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The PJ Tatler


With Brennan Pick, a Light on Drone Strikes' Hazards — SANA, Yemen — Late last August, a 40-year-old cleric named Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber stood up to deliver a speech denouncing Al Qaeda in a village mosque in far eastern Yemen. — It was a brave gesture by a father of seven …
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Washington Post, FAIR, BBC, Shakesville, ABCNEWS, Telegraph, Hit & Run, Wall Street Journal, Hot Air, Gawker, Pew Research Center, The Atlantic Online, Mediaite, Washington Examiner, IHT Rendezvous, DAWN.COM, Guardian, Wired, The PJ Tatler and The Hill
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GOP to offer sequester counter-plan …
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The Plum Line and Business Insider

Drone Strikes, Waterboarding, and Moral Preening
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Jack Shafer, The Fix and New Atlanticist


401Ks are a disaster: Column — Recent and near-retirees, the first major cohort of the 401(k) era, do not have nearly enough in retirement savings to even come close to maintaining their current lifestyles. — We need an across the board increase in Social Security retirement benefits of 20% or more.
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The Impolitic, Booman Tribune, Eschaton and Philly.com
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We Had To Tax The Retirement Plan In Order To Save It — Duncan (He can't be Sirius) Black, the econ degree holder formerly known as Atrios, explains in USA Today that baby boomers face a retirement crisis which can only be solved by raising both taxes and Social Security benefits. Really:


Obama to nominate head of REI for Interior secretary — By NBC's Chuck Todd and Domenico Montanaro — President Obama will nominate the head of the outdoor retail chain REI to head up the Interior Department. — The choice of CEO Sally Jewell is an unconventional one …
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New York Times
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Bill requires all Idaho kids to read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ — BOISE - Coeur d'Alene Sen. John Goedde, chairman of the Idaho Senate's Education Committee, introduced legislation Tuesday to require every Idaho high school student to read Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged” and pass a test on it to graduate from high school.
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Washington Monthly, Taegan Goddard's …, Joe. My. God., The Raw Story and Wonkette

4th Annual TV News Trust Poll — PPP's annual poll on TV news finds that there's only one source more Americans trust than distrust: PBS. 52% of voters say they trust PBS to only 29% who don't trust it. The other seven outlets we polled on are all distrusted by a plurality of voters.
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Business Insider, msnbc.com, Outside the Beltway and TheBlaze.com

CHRIS ROCK: ‘THE PRESIDENT IS OUR BOSS’... OUR ‘DAD’ — Comedian Chris Rock showed up on Capitol Hill today to support President Barack Obama's gun control proposals. Here is what he said during the morning press conference: … Apparently the comedian has flip-flopped on his previous gun control position, i.e. “bullet control” ...
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The Lonely Conservative, Twitchy, The Gateway Pundit and Politico
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Chris Rock stands up for gun control
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CNN and The Right Scoop


Fox News drops Dick Morris: Hooray — No more Fox News contributor Dick Morris. His contract to spout republic-damaging nonsense on Fox airwaves has expired, and the network isn't renewing it. — Taken together with the news that Sarah Palin will no longer be contributing …
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American Prospect, The Wrap, FishbowlDC and The Daily Caller
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Containment and Radical Islam — A realist foreign-policy vision that is neither imperialistic nor isolationist. — The following is text of a speech delivered by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) at the Heritage Foundation on February 6, 2013. — Foreign policy is uniquely an arena …
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Daily Pundit
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Here's Rand Paul's Grand Vision For U.S. Foreign Policy
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American Spectator


CNN Host Destroys Supporter Of Boy Scouts Discrimination For Equating Pedophilia With Being Gay — CNN's Soledad O'Brien challenged the conservative opposition to keeping gays scouts and leaders out of the Boy Scouts on Wednesday morning, comparing the organization's ban to past restrictions on African Americans and women.
Discussion:
The Raw Story, Good As You and Daily Kos
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Poll: Majority of voters back gay Boy Scouts
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Associated Press, msnbc.com, The Right Scoop and The Raw Story

Women's Unclean Breasts Cause Diarrhoea, Says Egypt Prime Minister Hisham Qandil — By VASUDEVAN SRIDHARAN: Subscribe to Vasudevan's RSS feed — Egypt's prime minister, Hisham Qandil - Reuters — The inability of women in rural Egypt to clean their breasts is causing a diarrhoea epidemic …
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Weasel Zippers, BuzzFeed, The Jawa Report and This ain't Hell …


Own a gun? Time to buy violence liability insurance, California Democrats say — Democratic lawmakers proposed legislation Tuesday that would require California gun owners to buy liability insurance to cover damages or injuries caused by their weapons. — Similar bills have been introduced …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, Daily Pundit, The PJ Tatler and The Truth About Guns


Ruling by House speaker deals blow to Senate redistricting — Speaker of the House William J. Howell, R-Stafford, has ruled that the surprise changes that the Senate made to redistricting legislation are out of order, dealing a blow to GOP hopes to redraw districts.

FIRST ON CNN: Panetta to recommend pay cut for military — Just days before he leaves office, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is recommending military pay be limited, effectively decreasing troop salaries next year. — Panetta will recommend to Congress that military salaries be limited to a 1% increase in 2014.


Ahmadinejad: Iran already a nuclear state, but has no intention of launching attack on Israel — In interview with Al-Ahram on eve of Islamic Summit Conference in Cairo, Iranian president also says his country opposes outside intervention in Syria. — Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad …
Discussion:
NBCNews.com, Weasel Zippers, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The PJ Tatler and Althouse