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18 Nov 2009 21:11

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U.S.: Recovery.org is looking a little inflated nowadays

  • Tons of stimulus aid went to nonexistent districts, the site says. Question: Do you know where Arizona’s 86th district is? Well, (surprise!) it doesn’t exist – for the record, Arizona only has eight districts. It got a lot of stimulus money, though, according to Recovery.org. The government had a lot of explaining to do about the errors, but let’s just say they’re getting fixed. And Joe Biden was stuck trying to explain the errors on “The Daily Show” last night. (He tried really hard to downplay the bad press.) source

18 Nov 2009 20:20

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Politics: Expect a long, drawn-out process to a Senate health care vote, guys

  • We’re talking about one-sixth of the economy. This should be a very deliberative process. And it should take more than a month and a half.
  • Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah • Discussing Republicans’ desire to stretch out the process of voting on the health care beyond the end-of-year deadline Obama wants. Hatch also says it’s unlikey any Republican senator will support it, which means that Harry Reid needs to get his boys on point if he wants 60 votes. • source

18 Nov 2009 20:03

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U.S.: The Senate has a big plan for health care – but will it pass?

  • $849 billion the size, over ten years, of the biggest thing that’s getting tea partiers all riled up source

17 Nov 2009 21:10

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Politics: Senate Democrats break a filibuster over a judicial candidate

  • Now if only they can do this with the health care bill. The Democrats have a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, but you wouldn’t know it by the way that Indiana Judge David Hamilton’s nomination to a federal appeals court has languished. Eight months after he was first nominated (and four months after he cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee), a filibuster blocking a vote on Hamilton was finally broken today. We look forward to how the Democrats handle the health care bill. source

16 Nov 2009 11:08

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16 Nov 2009 11:01

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Politics: Florida Gov. Charlie Crist: A marked man for supporting Obama

At the time, this embrace – and Crist’s embrace of the Obama’s stimulus plan – seemed like a good idea. Then the tea parties began, and now Crist is in trouble. source

16 Nov 2009 10:41

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Politics: Why doesn’t Obama use Twitter? Clumsy fingers.

  • Well, first of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone.
  • President Barack Obama • Discussing at a town hall with a bunch of Chinese students in Shanghai why he doesn’t use Twitter. He goes further into a larger dialogue on free speech, though, explaining that although information flows a little too freely for his taste sometimes (a lot of criticism comes with it), he really appreciates how it “makes our democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don’t want to hear.” Nice save, bro. • source
 

15 Nov 2009 23:12

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Politics: Max Headroom: Spinning the NYC-based 9/11 terror trial

  • A spirited defense Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has her work cut out for her in defending having the 9/11 terror trial in NYC. For the most part, her points make sense, even if they annoy Rudy Giuliani.

  • A spirited defense Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has her work cut out for her in defending having the 9/11 terror trial in NYC. For the most part, her points make sense, even if they annoy Rudy Giuliani.

  • Gitmo like Disneyland? Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra perhaps misspoke when he referred to Guantanamo Bay as “a great place.” Hear that? It’s an instant soundbite for his Democratic challenger in 2010!

  • A spirited defense Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has her work cut out for her in defending having the 9/11 terror trial in NYC. For the most part, her points make sense, even if they annoy Rudy Giuliani.

  • Gitmo like Disneyland? Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra perhaps misspoke when he referred to Guantanamo Bay as “a great place.” Hear that? It’s an instant soundbite for his Democratic challenger in 2010!

  • Get yo popcorn ready! Tomorrow promises to be some awesome TV for red-meat-eating conservatives, as Lou Dobbs brings the anti-immigration train (choo choo) to “The O’Reilly Factor.” Here’s the ad.

15 Nov 2009 11:31

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Politics: McCain staffer e-mails contradict Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue”

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  • In Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue,” the former Vice Presidential candidate says she strongly supported the idea of going on SNL to refute Tina Fey’s spot-on impression of her. But that’s not what this e-mail, obtained by The Huffington Post from McCain staffers, suggests. There are other examples, but it appears “Going Rogue” is getting fact-checked by the press before it’s even out.source

14 Nov 2009 11:35

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Politics: The DMCA (and Fox News) strikes again: We’ll miss you News1News.

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  • It was perhaps the best news-related channel on YouTube. You know our weekly Max Headroom feature? The one that features all the clips from all of the talk shows? Well, it may have just suffered a pretty terrible blow. Fox decided to go after News1News, a talk-show-clips channel, and YouTube ended up straight-up removing it, despite the fact that it was, well, an amazing resource and often continued the conversations that began on Fox News. Was it political? Gawker suggests it might be – especially since many liberal bloggers used it. We understand its removal but think it’s shortsighted. Too bad, though. It was one of our faves. On the plus side, it’s back up over here. source