How Long?  —  Jake Tapper appears to be one of the few (only?) mainstream reporters keeping current on the Chas Freeman story.  You would think it would be hard to ignore the growing tidal wave of protest and controversy.  The latest is a letter signed by the Republican members …

Rush whacks Newt  —  Rush Limbaugh responded to Newt Gingrich's shot at him with a broadside at the former speaker on today's show.  —  “I'm frankly getting tired of talking about Newt.  I mean, it's a pointless exercise,” Limbaugh said of Gingrich's dismissal of him on “Meet the Press.”

Democrats Stung by Dissenters  —  Democratic leaders in Congress did not expect much Republican support as they pressed President Obama's ambitious legislative agenda.  But the pushback they are receiving from some of their own has come as an unwelcome surprise.

Senators vote to preserve back-home pet projects  —  WASHINGTON (AP) - Members of both parties Monday voted to keep their cherished home-state projects as the Senate resumed debate on a spending bill covering foreign aid and domestic agency budgets.  —  By a 63-32 vote, lawmakers rejected …

Beck: Stem-cell research will lead directly to the search for a new ‘master race.’  —  On his radio show today, conservative talker Glenn Beck commented on President Obama overturning the ban on federally funded stem-cell research.  Beck argued that funding stem-cell research would lead directly …

Wikipedia Scrubs Dear Leader's Page Clean of Critical Entries  —  Wikipedia scrubs Obama's entry clean of any critical information that may taint your view of Dear Leader.  —  Communist tyrany Joseph Stalin routinely air-brushed his enemies out of photographs.

Detainees Say They Planned Sept. 11  —  The five detainees at Guantánamo Bay charged with planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have filed a document with the military commission at the United States naval base there expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting full responsibility …

They Tried to Outsmart Wall Street  —  Emanuel Derman expected to feel a letdown when he left particle physics for a job on Wall Street in 1985.  —  After all, for almost 20 years, as a graduate student at Columbia and a postdoctoral fellow at institutions like Oxford and the University of Colorado …

Regulatory reports show 5 biggest banks face huge losses  —  WASHINGTON — America's five largest banks, which already have received $145 billion in taxpayer bailout dollars, still face potentially catastrophic losses from exotic investments if economic conditions substantially worsen, their latest financial reports show.

Science Over All?  —  The Temptation in Obama's Stem Cell Policy  —  In announcing his policy on federal funding of stem cell research, President Obama inadvertently cast a bright light on a dangerous temptation in science policy that ought to give Americans pause.

Obama to begin unveiling ed reform plan  —  President Barack Obama will begin to outline his education reform plan today, announcing plans to expand pay incentives for good teachers and offering grants to schools that raise their standards for students.  —  The president will announce …

Detox for Troubled Assets  —  Plan Is Critical to Revive the Financial System, FDIC Chair Says  —  The government's plan to strip banks of troubled assets could force some firms to record large losses, but the painful purge would help restore confidence in the banking system …

Cramer Takes on the White House, Frank Rich and Jon Stewart  —  Suddenly, bloggers, opinion people, columnists and, yes, pundits who haven't paid attention to anything I have been saying or writing for the past 18 months are all over me.  Suddenly, I find myself in the center of a firestorm …

WHAT'S BEHIND BARACK'S BRIT SNIT  —  PRESIDENT Obama's first hosting of a foreign leader, the UK's Gordon Brown, was a diplomatic disaster.  —  Obama failed to hold a joint Rose Garden press conference, the usual protocol when a US president and a British prime minister first meet …

How much of Citigroup could the FDIC actually take over?  —  FDIC chairman Sheila Bair doesn't think a full government takeover of Citigroup and other multinational financial institutions is practical or even possible.  Here are her reasons, as summarized by Pete Davis:

AIG Warned of ‘Crisis’ if Government Didn't Help  —  Draft, Obtained by ABC News, Dated Four Days Before Bailout  —  An AIG report to the Treasury Department last month warned that if the government didn't come to its rescue again, its collapse would trigger a “chain reaction of enormous proportion” …

CNBC's Kernen: ‘You Might Not Have Fixed Global Warming’ After D-Day  —  ‘Oracle of Omaha’ Warren Buffett agrees, says job 1, 2 and 3 must be the ‘economic war.’  —  Business & Media Institute  —  The U.S. is at war with the failing economy, according to Warren Buffett, who told CNBC viewers that it had “fallen off a cliff.”

Saudis order 40 lashes for elderly woman for mingling  —  (CNN) — A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports.

Co2 emissions creating acidic oceans  —  Chemical change placing ‘unprecedented’ pressure on marine life and could cause widespread extinctions, warn scientists  —  Human pollution is turning the seas into acid so quickly that the coming decades will recreate conditions not seen on Earth since …

Obama's Budget Faces Test Among Party Barons  —  WASHINGTON — What the Democratic barons of Congress liked best about President Obama's audacious budget was his invitation to fill in the details.  They have started by erasing some of his.  —  The apparent first casualty is a big one …

How I learned to stop worrying and love the f-bomb  —  Let me begin by noting that this post is not about Rush Limbaugh.  —  You're welcome.  —  Now, just to be clear, Mr Limbaugh will appear in the post — and as a character he will be prominently featured — but this post is no more about Rush than …

Flashback: 2006 Poll Showed Most Democrats Wanted Bush to Fail  —  An August 2006 poll conducted by FOX News/Opinion Dynamics showed 51 percent of Democrats did not want Bush to succeed.  —  FOXNews.com  —  Rush Limbaugh took a lot of heat for saying he wants President Obama to fail …