Pelosi's list: Who's on her bad side?  —  Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition  —  Nancy Pelosi likes to keep lists.  —  As a young political protégé of her father, Baltimore Mayor Tommy D'Alesandro, the preteen speaker-to-be would spend hours leafing through …

Pastors rally behind Burris  —  Sen. Roland Burris went to his base Sunday with an appearance at a black church.  —  He arrived at New Covenant Baptist Church in a flying wedge of supporters and avoided reporters by leaving through a side door.  —  Ministers gathered at the church …

U.S. Is Said to Offer Another $30 Billion in Funds to A.I.G.  —  The federal government agreed Sunday night 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, which is preparing to report a $62 billion loss …

RNC Chair Michael Steele on Limbaugh: 'Yes, it's incendiary.  Yes, it's ugly.'  —  Last night, RNC Chairman Michael Steele appeared on D.L. Hughley's show on CNN and disputed Hughley's statement that Rush Limbaugh “is the de facto leader of the Republican Party.”  “I'm the de facto leader of the Republican Party!”

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.

U.S., Afghans Criticize Call for Early Elections  —  KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai's move to advance elections to early spring from summer drew a sharp response from the U.S. and outcries from potential political challengers, who said an early vote would undermine …

Web-Savvy Obama Team Hits Unexpected Bumps  —  Issues of Technology, Security and Privacy Slow the New Administration's Effort to Foster Instant Communication  —  The team that ran the most technologically advanced presidential campaign in modern history is finding it difficult to adapt that model to government.

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Obama kicks up White House entertaining  —  WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House is the place to be on Wednesdays.  —  Since the presidency changed hands less than six weeks ago, a burst of entertaining has taken hold of the iconic, white-columned home of America's head of state.  Much of it comes on Wednesdays.

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.

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 …