High Premiums in Senate Democrats' Health Plan  —  WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats have provided few details about their latest health care proposal, but this much seems clear: Anyone who wants to buy the same health benefits as members of Congress, or to buy coverage through Medicare …

Snubbed Norwegians replace absent Obama at event with ... cardboard cutout; Update: Photo added  —  Wait 'til you hear what the event was. … Presumably this means they stuck a cardboard cutout next to the entrance, but I've been cracking myself up imagining that they put it in a seat …

Sarah Palin plans to be key player in 2010  —  Everyone should be unsuccessful so successfully: From a losing vice presidential candidacy, Sarah Palin has bounced back as a best-selling author with plans to be a major player in next year's elections.  —  “It has been spectacular,” …

Baucus gave girlfriend $14K raise  —  Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, gave a nearly $14,000 pay raise to a female staffer in 2008, at the time he was becoming romantically involved with her, and later that year took her on a taxpayer-funded trip …

Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret Raids by the C.I.A.  —  WASHINGTON — Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.'s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan …

For feds, more get 6-figure salaries  —  The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.  —  Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during …

Jenny Sanford: ‘I am now filing for divorce’  —  S.C. First Lady Jenny Sanford issued a statement this morning saying that she is filing for divorce from embattled Gov. Mark Sanford, who disclosed this summer that he had had an extramarital affair with a woman from Argentina.  —  Jenny Sanford's statement says:

The new socialism  —  In the 1970s and early '80s, having seized control of the U.N. apparatus (by power of numbers), Third World countries decided to cash in.  OPEC was pulling off the greatest wealth transfer from rich to poor in history.  Why not them?  So in grand U.N. declarations …

Unemployment plan would change rules on bank bailouts  —  The Obama administration plans to channel money from the government's massive financial bailout program to small businesses as part of an effort to limit the political and economic damage of high unemployment.

IPCC and the “Trick”  —  Much recent attention has been paid to the email about the “trick” and the effort to “hide the decline”.  Climate scientists have complained that this email has been taken “out of context”.  In this case, I'm not sure that it's in their interests that this email …

Bachmann: Fight health care reform ‘every day when you take your vitamins’  —  U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann urged her supporters to fight health care reform by calling Congress “every day, when you wake up in the morning and comb your hair and take your vitamins.”

Photoshop Follies of API  —  Everybody's favorite Big Oil lobby, American Petroleum Institute, distributed a pamphlet at an API forum last week that includes a delightfully diverse collection of people that apparently agree with their dirty agenda.  —  It appears to be just a typical iStock Photo image …

Are Democrats Sunk?  —  A friend of mine from Virgina forwarded an email to me today from the NRCC.  It started like this: … I laughed it off, but he wasn't having any: … Comments?  Is lefty obsession with the public option going to torpedo Dems in 2010?

CAIR Attorney Demands Ban and Seizure of all Christmas Cards sent to Rifqa Bary (Bumped)  —  In a stunning development in the ongoing legal saga of Muslim-turned-Christian convert Rifqa Bary, the parents' attorney, Omar Tarazi, filed a motion with the Franklin County courts last week moving …

Many See the VAT Option as a Cure for Deficits  —  Runaway federal deficits have thrust a politically unsavory savior into the spotlight: a nationwide tax on goods and services.  —  Members of Congress, like their constituents, are squeamish about such ideas, instead suggesting spending cuts or higher taxes on the rich.

Putting the Plodding Moralism Back In  —  Chris Mooney has a smart post on the vicious—and viciously effective—comeback campaign that's been mounted by climate change deniers.  I highly recommend it, but his claim that deniers “didn't need good science to make another sally …

House OKs $3.9 billion in earmarks in spending bill  —  Democrats note that they've cracked down on pork-barrel politics seen in Republican times, and sponsors say the projects are important to economic recovery - but critics aren't impressed.  —  Tom Schatz of Citizens …

Why is Ta-Nehisi Coates shouting an obscenity at me?  —  He writes: … The link on “F**kin' Althouse” goes to this post of mine: … My post links to Coates calling out Glenn Beck for sounding like a sexist.  It's phrased to imply that Coates probably wouldn't call out a liberal for sexism …

Bernanke's Unfinished Mission  —  Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, recently had some downbeat things to say about our economic prospects.  The economy, he warned, “confronts some formidable headwinds.”  All we can expect, he said, is “modest economic growth next year …

Failed health talks set up another working weekend for Senate  —  A final effort to avoid a weekend of votes fell apart Thursday evening when Senate Democratic and Republican leaders failed to reach agreement to consider an omnibus spending bill on Friday.  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid …