Mohammed Jawad and Obama's efforts to suspend military commissions  —  (updated below - Update II)  —  This is a very good and important step — not only because of its substance, but also because it was something Obama did almost immediately, even before his first full day in office:

President Barack Obama willing to negotiate with Iran ‘without preconditions’  —  The new Obama administration is willing to talk to Iran “without preconditions” and will work towards the abolition of nuclear weapons, the White House said today.  —  The Obama foreign policy agenda that appeared …

Aboard the Bush Plane  —  Britain's Leading Historian on the Genius of Obama's Unsoaring Inaugural  —  Full Coverage: Obama Inauguration, Bush Farewell  —  Blogs and Stories  —  In a Daily Beast exclusive, a former Bush advisor files his account—and his photos—from aboard the former president's flight back to Texas.

A major Bush rule gets scrapped by Obama  —  (CNN) — It's the same Oval Office.  The same desk.  Even the same curtains.  But President Obama has already made one major change: Go through eight years of White House photos, and you won't find one of former President Bush in the Oval Office without his jacket on.

Experts say Obama should retake the oath  —  (01-21) 04:00 PST Washington - — Several constitutional lawyers said President Obama should, just to be safe, retake the oath of office that was flubbed by Chief Justice John Roberts.  —  The 35-word oath is explicitly prescribed in the Constitution …

DAILY SHOW - WHAT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BUSH & OBAMA?  (VIDEO)  —  Tonight Jon Stewart rightly pointed out that there really are no differences when it comes to philosophy about national security, and he demonstrates it with sequential video clips, comparing Barack's speech with past Bush speeches.

Obama Will Get His Blackberry  —  President Barack Obama is going to get his blackberry.  —  On Monday, a government agency that the Obama administration — but that is probably the National Security Agency — added to a standard blackberry a super-encryption package. …

Anti-porn online law dies quietly in Supreme Court  —  Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition  —  WASHINGTON - A federal law intended to restrict children's access to Internet pornography died quietly Wednesday at the Supreme Court, more than 10 years after Congress overwhelmingly approved it.

Judge Obama on Performance Alone  —  Let's not celebrate more ordinary speeches.  —  With the noon sun high over the U.S. Capitol, Barack Obama yesterday took the oath of office to become president of the United States.  On one level, it was a simple matter of political process — the symbolic transfer of power.

Wall Street Journal Receives Envelopes Containing White Powder  —  The Wall Street Journal received more than a dozen envelopes containing an unknown white powder, and New York City police and hazardous materials crews are investigating the matter, a spokesman said.

McCain Lends Hillary Clinton a Helping Hand  —  Patrick Yoest reports on Congress.  —  Sen. John McCain unexpectedly lent a hand to Sen. Hillary Clinton on the Senate floor today, calling for her quick confirmation as secretary of State without a lengthy roll-call vote.

Dutch MP faces anti-Islam charges  —  A Dutch court has ordered prosecutors to put a right-wing politician on trial for making anti-Islamic statements.  —  Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders made a controversial film last year equating Islam with violence and has likened the Koran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

My “To Don't” List for the Right  —  The only thing worse than bad winners are sore losers, and we've had enough of them for the past eight years.  So with that in mind, in the wake of today's historic inauguration, here's my Handbook For The Loyal Opposition, 2009 edition - a “To Don't List,” if you will.

“No Words That Will Be Quoted In A Hundred Years”  —  Packer on yesterday's proceedings: … Allow me: she was pretty pedestrian (but better than Aretha).  —  Mulling over the address yesterday, I felt in retrospect that the restraint and classical tropes of the speech were deliberate and wise.

Mitchell As Envoy Could Split Center … The expected appointment of a special envoy to breathe new life into Israeli-Palestinian negotiations could split the pro-Israel center while pleasing the Jewish left and outraging the right.  The schism could be particularly deep if …

Supreme Court revokes ban on Arab parties from national elections  —  Israel's Supreme court overruled on Wednesday a parliamentary panel which had decided to bar Israeli Arab parties from running in next month's parliamentary election.  —  The court issued its decision in response …

Change In the Air(waves)  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — Welcome to the YouTube White House.  —  In one of many signs of “change” in the air, President Obama has officially tweaked the name of a White House institution, the Weekly Radio Address, which has been heard on stations across the nation each Saturday for years.

Is dissent still patriotic?  —  Do all Americans truly have a yearning to fundamentally “remake” our nation?  There must be a subversive minority out there that still believes the United States — even with its imperfections and sporadic recessions — is, in context, still a wildly prosperous and free country worth preserving.

Europe's Carbon Market Collapses—Should We Worry?  —  Sometimes cap-and-trade systems for carbon emissions get misunderstood, and I think this is one of those times.  Let's review: The basic idea is that the government sets a nationwide cap on greenhouse-gas emissions and then auctions off …

Schumer's $3-4 Trillion Horror Story  —  While questioning Treasury nominee Tim Geithner at his confirmation hearing this morning, Sen. Chuck Schumer said he spent some time calling around Wall Street this weekend, and what he heard was that if the government wants to clean out all the toxic assets …

America's drinking problem  —  For obvious reasons, I'm a huge fan of Glenn Reynolds' policy suggestion for Barack Obama: … A drinking age of 21 is an embarassment to a supposedly liberty-loving nation.  If you are old enough to enlist, and old enough to vote, you are old enough to swill cheap beer in the company of your peers.

Senate Republicans To Delay Holder Confirmation Over Torture Prosecutions  —  Senate Republicans hope to delay a vote on the confirmation of Eric Holder to become attorney general in order to pressure him to say whether he will prosecute intelligence agents for torture if they were following orders …