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Cheney Calls For More CIA Reports To Be Declassified — “One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort.
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Obama Urges C.I.A. Not to Be Discouraged by Memos — WASHINGTON — Pressure mounted on President Obama on Monday for more thorough investigation into harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects under the Bush administration, even as he tried to reassure the Central Intelligence Agency …
Discussion:
Times of London, Taylor Marsh, Balkinization, Angry Bear, Opinio Juris, Washington Monthly, PrairiePundit and PoliticalBase.com Blog

Lawmaker Is Said to Have Agreed to Aid Lobbyists — WASHINGTON — One of the leading House Democrats on intelligence matters was overheard on telephone calls intercepted by the National Security Agency agreeing to seek lenient treatment from the Bush administration for two pro-Israel lobbyists …
Discussion:
Philly.com


Cheney hits Obama on handshake — Former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity that President Obama's handshake with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez “was not helpful” and could lead “foes” of the U.S. to “think they're dealing with a weak president.”

Sources: Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC — Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage …
Discussion:
Informed Comment, TPMMuckraker, CREW, Capital J | JTA, At-Largely, Mondoweiss, DownWithTyranny!, David Rothkopf, Don Surber, PoliGazette, Truthdig and QandO


Cheney v. Obama on torture — Former Vice President Cheney last month formally asked the Central Intelligence Agency to de-classify top secret documents he believes show harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding helped prevent terrorist attacks against U.S. targets, according to a source familiar with the effort.
Discussion:
Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Top of the Ticket, Telegraph, The Page, RedState, The Swamp and Josh Gerstein's Blog


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.
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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 …

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.
Discussion:
Pajamas Media, Wizbang, QandO, Yahoo! News, The Strata-Sphere, PoliGazette, The Daily Dish and The Moderate Voice
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AP, Tapper Confront Obama Admin Over $100 Million — ABC's Jake Tapper questioned Gibbs why the Obama administration was making a large deal over saving $100 million in his proposed budget when the administration pooh-poohed $8 billion in an appropriations bill several weeks ago.

President Beefcake? D.C. magazine to feature shirtless Obama on cover
Discussion:
Right Pundits

Gibbs: Obama's tiny, tiny budget cut is big money where I'm from — Painfully stupid, but what else can he say? So fantastically huge is The One's budget and so staggering the deficits we're facing that it's hard to even imagine a budget cut large enough to qualify as impressive.
Discussion:
Patterico's Pontifications
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Fiscal Responsibility — The Washington Post reports:
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The New Ledger, The Natural Truth, Washington Post, The Palmetto Scoop, GayPatriot and Viking Pundit

Second Amendment extended — The Constitution's protection of an individual right to have guns for personal use restricts the powers of state and local government as much as it does those of the federal government, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled Monday. The opinion by the three-judge panel can be found here.
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Yes, California, There Is an Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Discussion:
Townhall.com

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” …

Iran's president slams Israel, sparks Western walkout, clown protest at UN conference — GENEVA (AP) — Dozens of Western diplomats walked out of a U.N. conference and a pair of rainbow-wigged protesters threw clown noses at Iran's president Monday when the hard-line leader called Israel the “most cruel and repressive racist regime.”
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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.
Discussion:
Commentary, Megan McArdle, Emptywheel, Portfolio, The Page, AMERICAblog News and The Washington Independent

Angels & Demons: It's A Thriller, Not A Crusade — William Donohue of the Catholic League is on a mission. Whether it is a “mission from God,” as the Blues Brothers would say, only God knows, but the goal of his mission is clear: to paint me and the movie I directed, Angels & Demons, as anti-Catholic.

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.

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 …
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Obama Begins Mocking GOP's National Security Attacks — An interesting, if subtle, shift in Obama's tone: He's taken to openly mocking GOP criticism of his willingness to diplomatically engage hostile foreign leaders. — You saw the new tone on display over the weekend …
Discussion:
Top of the Ticket, The White House, Political Punch, And So it Goes in Shreveport, CNN and PoliGazette


Taliban in Pakistani ex-resort: ‘Welcome, Osama!’ — MINGORA, Pakistan - Pakistan was trying to end bloodshed when it let the idyllic Swat Valley fall under Islamic law last week. Instead, it has emboldened the Taliban and prompted an invitation — however improbable — for Osama bin Laden.

Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research sues state over denial of its master's program — hhacker@dallasnews.com — The Institute for Creation Research has taken its fight to train future science teachers to the courthouse. — The Dallas-based creationist group alleges …
Discussion:
Little Green Footballs