Pat Dollard

The Hill: Conservatives aligned with the Tea Party ramped up pressure Monday on Republicans to vote down the tax deal before Congress.

Kate Gosselin and Sarah Palin joining forces on TLC gave Alaska a boost to 3.1 million viewers. That’s only up 11% from last week, though, a pretty mild gain considering the pre-air publicity and Gosselin’s normal star power on the network.

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — The New York Jets assistant coach who tripped a Miami Dolphins player during a game has been suspended by the team without pay for the rest of the season, including the playoffs, and fined an additional $25,000. Sal Alosi, the Jets’ strength and conditioning coach, will begin serving his suspension [...]

ABC News: Richard Holbrooke, a forceful presence in American diplomacy for more than 45 years, died tonight in Washington, D.C. He was 69. His death, after emergency surgery Friday for a torn aorta, was confirmed by sources to ABC News White House Correspondent Jake Tapper. Holbrooke, who served in the Obama administration as the U.S. [...]

Washington, D.C. (AP) – A controversial bill to renew tax cuts for all Americans cleared a crucial, procedural hurdle in the Senate Monday, setting the stage for a vote on final passage later this week. The vote was 83 to 15. Senate rules require at least 60 votes to defeat a filibuster and advance the [...]

Washington Times: If it was “morning in America” for President Ronald Reagan, a new commemorative postage stamp due in February to mark “the Gipper’s” birth centennial will forever view the sunrise. The new commemorative stamp, whose design was unveiled Monday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., always will be valid for [...]

The Express: AS Piers Morgan gets set to take over Larry King’s former chatshow slot he tells us one guest he won’t be angling for is Madonna, whom he’s “banned from the show”. He was joined by a host of stars and clutch of media big hitters at London’s Mandarin Oriental hotel to celebrate his [...]

New York Post: His blood is on his father’s hands. Ruth Madoff is blaming her jailed-crook husband, Bernie, for the grisly suicide of their eldest son, Mark, biographer Jerry Oppenheimer told The Post yesterday. The distraught mother believes Mark “would not have died if it weren’t for what [Bernie] had done,” the author of “Madoff [...]

Washington Times: When Congress was writing the health-care bill, lawmakers insisted the individual mandate that consumers buy insurance was backed up by a penalty, not a tax. On Monday, that decision came back to bite them. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, who in a 42-page ruling found key parts of the health-care law unconstitutional, [...]

Government knows best… Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles County Chief Executive William T. Fujioka has removed Trish Ploehn as director of the Department of Children and Family Services, according to his spokesman. Ploehn will be transferred to a new position in Fujioka’s office handling “administrative work that is unrelated to child welfare,” said Ryan Alsop, [...]

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) – Christine O’Donnell’s TV ad declaration “I’m not a witch” during her U.S. Senate campaign topped this year’s best quotes, according to a Yale University librarian. O’Donnell’s quote is cited by Fred Shapiro, associate librarian at Yale Law School, who released his fifth annual list of the most notable quotations of [...]