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History Professor Gingrich Falsely Claims U.S. Presidents Don't ‘Smile And Greet’ Russian Leaders — Yesterday, President Obama shook hands and briefly chatted with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, explaining in a press conference afterwards that he was trying to move towards a “more constructive” …
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Daily Kos TV (beta), Lawyers, Guns and Money, TPMDC, Talking Points Memo, Salem-News.com and Washington Monthly
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THE HANDSHAKE.... It's early Monday, and you know what that means: time for a new coordinated conservative tantrum. The freak-out over the Department of Homeland Security and domestic threats is so last week. The new fit is over President Obama shaking hands with the President of Venezuela at the Summit of the Americas.

Gingrich slams Obama over Chavez — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tore into President Barack Obama Monday for his friendly greeting of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, saying Obama is bolstering the “enemies of America.” — Gingrich appeared on a number of morning talk shows comparing Obama …


Delegates walk out on Ahmadinejad at Geneva — Article's topics: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Durban 2 — As Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the eradication of Israel in his address to the United Nations anti-racism conference which — opened its week long event in Geneva on Monday …
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Walkout at UN conference after Iran president calls Israel ‘racist’ — British delegates joined a dramatic diplomatic walkout today when President Ahmadinejad of Iran told a major UN conference against racism that the state of Israel had been founded “on the pretext of Jewish suffering” during the Second World War.

Why the Harman leaks smell to high heaven — I just posted a brief picking up this CQ Politics story by Jeff Stein, re-raising allegations that U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) attempted to intervene on behalf of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, the two former AIPAC staffers charged …
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Sources: Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC
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The Plum Line, Firedoglake, The Moderate Voice, TalkLeft, Don Surber, Emptywheel, QandO, TPMMuckraker, The Atlantic Politics Channel, Hot Air, MyDD, Talking Points Memo, Mondoweiss, Swampland, David Corn, Newshoggers.com, Booman Tribune, Swing State Project, The Washington Note, D-Day and MoJo Blog Posts

Karl Rove, Twitter Creep — Blogs and Stories — Meghan McCain says we need to take back Twitter from the creepy people—like Karl Rove, “America's Toughest Sheriff,” and the other undesirables who now follow her every Tweet. — Karl Rove follows me on Twitter. That's creepy.
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Political Machine, CNN, The Campaign Spot, The XX Factor, Political Byline, PoliGazette, NewsBusters.org, Wonkette and Raw Story


Miss California: My Sister Is A Gay Rights Activist — Pageants,LGBT,Billy Bush,Celebrities — Her opinions on same-sex marriage may have cost Miss California the Miss USA crown on Sunday night - but in an interview with Billy Bush for “The Billy Bush Show” and Access Hollywood on Monday morning …
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Miss California Sparks Furor With Gay Marriage Comments on Miss USA Telecast — Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton was crowned Miss USA on Sunday, but the big story to come out of the normally politics-free telecast was Miss California's comments regarding gay marriage.

Fiscal Responsibility — The Washington Post reports: … Just to be clear: $100 million represents .003 percent of $3.5 trillion. — To put those numbers in perspective, imagine that the head of a household with annual spending of $100,000 called everyone in the family together to deal with a $34,000 budget shortfall.
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The Times Wins 5 Pulitzer Prizes — The New York Times won five Pulitzer Prizes in journalism on Monday, the second-most in its history, for work on subjects as varied as America's wars in Asia, the sudden downfall of a political titan, art from ancient to modern, and a history-making presidential campaign.
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51% View Tea Parties Favorably, Political Class Strongly Disagrees — Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans have a favorable view of the “tea parties” held nationwide last week, including 32% who say their view of the events is Very favorable. — Thirty-three percent (33%) …


Has gay marriage reached a tipping point in New York? Poll shows majority approve of it — ALBANY - A majority of New Yorkers support gay marriage and Gov. Paterson's attempt to legalize it, a new poll shows. — A Siena College poll released Monday found that by 53% to 39% margin …
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The Daily Dish
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Gibbs confirms that torture memo authors are ‘not being held accountable.’ — Yesterday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said that when it came to the Bush administration's illegal torture program, “those who devised the policies...should not be prosecuted.”
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Axelrod: Anti-Americanism now ‘not cool’ — Top White House adviser David Axelrod on Monday said that President Obama's trips to Europe, Turkey and Latin America in the last three weeks have made anti-American sentiment uncool and “created a new receptivity” to U.S. interests.
Discussion:
Hot Air
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Sources: Chrysler Financial Refused Government Loan Over Limits on Executive Pay — Top officials at Chrysler Financial turned away a $750 million government loan because executives didn't want to abide by new federal limits on pay, sources familiar with the matter say.


based law center sues Homeland Security over ‘right-wing extremism’ issue — The Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center says it has filed a federal lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. — The non-profit law firm said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's …
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Napolitano: Returning vets too stupid to avoid extremists
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The Hill

Treasury Says ‘No Basis’ to Report on Bank Testing — A U.S. Treasury spokesman said there's no basis to a blog posting that buffeted financial stocks by saying that most of the nation's largest banks are insolvent. — Andrew Williams, a Treasury spokesman, dismissed the report from Hal Turner …
Discussion:
Felix Salmon


NU's Katz reminds Emanuel he's Jewish — Article's topics: Ya'acov Katz, Rahm Emanuel, King Ahashverosh — National Union chairman Ya'acov “Ketzele” Katz sent a letter to White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel last week admonishing him not to forget his Jewish and Israeli origins.


FAQs For Employees About COBRA Continuation Health Coverage — Printer Friendly Version Subscribe To This Page — Q1: What is COBRA continuation health coverage? — Congress passed the landmark Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) health benefit provisions in 1986.
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice


The Wail of the 1% — As the privileged class loses its privileges, a collective moan rises from the canyons of Wall Street. — Shortly after 1:30 on the afternoon of March 18, two dozen traders in AIG's financial-products division stepped away from their Bloomberg terminals …


Pundits Whitewash Torture — On the Sunday morning news programs, several pundits went out of their way to either endorse waterboarding and other techniques endorsed in the torture memos - or to dismiss the idea of holding their authors responsible. — On ABC News' “This Week With George Stephanopoulos …

SPIN METER: Saving federal money the easy way — SPIN METER: Obama's latest budget-tightening effort hardly makes a dime's worth of difference — WASHINGTON (AP) — Cut a latte or two out of your annual budget and you've just done as much belt-tightening as President Barack Obama asked of his Cabinet on Monday.

Back to the future: Obama's foreign policy — Senior Political Analyst — As Barack Obama finishes up his second major foreign tour, a pattern in his approach to foreign policy seems to be emerging. On pressing matters of obvious importance, he has made responsible decisions …
Discussion:
Hot Air

A U.S. Attorney's Story — Dan Bogden, who served as the United States attorney from Nevada until he was abruptly dismissed from his job during the infamous wave of firings of U.S. attorneys in late 2006, hoped to someday learn why he was let go. By most accounts, Bogden had served …


The Michele Bachmann Reality Show — The conventional wisdom among kids these days it that CSPAN — the network that provides non-stop coverage of Congressional activities - is boring. Given a choice between American Idol and House Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Markup, Part 3, they'd rather watch some hipster singing “Mad World.”

Big Gov't. Still Viewed as Greater Threat Than Big Business — Democrats' views have changed, now view big business as greater threat — PRINCETON, NJ — Gallup's recent update of its long-standing trend question on whether big business, big labor, or big government will be the biggest threat …