Amid AIG Furor, Dodd Tries to Undo Bonus Protections He Put In  —  Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group (AIG) bonus recipients so the government could recoup the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit.

JournoList: Inside the echo chamber  —  For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.  —  Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy?

Fox apologizes for using Biden clip UPDATE  —  Both ThinkProgress and Huffington Post pointed out that Fox aired a clip of Joe Biden commenting on the fundamentals of the economy, supposedly from this past weekend.  —  Actually, the Biden quote was from a stump speech last year criticizing McCain …

Senate to explore taxing controversial AIG bonuses  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — Senate Democrats want to tax the controversial bonuses doled out to AIG employees who work for the division that led to the company's downfall.  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on the Senate floor Tuesday …

Glenn Beck Comes Out in Favor of Paying AIG Executive Bonuses  —  digg it  —  The Populist Champion of the Everyman is sticking up for those downtrodden, forgotten millionaires at AIG. … Really shows his true colors, eh?  —  Beck also reaffirmed his comparison of Al Gore to Joseph Goebbles …

WHAT IS GOING ON AT FOX NEWS?  —  What the hell is going on at Fox News?  —  On Friday evening, Fox viewers were treated to an hour-long televangelical special starring Glenn Beck.  (The opening of the show can be seen in our Watch Now window, at right.)  —  Watching Beck cry for the cameras …

Santelli on AIG bonus rage: “You know, $165 million is like worrying about 16.5 cents, while $165 maybe necessitates a little more outrage”  —  From the March 17 edition of CNBC's Squawk Box:

Losing Support for Afghanistan  —  As I've previously noted in this space, the situation in Afghanistan is not nearly as dire as the press reports would have it.  This is hardly an unwinnable war.  In fact, with only a relatively modest  —  addition of resources we can make substantial gains.

Obama mulls making vets foot bill for service injuries  —  WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is considering making veterans use private insurance to pay for treatment of combat and service-related injuries.  —  The plan would be an about-face on what veterans believe is a long-standing pledge …

McCain Refuses To Condemn Ingraham's Attacks On His Daughter  —  Last week, ThinkProgress reported that hate radio host Laura Ingraham responded to Meghan McCain's criticism of right-wingers like Ann Coulter by calling her “plus-sized.”  Meghan shot back, telling Ingraham, “stop talking about my body.”

It's not the bonuses.  It's that AIG's counterparties are getting paid back in full.  —  Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?

Republicans concerned over RNC fundraising  —  GOP strategists and party leaders are increasingly worried that the party's run of bad news over the last month and a half is set to continue this week as the Republican National Committee (RNC) prepares to release what are expected to be markedly low fundraising numbers on Friday.

Gates readies big cuts in weapons  —  Battle looms with Congress  —  Aides said Defense Secretary Robert Gates's decisions will be guided by what he learns while spending time with troops.  —  WASHINGTON - As the Bush administration was drawing to a close, Robert M. Gates …

Yes, the Community Reinvestment Act Really Did Help Cause the Housing Crisis  —  There has been a lot of push back against the idea that the Community Reinvestment Act nudged banks to give mortgages to people who should have not gotten them.  But then here comes this fantastic story …

Moderate Is Said to Be Pick for Court  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama is expected to name his first candidate to an appeals court seat this week, officials said, choosing David F. Hamilton, a highly regarded federal trial court judge from Indiana, for the appeals court in Chicago.

Majority Receptive to Law Making Union Organizing Easier  —  But most Americans not closely following news about union bill in Congress  —  PRINCETON, NJ — A new Gallup Poll finds just over half of Americans, 53%, favoring a new law that would make it easier for labor unions to organize workers; 39% oppose it.

Don't Blame Jim Cramer  —  What Jon Stewart needs is Jon Stewart.  He could use a droll comedian to temper his ferocity and correct him when he's wrong, as he was about the financial media, particularly CNBC and its excitable analyst Jim Cramer.  They didn't cover up the story of financial shenanigans.

Russia announces rearmament plan  —  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said Moscow will begin a comprehensive military rearmament from 2011.  —  Mr Medvedev said the primary task would be to “increase the combat readiness of [Russia's] forces, first of all our strategic nuclear forces”.

‘Complete confidence’ in Geithner  —  If there was any doubt the White House is feeling the heat over Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's role in the AIG bonuses, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave a big clue Tuesday.  —  “The president has complete confidence” in Geithner, Gibbs told reporters.

The Lieberman Disaster  —  Not this Lieberman, this Lieberman.  It's not a disaster for the reasons some people think; I know Avigdor Lieberman a little bit, and he's actually a person interested in a cold compromise with the Palestinians.  It's a disaster because he's made himself into a racist.

Bunning on Bernanke's ‘60 Minutes’ sit-down: ‘Ugggghh’  —  Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) continued his streak of weekly conference calls with Kentucky repporters in which the endangered incumbent proves himself unafraid to speak his mind, this week going after CBS news.

Fix the Country Already!  —  Feds Zero In On Madoff's Inner Circle—and His Missing Money by Lucinda Franks  —  Blogs and Stories  —  Fifty days into Bamalot and we still have war, recession, unemployment.  Walter Shapiro wonders if the media's hyperactive coverage will give the president a chance to, you know, do something.