The Action Americans Need  —  By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression.  Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished.

Obama 1-on-1 with swing senators  —  Working to get the last Senate votes for his economic recovery plan, President Barack Obama reached out Wednesday to his old rival, Sen. John McCain, even as he warned Republicans against making “perfect the enemy of the essential.”

White House to Bypass Commerce on Census  —  The director of the Census Bureau will report directly to the White House and not the secretary of Commerce, according to a senior White House official.  —  The decision came after black and Hispanic leaders raised questions about Commerce Secretary …

Sessions: GOP Insurgency “May Be Required”  —  Frustrated by a lack of bipartisan outreach from House Democratic leaders, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said House Republicans — who voted unanimously last week against the economic plan pushed …

Obama losing the stimulus message war  —  At this crucial juncture in the push to pass an economic recovery package, President Obama finds himself in the most unlikely of places: He is losing the message war.  —  Despite Obama's sky high personal approval ratings, polls show support …

Bill Gates Unleashes Swarm of Mosquitoes on Crowd  —  Microsoft founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates released a glass full of mosquitoes at an elite technology conference to make a point about the deadly disease malaria.  —  “Malaria is spread by mosquitoes,” Gates said while opening …

DEA continues pot raids Obama opposes  —  President vowed to end policy  —  Drug Enforcement Administration agents this week raided four medical marijuana shops in California, contrary to President Obama's campaign promises to stop the raids.  —  The White House said it expects those kinds …

The GOP Has a Dumb Mortgage Idea  —  It contradicts the ideals of Republicanism and good economics.  —  Few philosophers have done more good than Locke and Montesquieu, whose advocacy of divided government inspired America's Founders.  Our history, and the less happy past of nations without checks …

Volcker Chafes at Obama Panel Delay, Strains With Summers Rise  —  Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) — Paul Volcker has grown increasingly frustrated over delays in setting up the economic advisory group President Barack Obama picked the former Federal Reserve chairman to lead, people familiar with the matter said.

Cooper in doghouse for remark  —  Rep. Jim Cooper is the Al Gore of financial collapse.  —  For decades, the Tennessee Democrat has warned that the country will be in dire straits if the government keeps borrowing billions from foreign creditors.  —  Those doomsday forecasts haven't always …

Republicans Seize on Nominees' Tax Problems  —  WASHINGTON — Long after President Obama finds a new secretary of health and human services, presumably one who has paid his or her taxes, the damage from this week's failed nomination may still plague him and his party.

AN INSTAPUNDIT EXCLUSIVE: A report from Michael Yon.  —  It's Raining  —  By Michael Yon  —  05 February 2009  —  There had been a light, cold drizzle just before the Muslim taxi driver picked me up in Jerusalem.  It should be a 90-minute drive to Sderot, in southern Israel.

White House Now Plans Limited Bank Aid Package  —  The Obama administration has decided on a new package of aid measures for the financial services industry, including a bad bank component, and is expected to announce them next Monday, according to a source familiar with the planning

Sweden changes course on nuclear power  —  STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Swedish government agreed Thursday to scrap a three-decade ban on building new nuclear reactors, saying it needs to avoid producing more greenhouse gases.  —  Sweden is a leader on renewable energy but is struggling …

Time to Play Hardball  —  The irony of President Obama's Blue Tuesday is that the wall-to-wall television interviews he granted were designed not to apologize for Tom Daschle's fall from grace but to fight back against the Republicans' success in tarnishing his stimulus package.

SAUSAGE FACTORY UPDATE  —  I'm told the group of ‘centrist’ senators (Collins, Nelson et al.) is meeting at this moment.  And the basis of their meeting is a staff paper that was just circulated with a total of $77.9 billion proposed cuts to the existing senate bill.  —  The biggest hit is on education spending.

Sen. Klobuchar steals show at Congressional dinner  —  Sen. Amy Klobuchar's (D-Minn.) surprisingly caustic humor elicited belly laughs from much of the Washington press corps Wednesday night at the Washington Press Club Foundation's Annual Congressional Dinner.

New Jersey Plant Is Called Source of Sweet Smell  —  It wafted, seductively, over Staten Island, Brooklyn, then Manhattan, a smell that was sweet but indecipherable.  And now the mayor has revealed that the likely source was fenugreek seeds used to produce fragrances at a plant in Hudson County in New Jersey.

Health Benefits For Unemployed Stripped From Stimulus, HuffPost Readers Find  —  Reading even a single page of a Senate bill is often no simple task, with legislative-ese obscuring the purpose behind the language.  Reading 736 pages of the stuff is like mountain climbing in a wheelchair.

Poll: Gaza war boosts Hamas support  —  Surveys indicates Islamist group would get 28.6 percent of vote compared with 27.9 percent for rival Fatah faction if elections were held today; Haniyeh most trusted Palestinian politician  —  Israel's Hamas in Gaza, which killed more than 1,300 people …

White House ‘hopeful’ on appointing Zinni  —  Despite Anthony Zinni's evident perception that he had the job of ambassador to Iraq proffered and then taken back, a senior White House official signaled that the retired Marine General is still a leading candidate for some administration post.

Democrats Try Trickle-Down Economics  —  Growing government won't stimulate the real economy.  —  As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama attacked “trickle down economics” as “bankrupt” and an “old, discredited” philosophy that “didn't work.”  He was wrong.

Productivity, and unit labor costs, rise  —  Non-farm business productivity rose 3.2% in the fourth quarter of 2008, much higher than the consensus estimate of 2.1%.  Meanwhile, real compensation jumped by 15.6% in the fourth quarter, driven by a 5% wage increase and a 9.2% decrease in consumer prices.