The White House encourages Santelli, on purpose  —  This is very simple.  White House press secretary Robert Gibbs went out of his way today to blast CNBC's Rick Santelli for his “rant” yesterday against Obama's mortgage assistance plan.  The early press reaction asks why the White House …

Report Finds Guantanamo Prison Meets Standards of Geneva Convention  —  A Pentagon review of conditions in the Guantanamo Bay military prison has concluded that the treatment of detainees meets the requirements of the Geneva Convention but that prisoners in the highest-security camps …

Jindal Rejects $90 Million In Recovery Funding That Would Have Benefited 25,000 Louisiana Residents  —  When President Obama signed the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act last week, it included three different provisions to benefit unemployed workers.  The first provided funding to states …

Darrel Thompson Jumps Off Burris Ship  —  Acting Chief of Staff to Senator Roland Burris, Darrel Thompson, has resigned his position, according to senior staffers in the US Senate.  —  Darrel Thompson, a former Senior Adviser to Senator Harry Reid, had been dispatched by Senator Reid …

Activists ‘shocked’ at Clinton stance on China rights  —  Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition  —  WASHINGTON (AFP) - Amnesty International and a pro-Tibet group voiced shock Friday after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed not to let human rights concerns hinder cooperation with China.

British Muslims ‘providing Taliban with electronic devices for roadside bombs’  —  British Muslims are providing the Taliban with electronic devices to make roadside bombs for use in attacks against British forces serving in southern Afghanistan, The Telegraph can disclose.

More Darwin  —  Update: 2pm CST: (I've rewritten most of the post so that it reflects the current state of affairs.  Many comments below were made before the storefront was open, so that is why they say what they do)  —  So, I made some Darwin artwork that parodies the famous Shepard Fairey Obama poster.

Afghan National Arrested in CA for Ties to al Qaeda [UPDATED & BUMPED: Brother-in-law of bin Laden Security Chief]  —  *** BUMPED *** Updates at end of post ***  —  Actually, he wasn't arrested for his ties to al Qaeda.  He is being indicted for lying to immigration officers.  The lie?

Obama Widens Missile Strikes Inside Pakistan  —  WASHINGTON — With two missile strikes over the past week, the Obama administration has expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, attacking a militant network seeking to topple the Pakistani government.

Obama Pledges to Seek Deficit Cuts  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama pledged Saturday to look for ways to “cut the trillion-dollar deficit we inherited,” and said he is turning his attention toward restoring discipline to the nation's budget now that he put forth his housing plan and has signed …

Bill Moyers: The Power of Outing  —  If it weren't for his Power of Myth series where he introduced Joseph Campbell to a broader audience, Bill Moyers would have contributed little to our national discourse.  He has otherwise dedicated his career almost exclusively to destroying Republicans.

Laissez-Faire Capitalism Has Failed  —  The financial crisis lays bare the weakness of the Anglo-Saxon model.  —  It is now clear that this is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the worst economic crisis in the last 60 years.  While we are already in a severe …

Many ‘Star-Ledger’ Reporters Turn to the ‘Other Side’ After Buyouts  —  NEW YORK At least 16 reporters and newsroom staffers at The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., most of whom left the paper in the past year's massive buyout, are now working for public officials or state agencies the paper covers.

BREITBART.TV TRACKS DOWN TV REPORTER WHO DOCTORED JOHN GIBSON ‘SCROTUM’ AUDIO  —  John Sanders is the technology reporter for WBAL-TV in Baltimore.  He says he made the video on his own for fun.  In this interview Sanders says he used an annotation on the video to indicate the Gibson audio had been altered.

Obama's Durban Dalliance  —  Does an anti-Semitic conference deserve U.S. participation of any kind?  —  Last December, we wrote that an “early test” for the Obama Administration would be whether it participated in a forthcoming U.N. conference on racism, better known as Durban II.  Uh, oh.

Obama Administration Shoots Down LaHood Mileage Tax Idea  —  Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood floated the idea to tax motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn.  —  FOXNews.com  —  President Obama's transportation department slapped down a suggestion …

CHU JUMPS IN ‘DEEP END OF THE POOL’  —  From NBC's John Yang  —  Energy Secretary Steven Chu may be a Nobel laureate Ph.D. in physics, but his first forays into energy policy suggest he's a neophyte when it comes to the ways of Washington.  —  At a forum with reporters on Thursday …