Rush Limbaugh Closes First Hour With Dead Air  —  Rush Limbaugh closed the first hour of his radio show on his flagship station, WABC, with 1:03 of dead air Monday.  —  From WABC's online feed of the final commercial break of the first hour:  —  While advertisers have fled Limbaugh's show since …

Was Soledad O'Brien Bailed Out by Producers on Critical Race Theory Definition?  —  CNN's Soledad O'Brien's venomously sarcastic interview with Breitbart.com editor-in-chief Joel Pollak culminated with her throwing out her definition of “Critical Race Theory” in the heat of her interview over the Obama/Bell Tapes released last night.

It's Always A Conspiracy: Derrick Bell Edition  —  Yesterday, the Breitbart empire stepped up to the plate, called their shot, swung, missed, hit themselves in the face with the bat, then took a triumphant trot around the bases as spectators looked on with piteous and mocking wonder.

Rush Limbaugh's Advertisers, March 8  —  At least 50 advertisers have reportedly dropped their ads from Rush Limbaugh's radio show in the wake of his misogynistic attacks on Sandra Fluke.  —  Here are his March 8 advertisers, in the order they appeared on WABC, the flagship station for Limbaugh's show.

Senate rejects GOP measure to construct Keystone pipeline, 56-42  —  The Senate has rejected a GOP plan to approve construction of the Keystone oil pipeline after President Obama made personal calls to Democrats urging them to oppose it.  —  The 56-42 vote staves of an election-year rebuke of Obama …

Mitt Romney's media charm offensive  —  BOSTON — It's the worst-kept secret of the 2012 campaign: The candidate who does the least public media-bashing — Mitt Romney — has the worst relationship of all with the press.  —  But as Romney seeks to nail down the GOP nomination and cement …

Gallup: Unemployment now up over 9%  —  The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the official unemployment report for the month of February, but we have two previews this week to use as a gauge.  First, the ADP report predicts a net growth of 216,000 jobs in the private sector …

Romney Calls Southern Primaries “An Away Game”  —  Lowering expectations for a rough stretch, he tells an Alabama radio station he hopes to pick up delegates in Birmingham — even if he can't win the state.  —  Mitt Romney admitted Thursday that he might not be the most natural fit …

How a $1,000 test could destroy the health-insurance industry  —  The New York Times reports that the cost of sequencing an individual genome will soon be less than $1,000.  That's not nothing, but given what most health care costs, it's not much.  And it means that an individual mandate — or something much like it — is inevitable.

Ron Paul's pointless Internet presidency  —  Ron Paul has about as many votes in this year's GOP primaries as he has Facebook fans - is his fierce online following that much less relevant than it appears?  —  Four years ago, the shrewdest presidential candidates used YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and a dash of Twitter.

UN women's rights panel due to culminate annual session by condemning Israel  —  Israel's envoy to UN Prosor bemoans Commission on the Status of Women ‘obsessive’ preoccupation with Palestinian issue, while ignoring women being ‘butchered, tortured, raped’ in Syria.  —  Get Haaretz on iPhone

‘Game Change’ actors dish on Palin, portrayals and politics  —  Washington (CNN) - Actress Julianne Moore, who portrays former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in the HBO movie “Game Change,” said she was surprised to learn how disorganized the McCain-Palin campaign was in 2008.

Scandal at The Washington Post: Fraud, Lobbying & Insider Trading  —  In the summer of 2010, business columnist for The Washington Post Steven Pearlstein lifted the veil on the little-known company operating procedure that involves an incestuous relationship between his own employer …

Ignorance Is Strength  —  One way in which Americans have always been exceptional has been in our support for education.  First we took the lead in universal primary education; then the “high school movement” made us the first nation to embrace widespread secondary education.

New Republic Gets an Owner Steeped in New Media  —  The newest owner of The New Republic magazine is Chris Hughes, a new-media guru who co-founded Facebook and helped to run the online organizing machine for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.  —  Mr. Hughes's purchase of a majority stake …

Kansas Abortion Bill Could Raise Taxes On Women Seeking Procedure (UPDATE) … REACT:  —  FOLLOW:  —  Planned Parenthood, Abortion, Abortion Rights, Anti-Abortion, Taxes, Video, Birth Control, Kansas Legislature, Sales Tax, Sam Brownback, Women's Health, Abortion Tax, Kansas Abortion …

Then and Now: White House won't comment on a federal contractor nondiscrimination policy, but Obama pledged his support for such a policy in 2008  —  News:  —  Despite the refusal of the White House to comment for months on whether the president supports a federal nondiscrimination policy based …

Mitt: Pay for Your Own Damn College!  —  And get off my lawn while you're at it.  —  Earlier this week, a pretty interesting and telling exchange took place at a Mitt Romney town hall meeting.  A student asked Romney what he would do to make college more affordable for students who struggle to pay for it.

Gas Prices Now A Big Factor In Presidential Election  —  MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — It might be one of the biggest issues in the upcoming presidential election.  Last night, CBS News exit polls found 77 percent of those voting in seven Super Tuesday states say rising gas prices were an important factor in their vote.