Need To Read, August 21, 2009

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Right now is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we still need to raise upwards of 400,000 by June 30 to give it everything we can. Please help:

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Must-reads from around the web:

US General says most of the detainees at Bagram should be released.

About that secret Blackwater assassination program…

Sarah Palin, Facebook queen.

Tom “we don’t do politics” Ridge admits he was pressured to raise the DHS color-coded alert in advance of the 2004 election.

Health care town halls and the LaRouchies.

More fun with interactive maps: this one plots stimulus spending.

Ensign: At least my affair wasn’t as bad as Bill Clinton’s affair.

Best Twitter feed ever.

David Corn, Mother Jones‘ DC bureau chief, is on twitter, and so are my colleagues Daniel Schulman, Nick Baumann, and our editors-in-chief, Clara Jeffery and Monika Bauerlein. You can follow me here. (The magazine’s main account is @motherjones.)