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Via the NY Times:
The European Union and South Korea took a major step Thursday toward a free trade deal aimed at generating billions of euros in new trade flows.
With the global trade talks deadlocked and amid concerns over a rise in protectionism, analysts said that the deal could send a powerful signal to other nations, including the United States, to press ahead with their own bilateral pacts.
[...]
Joseph Francois, a fellow at the Center for Economic Policy...

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See this today at HuffPo?
President Obama's senior adviser met on Wednesday with one of the three Democratic candidates running for Illinois' likely-to-be open Senate seat.
Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias stopped by the White House during a trip to Washington to discuss his prospects for winning the party's nomination. Leaving the front lawn, he said he had met with Obama's close confidant, David Axelrod, to discuss the upcoming primary, which will take place in February...

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Gay Patriot's Dan Blatt gives it:
According to the Advocate,
Shortly after President Barack Obama pledged Saturday to end “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the Administration’s highest-ranking LGBT official said the White House is speaking with certain senators about strategies for repealing the policy — specifically Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“On ‘don’t...

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Quelle surprise, it might be on the cards. Ed Morrissey writes about choice containment.
The Massachusetts adventure in health-care reform will take an entirely predictable turn in the near future, say providers within the network. The state panel intends to dictate a narrower network of providers for some insurance plans, which providers insist will result in a reduction of services to patients in hospitals and clinics. Massachusetts wants its citizens to choose second-tier hospitals...

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Brian Faughnan has the deets:
Liberals in Washington and elsewhere often assert that Republican opposition to the president's health care overhaul is motivated entirely by 'pure partisanship.' In an effort to show just how much support there is for a government-run plan, DailyKos commissioned a poll which shows that in at least one critical district, the voters strongly oppose government-run care, and support their Representative for blocking it:


QUESTION: Do you favor...

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Longtime readers will know that Republican difficulties in recent elections in the Mountain West (and specifically in MT, CO, NV, AZ, and NM) and corresponding Democratic gains in the region are a pet interest of mine and something I've written about quite a bit. So you won't be surprised to see that these headlines are grabbing my attention this morning: "It's Berry," from the subscription-only Albuquerque Journal, and "What does Berry’s victory mean for 2010?" from Heath...

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I only just came across this ad, put together by a group called "Protect Marriage Washington."
That's right folks... this ad is apparently running in the same liberal state up there in the Pacific Northwest that produced yours truly, who is frequently dubbed a "liberal" Republican, but who by Washington standards can be easily described as on the right... which should tell you something about the political and philosophical climate up there. The conservative South, it ain't...
One...

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Back in the day (OK, last year), President Obama was known for saying things like "don't tell me words don't matter" and pointing out that some couplings of "just words" were actually far more than that, bearing historical significance and carrying great weight. He was right, to a point. "I have a dream" was one such instance of words being more than "just words."
But I'm afraid that Obama's planned speech to the Human Rights Campaign dinner this coming weekend is an instance of, well,...

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That's the title of my new blog post over at Hynes Sights.  Check it out.

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The NY Times notes that "an article in an official military journal argues forcefully for repealing the 'don’t ask, don’t tell' law, which requires homosexuals in the services to keep their sexual orientation secret," calling the journal a "rare source of attack on 'Don't Ask Don't Tell.'"
I'll say. Apparently, the article was reviewed by the office of Admiral Mike Mullen (you know, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and made it through.
Is this a sign that the...

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