A.I.G. Reports $61.7 Billion Loss as U.S. Gives More Aid  —  The federal government agreed Monday morning to provide an additional $30 billion in taxpayer money to the American International Group and loosen the terms of its huge loan to the insurer, even as the insurance giant reported a$61.7 billion loss …

Emanuel says Limbaugh GOP leader, Cantor rejects ‘fail’ remark  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said Sunday that Rush Limbaugh is the face of the GOP.  —  “He is the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican party …

A Line Forms to Succeed Burris  —  CHICAGO — As Roland W. Burris, the junior senator from Illinois, took his first turn presiding over the Senate last week, hired staff members to fill his Washington office and announced co-sponsorship of a measure commemorating the role of slaves in building the Capitol …

Covering Obama, Pushy Jake Tapper Presses His Points  —  One year after joining ABC News, Jake Tapper kept pushing his bosses — “annoyingly, irritatingly, incessantly,” he says — to let him cover the unfolding 2004 presidential campaign.  —  “I might not have been ready,” he admits now.

Gates calls Pakistan ‘most worrisome’  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — The “most worrisome” part of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan has become the havens the Taliban and other insurgents have carved out in neighboring Pakistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.

Revenge of the Glut  —  Remember the good old days, when we used to talk about the “subprime crisis” — and some even thought that this crisis could be “contained”?  Oh, the nostalgia!  —  Today we know that subprime lending was only a small fraction of the problem.

Iran, the Jews and Germany  —  So a Jerusalem Post article says that I'm “hardly the first American to be misled by the existence of synagogues in totalitarian countries.”  —  The Atlantic Monthly's Jeffrey Goldberg finds me “particularly credulous,” taken in by the Iranian hospitality and friendliness that …

The Obama Administration Double-Deals On Israel  —  Anti-Semitism, ‘Islamophobia,’ Durban II and the U.N.  —  Barack Obama just added double-dealing to his foreign policy repertoire.  On Friday, administration officials led many Jewish leaders to believe that the president had decided …

Hey, Bailout Snivelers: Hush.  You Don't Need It.  —  In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama declared that he was going to “speak frankly and directly.”  —  That's what I want to do as well.  I want to speak frankly and directly to the many people who have written …

New ‘Iron Curtain’ will split EU's rich and poor  —  Eastern European countries gave an apocalyptic warning yesterday of hordes of unemployed workers heading west as a new Iron Curtain divides rich from poor inside Europe.  —  Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall …

EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Hatch's secret drug firm links  —  Drugmaker money to Utah senator's charity escaped disclosure  —  The pharmaceutical industry that long has benefited from Sen. Orrin G. Hatch's legislative efforts has directed large sums of money to a charity he helped found …

How Washington can prevent ‘zombie banks’  —  Beginning in 1990, Japan suffered a collapse in real estate and stock market prices that pushed major banks into insolvency.  Rather than follow America's tough recommendation - and close or recapitalise these banks - Japan took an easier approach.

Obama faces test on gay military ban  —  It is precisely the sort of knife fight no president wants to get into, especially in his first 100 days.  But it seems that President Barack Obama is about to get dragged down the same dark alley as Bill Clinton when he was forced to confront …

Snow Blankets Washington Area  —  Region Braces for What Could Be Largest Winter Storm in Three Years  —  A significant winter storm shuttered schools, disrupted train and bus service and left thousands of people without power in the Washington area this morning, as hundreds of plows struggled …

The United Front of Geithner and Summers  —  The Obama administration's budget bears the hallmarks of a decade-old alliance that has quickly come to dominate the most pressing issues on the young administration's agenda.  —  Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and National Economic Council …

History Repeating  —  While the “tea party” protests against the new administration and spending-crazed Congress are certainly getting a lot of attention in the conservative blogosphere and in isolated news stories, I suspect these small, but growing nationwide protests are masking …