Dems threaten budget deal  —  The budget deal worked out by House and Senate negotiators is on the verge of unraveling over the exclusion of federal unemployment benefits, several leading Democrats warned Wednesday.  —  The lawmakers are outraged by a GOP move to add the Medicare “doc fix” …

Mother of girl involved in ‘kissing’ discipline speaks out  —  Boy was suspended for two days after second kissing incident  —  The mother of a girl involved in the case of a 6-year-old Cañon City school boy being suspended for a second violation of giving a classmate unwanted kisses …

Columnist Blasts Obama For Acting Like ‘Hormone-Ravaged Frat Boy’ At Mandela Service  —  Employing an inordinate number of pastry puns and an inexplicable knowledge of the first family's marital harmony, the New York Post's Andrea Peyser unleashed a torrent of outrage toward President Obama for …

Biden: My ancestors 'didn't all come here legally'  —  Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that some of his ancestors came to the United States illegally and said it's fruitless to compare the immigration system of the 1800s to today's.  —  “My great-great grandparents came escaping …

Megyn Kelly: Jesus and Santa were white  —  On Wednesday night Megyn Kelly declared on her Fox News show that both Santa Claus and Jesus were white.  Discussing a piece in Slate by Aisha Harris about a black versus white Santa, Kelly that “just because it makes you feel uncomfortable it doesn't mean it has to change.”

Unprecedented Austerity  —  As many people have noted, a strange thing has happened on the fiscal policy front.  Intellectually, the case for austerity has pretty much collapsed, having been reduced at this point to the Three Stooges Theory: we're supposed to consider austerity a success …

Michigan ‘Rape Insurance’ Bill Passes Into Law  —  Michigan lawmakers passed a controversial measure on Wednesday that will ban all insurance plans in the state from covering abortion unless the woman's life is in danger.  The law, which takes effect in March, will force women and employers …

Mandela and the Question of Violence … I have the misfortune of being near the end of Tony Judt's Postwar at a moment when of the great figures of our history, Nelson Mandela, has passed.  Judt's gaze is relentless.  He rejects all grand narratives, skewers Utopianism (mostly in the form of Communism) …

Lament of the Plutocrats  —  Why Wall Street is fed up with the White House—and Republicans too.  —  On a recent afternoon, executives at Goldman Sachs invited a few hundred major investors to the Conrad Hotel in lower Manhattan.  The bankers and their guests filed into a large room and turned their eyes to Hillary Clinton.

Health director who approved Obama birth certificate dies in plane crash  —  The health director who approved the release of President Obama's birth certificate has died in a plane crash, Hawaiian officials said Thursday.  —  Loretta Fuddy died after the Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft …

Mandela memorial interpreter asks forgiveness, calls himself champion  —  Johannesburg (CNN) — The sign language interpreter widely ridiculed for his performance at the Nelson Mandela memorial stands by his work.  —  Thamsanqa Jantjie said Thursday that he is a fully qualified interpreter …

White House press corps tees off on Jay Carney over access  —  A frustrated press corps sounded off Thursday against White House press secretary Jay Carney over lack of access to President Barack Obama.  —  Carney said the White House “is working” to address the concerns …

Strike Iran Now to Avert Disaster Later  —  A conventional-weapons attack is preferable to the nuclear war sure to come.  —  Not too many years ago, hardly anyone disagreed with John McCain when he first said that “the only thing worse than bombing Iran is letting Iran get the bomb.”