“Massachusetts, United States” on The Daily Caller

The late Sen. Ted Kennedy arranged to “rent” a brothel for a night while on a visit to Chile and other Latin American countries decades ago, according to a 1961 State Department memo obtained and published by the watchdog group Judicial Watch. (more)

I think it is finally time to take that trip to Egypt I have been putting off. Chaos. Discontent. Violence in the streets. Witnesses say as many as 10,000 prisoners have escaped amidst the unrest. In Egypt, they call it Cairo. In America, we call it New Jersey. (more)

1.) America bids adieu to ‘Meltdown’ with Keith Olbermann — On Friday, January 21, Anno Domini 2011, Keith Olbermann left MSNBC. Since then, the same people who accused Sarah Palin of controlling Jared Loughner’s mind have circulated the theory that the merger of NBC and Comcast led to Keith’s departure. The New York Times, a right-wing agitprop machine, has reported otherwise: “Underlying the decision, which one executive involved said was not a termination but a ‘negotiated separation,’ were years of behind-the-scenes tension, conflicts and near terminations.” For instance, in addition to working pro bono for the Democratic Party, donating money to candidates on the same day he had them on his show, engaging in–and giving voice to–blatant misogyny, treating his staffers with the disdain and disrespect due none but the most hardened of convicted sex offenders…Keith often just didn’t bother doing anything. “Some days,” reports the NYT, “Mr. Olbermann threatened not to come to work at all and a substitute anchor had to be notified to be on standby.” Incidentally, even liberals are happy with his ouster. Read what conservatives have to say here. (more)

1.) Desperate Dems attempt to rebrand the Obamacare repeal effort — House Republicans politely declined to remove the word “killing” from the “Repealing the Job Killing Health Health Care Law Act,” so Democrats decided to come up with a phrase of their own. “The Patient’s Rights Repeal Act” is what they settled on. Incidentally, the GOP’s name is pretty accurate: In June, the Boston Globe reported that “a 2.3 percent excise tax on companies that supply medical devices like heart defibrillators and surgical tools to hospitals, health centers and ambulance services will cost medical device manufacturers an estimated $20 billion in new taxes over the next decade. And they say that will force them to lay off workers and curb the research and development of new medical tools.” A report released by Senators Coburn and Barasso in October found that the outlook was equally bad in other industries. Meanwhile, “patient’s rights” is pure hogwash–as any depressed owner of a now useless health savings account will tell you. (more)

Up and down the East Coast, armies of emergency workers with plows and salt spreaders hit the streets this morning, as the snowstorm that caused mayhem in the South moved into the region and dumped more than a foot in some areas overnight. (more)

Recently, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and former Bush speechwriter David Frum exchanged blog posts over Governor Mitt Romney’s sincerity and commitment to the positions he takes on the issues (in full disclosure, I was a policy advisor to Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign). Specifically, Douthat writes: (more)

Can lean times lead to wider waistlines? It appears so. If you are finding it harder to keep off the weight recently, it’s not just you or holiday parties that are to blame. The recession and its aftermath are making you fatter. (more)

1.) It’s official: Everybody hates Genachowski’s plan to regulate the Internet — And yes, we do mean everybody: The lefty nutters at Free Press, former comic Al Franken, Republican FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, and now, a group of Senate Republicans. The beef from the left–Franken, Free Press, and the supposed two million Americans who accidentally signed petitions thinking they were entering a contest for free Krispy Kreme–is that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed framework does not do enough to control the Internet. For instance, liberals are unhappy that cable companies would still have incentives under Genachowski’s policy to invest in creating faster, stronger, and better services, access to which could be priced at a higher rate than existing Internet services. Meanwhile, Republicans and McDowell are concerned about what the regulations would do–namely, establish “an unjustified and unnecessary expansion of government control over private enterprise.” In the middle of it all is Genachowski, a bureaucrat with the heart of a Marxist and the vertebral integrity of a plane-crash survivor. The FCC votes on Dec. 21. Don’t miss it. (more)

Former Governor Mitt Romney (R–Mass.) is anticipated to be a top Republican presidential contender in 2012. However, RomneyCare seems to be an increasingly sharp thorn in his side, and could even prevent him from being the Republican nominee. As the governor gears up for campaigning he should be prepared to address the inevitable criticism of RomneyCare from the Right by articulating federalism, acknowledging his reform’s shortcomings, and supporting repeal of ObamaCare. Doing so could transform him from a grudgingly-supported candidate to a confidently-supported and formidable one. (more)

After the 2010 midterms, you could almost hear conservative pundits dismissing California as the land of fruits, nuts and irrelevancy. They couldn’t be further from the truth. Even though California doggedly stayed left while nearly every other state veered right, it still remains the supercharged engine for America’s progressive movement. If anything, the midterms just stomped down its accelerator. (more)

Imagine what the Jets can do when they start playing with some urgency early in games. (more)

Andrew Davis, [the ex-governor's] adviser, saw the Palins off, and I met him for coffee later that morning in Midtown Manhattan. Davis is a personable and quick-witted 33-year-old Massachusetts native who was a deputy campaign manager for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in 2004 and later an opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee before working with Palin at the close of the 2008 campaign. He’s nonetheless low-profile in the extreme, like all of Palin’s senior associates. (The New York Times Magazine’s photo editors had been trying to find an image of Davis; he assured me that they would not succeed.) Davis and his colleagues recognize that the issue of trust informs Sarah Palin’s every dealing with the world beyond Wasilla since her circular-firing-squad experience at the close of the 2008 presidential campaign. Her inner circle shuns the media and would speak to me only after Palin authorized it, a process that took months. They are content to labor in a world without hierarchy or even job descriptions — “None of us has titles,” Davis said — and where the adhesive is a personal devotion to Palin rather than the furtherance of her political career. (more)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry suggested Monday that Mitt Romney may have a hard time attracting Republican support if the former Massachusetts governor runs for president in 2012. (more)

It took more than $2 million, but Massachusetts consumers got it: cheaper beer. (more)

Indiana Senator Evan Bayh said Monday that Democrats should be prepared to lose 60 seats in the House on Tuesday, and he criticized his own party for hurting itself after disregarding an early warning from voters. (more)

With the election just a week away, Democrats lead in two of the state’s most closely watched congressional races but are battling to hold on amid far greater enthusiasm among Republican voters, according to new Boston Globe polls. (more)

For Barney Steverman, the 2010 election comes down to two words: No incumbents. (more)

Virginia’s fiery attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, who argued against the constitutionality of the health care law in federal court this week, has a new line: President Obama is worse than King George III, the English king in power when Americans declared independence in 1776. (more)

Blog site Fleming and Hayes offers the details: (more)

Democratic strategists acknowledged they are abandoning a dozen House seats the party now holds, as they try to salvage their majority in the chamber by shoring up candidates with better chances. (more)