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Via the Miami New Times:
After six months of doing exactly nothing about a police department in disarray and a looming $40 million budget gap, Miami City Manager Tony Crapp Jr. is packing up his office this afternoon and bailing for a cushy private-sector job in Broward County.
Gee, thanks for all the hard work, Tony. Anyone out there want the toughest managerial job in local city government? 

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Offered without comment, via the AP:
Police say a man was carrying a dead weasel when he burst into a Hoquiam apartment and assaulted a man.
The victim asked, "Why are you carrying a weasel?" Police said the attacker said, "It's not a weasel, it's a martin," then punched him in the nose and fled.
The attacker was apparently looking for his girlfriend and had gone to her former boyfriend's apartment Monday night where the victim was a guest.
KXRO reports he left carcass...

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Interesting new numbers as reported by Reuters:
U.S. housing starts and permits for future home construction fell in April as an overhang of homes on the market discourages builders from taking on new projects, pointing to prolonged weakness in the housing sector.
The Commerce Department said on Tuesday housing starts dropped 10.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 523,000 units. March's starts were revised up to a 585,000-unit pace from the previously reported rate of...

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As I begin this post, Mitt Romney is giving his speech on health care designed to enable him to say "I dealt with this in my speech in Michigan, now let's change the subject to something more comfortable" during forthcoming Republican presidential debates.
Preceding the speech has been an all-out effort by Democrats who copied his plan (RomneyCare) federally and put Obama's stamp on it to defend it and make it look awesome. Here's an example-- former Hillary Clinton advisor and Center...

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Last night, Ben Smith reported the following:
When I was down in South Carolina last week, a couple of prominent Republicans waved off the possibility of Jon Huntsman's getting the nomination because, they vaguely thought, he'd supported same-sex marriage in Utah.
The truth is that while he was liberal on the issue, he was liberal in the context of very conservative Utah. That meant signing civil union legislation that stops symbolically short of the current, fast-advancing battle...

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Last week, I was kindly extended an invitation to attend a DC screening of "Khodorkovsky," a film about the wealthy Russian businessman and former owner of Yukos oil, who is currently serving time in a hard-labor prison in Siberia.

Usually, I'm not a fan of documentaries. But this is a film worth seeing if you're interested in Russian politics, democratization and/or rule of law issues (as indeed yours truly is). The film traces Mikhail Khodorkovsky's rise from chemical...

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A new Elway Poll released yesterday contains some bad news for Sen. Maria Cantwell. Just 40 percent of the 405 registered voters surveyed say she's doing an "excellent" or "good" job, while 52 percent say she's doing an "only fair" or "poor" job. Compare that to an equivalent point in 2005, just ahead of her last re-election, and it represents a significant slide: Then, 52 percent said she was doing an "excellent" or "good" job, and 38 percent said she was doing an "only fair" or "poor" job. ...

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Interesting item I missed yesterday from the Seattle Times' Jim Brunner:
It may sound like a crazy rumor, but Ohio's Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich may really be thinking about running for Congress in Washington state — possibly in the yet-to-be drawn new 10th District.
As noted by Eli Sanders at the Stranger, there is talk among high-level political sources about why Kucinich, the fiery liberal-vegan-sometimes-presidential-candidate has been spending time recently in...

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On Friday night, he told KING5 he's looking at it:
Republican Congressman and former King County Sheriff Dave Reichert tells KING 5 News he may consider running for Governor.
Republicans expect Attorney General Rob McKenna will jump into the race, but Reichert says he's keeping all his options open too.
[...]
Reichert said he's considering both a run at the Senate, taking on Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell, but also the Governor's position back here in Washington...

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