Steele's victory  —  Michael Steele makes history as the first black chairman of the Republican National Committee, and as a rare winner — at least in part — of an outside game in what is usually an insider's contest.  He won with 91 votes, 6 more than he needed, over South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson.

Angry senator wants pay cap on Wall Street ‘idiots’  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — One day after President Obama ripped Wall Street executives for their “shameful” decision to hand out $18 billion in bonuses in 2008, Congress may finally have had enough.  —  An angry U.S. senator introduced legislation Friday …

Why Limbaugh is the new Bush  —  I've been hunting around for polling data to explain why Democrats are so eager to make Rush Limbaugh the face of the Republican Party, and lo, Mark Blumenthal finds some.  —  The numbers are pretty clear.  When this poll was taken last fall …

Nelson ‘Undecided’ On Recovery Plan: 'I Don't Even Know How Many Democrats Will Vote For It As It Stands'  —  On Wednesday, when the House voted 244 - 188 to approve the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, 11 Democrats joined with the entire Republican caucus in voting against the bill.

CHANGE FOR THE WORSE  —  WASHINGTON - Buried deep inside the massive spending orgy that Democrats jammed through the House this week lie five words that could drastically undo two decades of welfare reforms.  —  The very heart of the widely applauded Welfare Reform Act of 1996 is a cap …

GOP fights to keep Gregg in the Senate  —  Republicans in Washington and New Hampshire are mounting a full-court press to keep Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) in the Senate and out of the Obama administration, aides and senators said Friday.  —  But if he does take the commerce secretary job …

Unlike Bush's ‘Google Bomb,’ Google Quickly Defuses Obama's  —  It took four years for Google to address the “Google bomb” that was lobbed at former President Bush.  —  But it took the Internet behemoth only a few days to defuse the same attack on President Obama.

Cleaner and Faster  —  Throughout 2008, Larry Summers, the Harvard economist, built the case for a big but surgical stimulus package.  Summers warned that a “poorly provided fiscal stimulus can have worse side effects than the disease that is to be cured.”  So his proposal had three clear guidelines.

India's Empty Holbrooke Power Play  —  It may be an interesting demonstration of India's clout that New Delhi managed to strip Indian issues from Richard Holbrooke's official mandate as a special envoy to deal with Pakistan and Afghanistan.  But it's nonsense to think this reflects …

Gaza cameraman burned - literally  —  According to Palestine Today, News photographer Abdul Rahman Al-Khatib received medium-degree burns after he caught fire during coverage of the burning of Israeli and American flags in a march organized by Hamas in Gaza City this afternoon.

Iraqis construct shoe sculpture to honor Bush shoe-throwing incident.»  —  A large sculpture of one of the shoes thrown at President Bush last December by an Iraqi journalist was unveiled this week just outside an orphanage in Tikrit, Iraq — Saddam Hussein's hometown.

Time to put middle class front and center  —  For years, we had a White House that failed to put the middle class front and center in its economic policies.  —  President Obama has made it clear that is going to change.  And it's why he has asked me to lead a task force on the middle class.