Obama: Tax more income for Soc Sec  —  WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama said Sunday that if elected he will push to increase the amount of income that is taxed to provide monthly Social Security benefits.  —  Obama and other Democratic presidential candidates previously have signaled support for this idea.

Innocent mistakes  —  So there's a campaign on to exonerate Ronald Reagan from the charge that he deliberately made use of Nixon's Southern strategy.  When he went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1980, the town where the civil rights workers had been murdered, and declared that …

Al Qaeda fighters, ex-insurgents clash  —  18 killed in battle north of Baghdad  —  Members of an armed group of local residents passed US soldiers in Baghdad's mostly Sunni Azamiyah neighborhood.  Such residents helped US and Iraqi forces patrol the streets yesterday.  (Khalid Mohammed/associated press)

Obama and Clinton Duel for Iowa Democrats  —  In back-to-back speeches Saturday before thousands of Iowa Democrats, Senator Barack Obama pointedly suggested that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was running a "poll-driven campaign" out of fear of what Republicans might say about her in a general election.

While Pakistan Burns  —  If you think Musharraf's wrong to free jailed Taliban members while he busts dissidents, wait until you hear who's back on the loose.  —  Pakistani lawyers, human-rights activists and opposition-party members can scarcely ignore the irony of their situation …

Intel official: Expect less privacy  —  WASHINGTON - As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.  —  Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr …

Celebrating America and what makes her so great  —  Senator Zell Miller, who I quoted Friday, said it best at the 2004 Republican National Convention:  —  "Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier.

This Is Your Brain on Politics  —  This article was written by Marco Iacoboni, Joshua Freedman and Jonas Kaplan of the University of California, Los Angeles, Semel Institute for Neuroscience; Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania …

The surprising truth about Rage Boy, America's hated poster-boy of Islamic radicalism  —  Don't you hate Islamic Rage Boy?  'MoBlows', writing on the Jihad Watch website, certainly does.  —  "I just want to put my fist down his throat," he says.  The 'boy' in question rose to prominence earlier …

"Pure Islam" and Michael van der Galiën  —  Michael van der Galiën is a 23-year-old American Studies student at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in the Netherlands, and correspondent in the Netherlands for Pajamas Media.  In a post entitled "Islamic Law and Violence," …

Abdicate and Capitulate  —  It is extraordinary how President Bush has streamlined the Senate confirmation process.  As we have seen most recently with the vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as attorney general, about all that is left of "advice and consent" is the "consent" part.

White House frustrated with Brown over Iran  —  By Tim Shipman in Washington and Philip Sherwell in New York  —  The Bush administration is losing patience with Gordon Brown over Iran, with senior American diplomats frustrated by his reluctance to declare bluntly that the Islamic state must never be allowed nuclear weapons.

Official oil cleanup ramps up, frustrated volunteers turned away  —  (11-10) 16:02 PST SAN FRANCISCO —  Emergency officials more than doubled the number of ships and cleanup workers attacking the massive oil spill throughout the Bay Area - while hundreds of frustrated citizens who tried …

Presidential poll: With a year to go, Florida is up for grabs … Get ready Florida for another nail biter presidential election.  —  A new St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9 poll shows America's biggest battleground state is up for grabs by either Republicans or Democrats …