Your Breakfast Read, Served By The Confluence

Never Forget

At a Holocaust Site, Obama Calls Denial ‘Hateful

President Obama on Friday intensified his pledge to unlock the Middle East stalemate, sending an envoy next week to pursue his call for a two-state solution, as he toured a former concentration camp that he said served as a lesson to “be ever-vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time.”

‘These Sights Have Lost None of their Horror’

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D-Day

Sacrifice and the Greatest Generation

These are the young Americans who went thousands of miles and defeated the mightiest military empires ever unleashed against us

D-Day+ 65 years: Obama set to make Normandy landing

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Spygate

State Dept. Retiree Accused of Spying

A former State Department official with top-secret security clearance and his wife have been charged with spying for Cuba over the past three decades, passing information by shortwave radio and correspondence exchanged in local grocery stores, federal prosecutors said.

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Anti-Choice Terrorism

Colleagues say Tiller knew something was coming

Two weeks before Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down in his church, he called colleague Susan Hill in North Carolina.

Tiller wanted her to send pictures of activists who’d recently been threatening Hill and her staff. He said he was seeing new anti-abortion protesters outside his clinic and wondered if they were traveling around.

Paying tribute to Dr. George Tiller

For the last 20 years, Dr. George Tiller and I were close colleagues and friends, members of a too-small community of physicians who say aloud that we perform abortions. Now he is gone, and I am furious.

But I refuse to let my anger become despair: We must turn George’s terrifying end into the beginning of a new era when doctors can save lives without risking their own.

O’Reilly’s Words Have Consequences

Words have consequences — a lesson I’ve learned, and relearned, after nearly 20 years of editorial and column writing.

Which makes Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly all the more unbelievable when he holds himself harmless in creating the atmosphere that helped diminish the humanity of George Tiller, the Kansas doctor who performed late-term abortions.

O’Reilly used his show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” to demonize Tiller.

Why I Will Perform Abortions

I’m a third-year medical student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I plan to become an obstetrician-gynecologist. I dream of delivering healthy babies, working with families and supporting midwifery. But as part of my practice, I also envision providing abortions to women who need them.

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Credit When Deserved

House Dems Push Back on Obama Over Blocking Detainnee Photos

[T]he provision would block the release of any “photograph that was taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States.” The provision is sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham [R, SC] and Sen. Joe Lieberman [I, CT], and supported by President Obama.

Now liberal House Democrats are threatening to block the bill – and funding for the wars – unless the photo suppression provision is taken out

Kennedy Readies Health-Care Bill

As expected, the ailing chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and his staff have crafted comprehensive legislation that would guarantee health coverage for every American — but would require the vast majority to contribute to the cost, according to a draft of the bill obtained last night by The Washington Post. Some small businesses and low-income workers would be eligible for subsidies.
[…]
Perhaps its most controversial element is the creation of a new government-sponsored health insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.

For geeks, the here’s the entire bill.

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Economy Watch

Will Government Motors do better than General Motors?
(A debate between Daniel J. Ikenson of Cato Institute and Howard Wial of Brookings)

Jobs: Even Less Is ‘Made in America’

While job losses slowed in most sectors, manufacturing lost more jobs in May than in April. The outlook for the sector and its workers is dark

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Massacre At The Polls

Labour suffers wipeout in its worst local election results

A PM on the verge of a breakdown

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Coming Down To Earth

Is Obama Starting To Take On Water?

Time will tell whether this becomes a long term trend, or is merely a blip. But for the first time since the stimulus debate, we’re starting to get some signs that events are wearing away some of Obama’s glow.

Jeremy Scahill: “it’s time to take off the Obama t-shirts.” (The interview is must-see TV, h/t Dr BostonBoomer)

This is a man who’s in charge of the most powerful country on earth. The media in this country, we have an obligation to treat him the way we treated Bush in terms of being critical of him. And, yet, I feel like many Democrats have had their spines surgically removed these days, as have a lot of journalists.

Obama’s Flip-Flops for the Public Good

President Obama has been shifting gears, and reversing some of his policies, at a remarkable rate. But so far, he hasn’t paid much of a political price for it, a testament to his popularity and the willingness of Americans to give him a chance to get results.

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Good Luck Terry

Terry McAuliffe has been working relentlessly for the Democratic Party for more than 25 years, pro bono. He deserves none of the hatred and the smears he has encountered from a good part of the “progressive” movement, people who themselves are barely Democrats and whpo have done nothing but enrich themselves on the back of the Party. For these people, Terry is evil: He is friend with the Clintons and he was chairman of the Hillary-for-President campaign (Quelle horreur!).

Democrats’ Rainmaker Aims to Hold Virginia

One of the most prolific fund-raisers in Democrats’ history is trying to help the party hold on to its newfound power in Virginia.

Terry McAuliffe, the 52-year-old former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and longtime Clinton insider, is running for governor of Virginia, a race that is shaping up as one of the hottest — and costliest — electoral battles of 2009.

Top Democrats come to Terry McAuliffe’s aid

Virginia gubernatorial hopeful Terry McAuliffe on Friday rolled out the endorsements of Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, chairman of the nonpartisan National Governors Association.

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We Finally Understand

Why White Men Get Paid More

Despite advances in parity in recent decades, white men in America on average still get paid more than women and minorities for doing the same work, by some accounts about 20 to 25 percent more.

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Watch Out iPhone!

The Palm Pre: iPhone Killer?

Why the new smart phone may be better at luring technophobes into the market than Apple or BlackBerry.

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#8. Not Bad

America’s Top 10 Safest Cities

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