Daschle Knew of Tax Issues Over Car Use Last June  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama's choice for health secretary, Tom Daschle, was aware as early as last June that he might have to pay back taxes for the use of a car and driver provided by a private equity firm, but did not inform …

Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool  —  The role of the CIA's controversial prisoner-transfer program may expand, intelligence experts say.  —  Reporting from Washington — The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered.  Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits.

Robert E. Lee, confused  —  Obama appears tonight at the Alfalfa Dinner, a gathering of Washington's elite with Confederate roots, a fact on which the president remarked, according to excerpts from his prepared remarks:

Another temporary misunderstanding  —  Brad DeLong links to Megan McArdle saying something wrong about the effects of a temporary increase in government spending.  But he fails to note that it's not just wrong, it's 180 degrees wrong: a temporary increase in government spending …

Life after ice storm dire, getting worse in spots  —  MARION, Ky. - In some parts of rural Kentucky, they're getting water the old-fashioned way — with pails from a creek.  There's not room for one more sleeping bag on the shelter floor.  The creative are flushing their toilets with melted snow.

Playbook - Presented by STARBUCKS - Newsweek's cover calls Afghanistan 'OBAMA'S VIETNAM' - BULLETIN: Adam Putnam leaving Congress  —  President Obama, at last night's closed-press Alfalfa Dinner, on the delay in getting a dog: ‘The labradoodle we picked has some problems with back taxes.’

SHLAES STRIKES AGAIN.... Over the summer, the Washington Post ran a piece from conservative writer Amity Shlaes, explaining that the national economy was fine, there was no recession, and that Phil Gramm was right to call us a “nation of whiners.”  —  Undeterred, in early December …

Two children should be limit, says green guru  —  COUPLES who have more than two children are being “irresponsible” by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government's green adviser has warned.  —  Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government's Sustainable Development Commission …

Recession Can Change a Way of Life  —  AS job losses mount and bailout costs run into the trillions, the social costs of the economic downturn become clearer.  The primary question, to be sure, is what can be done to shorten or alleviate these bad times.  But there is also a broader set …

Obama remakes political rules  —  Three months after his election, President Barack Obama continues to remake the political landscape—and there's no clearer example than Friday's election of Michael Steele as the Republican National Committee's first black chairman.

The Nativists Are Restless  —  The relentlessly harsh Republican campaign against immigrants has always hidden a streak of racialist extremism.  Now after several high-water years, the Republican tide has gone out, leaving exposed the nativism of fringe right-wingers clinging to what they hope will be a wedge issue.