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Letter from President Andy Stern to SEIU members: Where do we go from here? — A little over a year ago, you stood up and showed a nation that Yes, We Can. You knocked on doors, picked up phones, wrote your friends and family and neighbors and helped ring in a resounding victory.
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Axelrod: Left ‘insane’ to sink bill — Trying to stave off a sudden fusillade from the left, White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Thursday that Howard Dean's criticisms of health-care reform are “predicated on a bunch of erroneous conclusions” and that for progressives to torpedo the legislation …


Democrat Blues Grow Deeper in New Poll — For First Time, Voters Split Over Who They Want in Control After 2010 Elections, and Obama's Approval Rating Falls Below 50% — President Obama makes a statement on health care after meeting with Senators on Tuesday.
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The Moderate Voice, Pollster.com All Content, Top of the Ticket, Taylor Marsh, Washington Examiner, The Politico, Pundit & Pundette, Connecting.the.Dots, National Review Online, Daily Kos, Commentary, msnbc.com, Real Time Economics, AmSpecBlog, The Lonely Conservative, Shot in the Dark and American Power


Sen. Sanders: 'As of this point, I'm not voting for the bill.' — Moments ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced that he is prepared to vote against the Senate health care bill in light of the recent decision to strip the public option and the Medicare buy-in provision from the legislation.
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The Plum Line, The Confluence, The Huffington Post, Left in the West, Open Left, Washington Post, Wonk Room, Indecision Forever, TPMDC, Washington Monthly, The Politico, Taegan Goddard's …, Firedoglake, MyDD, Newshoggers.com, FiveThirtyEight, Hot Air, Liberal Values, The Moderate Voice, Daily Kos and DownWithTyranny!

Health-care bill wouldn't bring real reform — If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform.
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Clive Crook, Firedoglake, Washington Monthly, Politics Daily, Weekly Standard, Democracy in America, TPM LiveWire, Power Line, Philly.com, DISSENTING JUSTICE, Think Progress, The Hill, Washington Wire, Wonk Room, The Corner on National …, Washington Times, msnbc.com, National Review Online, Commentary, The Huffington Post, CBS News, Examiner, Outside The Beltway, Hotline On Call, Brilliant at Breakfast, DownWithTyranny!, Taylor Marsh, The Huffington Post, AmSpecBlog, Liberal Values, The Note, The Plum Line, Ben Smith's Blog and Paul Krugman

Success on health reform holds risks for Democrats — President Obama needs an exit strategy. I am not referring to Afghanistan or Iraq (though there are quite a few similarities between the situation Obama is in on health-care reform and the political difficulties President George W. Bush faced on Iraq).

Sorry, Senator Kerry — Let us contemplate the badness of Joe Lieberman. — Who would have thought that this holiday season we'd be obsessed with the senator from Connecticut? Really, I was hoping it would be more about shopping for mittens on the Internet.


‘This Is Their Hajj’ — It's bad enough we have to endure …
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Transterrestrial Musings

Howard Dean, health care reform spoiler?
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Video Cafe's feed


Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones — $26 Software Is Used to Breach Key Weapons in Iraq; Iranian Backing Suspected — WASHINGTON — Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need …


Climategate goes SERIAL: now the Russians confirm that UK climate scientists manipulated data to exaggerate global warming — Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world's leaders are gathering …
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Sarah Palin's McCain Cover Up — For the first time ever, Sarah Palin used her head to make a searing political comment — a frontal attack on Sen. John McCain. — The failed Vice Presidential nominee took time off from shilling her book to vacation with her son Trig …
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Palin supports McCain ‘100 percent’ — Declaring that she “was honored and proud to run with him,” former Alaska governor Sarah Palin pushed back hard Wednesday against a report that she had disrespected Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) by blacking out his name on a sun visor she wore on vacation.
Discussion:
TMZ.com, The Note, No More Mister Nice Blog, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, msnbc.com, Top of the Ticket, TPM LiveWire, Raw Story and The Awl

20 Questions, 20 Responses — I'm happy that this debate seems to be evolving into something a little more civilized on all sides. This is my response to Markos Moulitsas (DK) at Daily Kos and Jon Walker (JW) at FireDogLake who were kind enough to respond to the 20 questions I posed earlier.
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50% Now Say Global Warming Caused by Long-Term Planetary Trends, Political Class Strongly Disagrees — Public skepticism about the officially promoted cause of global warming has reached an all-time high among Americans. — A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 50% …
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Remarks at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — Copenhagen, Denmark — SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you all for coming this morning. I arrived in Copenhagen several hours ago. I've just had a briefing on the state of the negotiations.
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US backs $100bn climate fund — Hillary Clinton pledges US support for a $100bn fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change providing their leaders sign up to a deal — Analysis: What Clinton's speech means for Copenhagen — The US moved to assert its leadership and save …
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Dramatic American intervention brings climate deal closer
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protein wisdom


Walpin-gate may snag Mrs. Obama — Skullduggery alleged in White House dismissal of inspector general — No inspector general can unearth corruption without access to his office, computer or staff. An “administrative leave” putting an IG in that position has the same effect, for all intents and purposes, as an immediate firing.
Discussion:
The Washington Independent

Palin's Favorable Up Slightly; Obama's Holds Steady — Obama (56%) more popular than Palin (44%) — PRINCETON, NJ — After the release of her much-publicized autobiography and the ensuing book tour, Sarah Palin is still viewed more unfavorably than favorably by Americans …

Freeze! Green police! — The folks at Greenpeace think it's a crime what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has done to the country's climate change policy. — So on Thursday, they deemed themselves the climate police and sent four squad cars to declare the chamber's H Street headquarters a “global warming crime scene.”
Discussion:
Politics Daily


EXCLUSIVE: Read The Documents That Prove John Edwards Is Father Of Love Child — New documents prove beyond all doubt that John Edwards is the father of his mistress's love child — a development that puts an exclamation mark to the ex presidential candidate's cheating and lying while his wife battled cancer.

The Health Bill Is Scary — Government guidelines would likely have forbidden the test I used to discover Sheila's cancer. — Printer — Friendly — I recently suggested that seniors will die sooner if Congress actually implements the Medicare cuts in the health-care bill put forward by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.