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Citigroup Said to Commit $10 Million for New Executive Suite — Citigroup Inc. plans to spend about $10 million on new offices for Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit and his lieutenants, after the U.S. government injected $45 billion of cash into the bank.
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House Passes Heavy Tax on Bonuses at Rescued Firms — WASHINGTON — Spurred on by a tidal wave of public anger over bonuses paid to executives of the foundering American International Group, the House voted 328 to 93 on Thursday to get back most of the money by levying a 90 percent tax on it.


House passes bill taxing AIG and other bonuses — Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition — WASHINGTON - Denouncing a “squandering of the people's money,” lawmakers voted decisively Thursday to impose a 90 percent tax on millions of dollars in employee bonuses paid …

No New Taxes — I deplore this confiscatory tax aimed at whoever Congress is mad at today. Right now it's AIG and Fannie Mae; later it will be Merrill and Citibank, and eventually it will be defense contractors, profiteering oil executives, or whomever the Congressional Dems single out as their whipping boy du jour.

GOP wary of plan to tax AIG bonuses
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Think Progress, Right Wing News, DownWithTyranny!, No More Mister Nice Blog, Washington Monthly, MSNBC, The Swamp, TPMDC and American Power

Who Doesn't Love The JournoList? — How great is the JournoList, that off-the-record electronic salon where liberal journalists and policy gurus can exchange views, and which is emphatically *not* an echo chamber? — Let's see - Matt Yglesias of JL on the AIG furor - it's a distraction:


Inside AIG-FP, Feeling the Public's Wrath — A solitary flat-screen television hangs on the back wall of the trading floor inside the headquarters of AIG Financial Products here. Wednesday afternoon, the most-talked-about employees in America huddled around it to find out just how despised they have become.
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JustOneMinute, On Deadline, Outside The Beltway, The Mahablog, AMERICAblog News, Emptywheel and Democracy in America

Schwarzenegger on Obama: ‘Beautiful’ — LOS ANGELES - “When have you ever seen a president be that out there?” — That was a mesmerized Arnold Schwarzenegger after Obama's town hall meeting. — “I've never seen that,” Schwarzenegger said to a couple reporters as he and his wife, Maria Shriver, tried to make an exit.
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CBS News
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IDF in Gaza: Killing civilians, vandalism, and lax rules of engagement — During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive.
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Gordon Brown is frustrated by ‘Psycho’ in No 10 — While not exactly a film buff, Gordon Brown was touched when Barack Obama gave him a set of 25 classic American movies - including Psycho, starring Anthony Perkins on his recent visit to Washington. — Alas, when the PM settled …

Duke Coach to Obama: Worry About the Economy, Not NCAA Picks — Reacting to news Obama picked North Carolina to win the NCAA Championship, Mike Krzyzewski says, “the economy is something that [the president] should focus on, probably more than the brackets.”
Discussion:
The Atlantic Politics Channel, NO QUARTER, TIME.com, TBogg, Political Machine, FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog and Wizbang


13 companies getting bailout money owe back taxes — Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition — WASHINGTON - At least 13 companies receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe a total of more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes, a key lawmaker said Thursday.

Audio comedy gold: Bozo the Vice President is looking out for you — The gaffetastic gift that keeps on giving. — In trying times, we can always count on Bozo the Vice President to provide some welcome comic relief. Joe Biden was The Newshour on PBS last night in full swagger …


Undersea volcano erupts near Tonga — Eruption in South Pacific not presently a threat to islanders, authorities say — NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga - Scientists sailed Thursday to inspect an undersea volcano that has been erupting for days near Tonga — shooting smoke, steam and ash thousands of feet …
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Julia Alasheyeva, Moscow — A picture has emerged apparently showing Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in his former days as a KGB officer. — The 20-year old photo depicts two world leaders - US President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev - in Moscow.

The Grievance Committee — Angry. So very, very angry. Unable to speak due to mega-anger washing over every pore and fiber of my being. Anger is in. (Hope's so ... January.) — I am extremely angry at Tim Geithner for being such a baby that he couldn't scare a bunch …
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Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Commentary, Outside The Beltway, Hullabaloo, Booman Tribune and Wall Street Journal

Rice: 'No One Was Arguing That Saddam Hussein Somehow Had Something To Do With 9/11′ — On PBS's Charlie Rose yesterday — six years after the eve of the Iraq invasion — former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice discussed the decision to invade Iraq.


Top brass disturbed by GOP stalling of Iraq ambassador — There's one as yet unremarked constituency increasingly disturbed by some Republican senators' efforts to block the confirmation of former North Korea envoy Christopher Hill to be the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq: the U.S. military.
Discussion:
Think Progress, The New Republic, democracyarsenal.org, Washington Monthly, Matthew Yglesias and Weekly Standard

Sebelius has trouble in Kansas — And it's not a twister, Auntie Em. Kathleen Sebelius left her job as governor of Kansas to take a Cabinet position as Secretary of Health and Human Services in Barack Obama's administration, but she left unfinished business behind.

US-China policy group calls for mutual respect — WASHINGTON - To relieve tensions, ease up on mistrust and develop more respect. That's a leading policy think tank's prescription for the leaders of the United States and China. — The two countries could make the world a better place …


Iranian blogger who insulted leader ‘dies in jail’ — A young Iranian blogger jailed in Tehran's notorious Evin prison for insulting the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has died, his lawyer said today. — Mohammad Ali Dadkhah said that although there is not yet …

Obama: It's like AIG has a bomb strapped to them — E-mail a friend - Print this - Letter to the Editor - Republish - - Get e-mail alerts - RSS — Maybe Iowa Senator Charles Grassley and President Obama have more in common than they think. — At least there are similarities when they discuss AIG.

Networks reluctantly shuffle for Obama speech — Networks are pulling their shows over to the side of the road to make room for the lights and sirens of president Barack Obama's latest primetime address. — Obama will take to the air next Tuesday evening on four broadcast networks and bump …

No Return to Normal — Why the economic crisis, and its solution, — are bigger than you think. — B arack Obama's presidency began in hope and goodwill, but its test will be its success or failure on the economics. Did the president and his team correctly diagnose the problem?


Bin Laden exhorts Somali militants in Web message — NAIROBI, Kenya - Osama bin Laden urged Somalis on Thursday to overthrow their new president, issuing a statement that clearly outlines al-Qaida's ambitions in a nation long feared to be a haven for the terrorist network.


Norquist Opposes AIG Tax, But Says It Doesn't Break Tax Pledge — ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports from Capitol Hill: While everyone seems to be outraged about the $165 million in bonuses awarded to AIG executives at the troubled financial products division, the plan by Democrats in the House …


Haggard, Wife to Appear on ‘Divorce Court’ Show — COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Former evangelical pastor Ted Haggard and his wife are planning another TV appearance, this time to talk about their marriage. — The two are in Los Angeles taping an appearance on the syndicated Twentieth Television show …
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Alan Colmes' Liberaland