Senators Reach Tentative Deal on More Than $800B Economic ‘Spendulus’ Bill  —  Senators Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Susan Collins of Maine have signed onto the bill, giving Democrats enough votes to move it forward.  —  FOXNews.com  —  Senators have reached a tentative deal on a version …

Newt: Obama speech was Carter-like  —  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich issued a sharp critique of President Barack Obama's speech before House Democrats in Williamsburg, Va.  —  “It shrinks his presidency,” said Gingrich Friday at the American Enterprise Institute.

Reporter restrained after hearing  —  Following Leon Panetta's confirmation hearing Thursday, several reporters approached the CIA director-designate in the hallway outside room G-50 in the Dirksen Building.  —  There, CongressDaily reporter Chris Strohm — upon asking a question …

KBR wins contract despite criminal probe of deaths  —  Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition  —  WASHINGTON - Defense contractor KBR Inc. has been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work, even as it is under criminal investigation …

“Bristol”  —  I've given up counting, but I should note that none of her defenders on the right have really dealt with the documented fact of her repeated self-refutations and delusional assertions of “facts” that are indisputably non-facts.  Her unstable grip on reality, taken for granted in Alaska …

Results in on Obama's grassroots appeal: It's a bust  —  WASHINGTON — Few supporters are answering President Barack Obama's call for nationwide house-party gatherings this weekend to build grass-roots support for his economic stimulus plan.  —  A McClatchy survey of sign-up rosters for a score …

Steele: Power gone to Democrats' heads  —  The Democrats have controlled the Congress and the White House for less than a month, the chairman of the Republican Party says, “and you have to wonder if all that power has gone to their heads...  ""For the last two weeks, they've been trying …

Obama's ‘Naked’ Moment  —  The president stands exposed on the stimulus.  —  Every so often a president finds himself standing completely exposed—naked, so to speak—before the political class.  —  This first happened to George W. Bush in October 2005, when Bush nominated his White House counsel …

Gregg mum on Census Bureau  —  MANCHESTER - Sen. Judd Gregg yesterday declined all comment on reports that the White House will strip him of his authority over the federal Census Bureau even before he becomes Secretary of Commerce.  —  Gregg spokesman Laena Fallon said all comment would come from the White House.

Congressman Twitters an Iraq Security Breach  —  A congressional trip to Iraq this weekend was supposed to be a secret.  —  But the cat's out of the bag now, thanks to a member of the House Intelligence Committee who broke an embargo via Twitter.  —  A delegation led by House Minority Leader John …

McConnell vs. The New Deal  —  A lot of Republicans have been surgical in their opposition to the stimulus — arguing that it lacks the appropriate mixture of tax cuts or timely, targeted, temporary and truly stimulative spending.  —  But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell …

First, Do No Harm  —  Congressional Republicans were right to vote against the stimulus.  —  John McCain is on to something.  No stimulus bill—that is, no “economic recovery” package at all—"is better" than President Obama's bill, McCain says.  Sure, he'd prefer his own alternative.

Steele's Campaign Spending Questioned  —  Agents Contact Sister After Ex-Aide's Claims  —  Michael S. Steele, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, arranged for his 2006 Senate campaign to pay a defunct company run by his sister for services that were never performed …

Why the Innocent Are Punished More Harshly Than the Guilty  —  The AP reports on a really tragic case of wrongful conviction: … The part of the story that caught my eye was the fact that Cole's insistence on his innocence is what led to his imprisonment and prevented his release on parole:

Playbook: Closing in on the stimulus  —  Good Saturday morning.  AP's Ben Feller: “Barack Obama, who has spent most of his nascent presidency in the White House compound, is shifting into travel mode.  The rundown: Saturday and Sunday at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland …

How Bad Is It?  —  This bad, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office shows us:  —  If you are having trouble reading the fine print: The blue line shows job losses in the 1990 recession; the red line is 2001, and the green line is the path we are on now.  —  UPDATE: To clarify, these are not projections.

What causes personal bankruptcy?  —  I was going to cite job loss as a major cause of bankruptcy in the previous post, which is the conventional wisdom.  But this paper argues it isn't true: … According to Zhu, having a serious medical condition makes you 50% more likely to file for bankruptcy …

Geithner to Announce Financial-Rescue Plan Feb. 9  —  Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will in four days unveil the administration's financial-recovery plan, aiming to shore up the nation's banks and restart lending to households and businesses.