Obama and Israeli Leader Make Video Appeals to Iran  —  Invoking art, history and “the common humanity that binds us,” President Obama offered a “new day” in America's relationship with Iran, using a videotaped message to make an unusual appeal directly to Iranians for a shift away from decades of confrontation.

ANYTHING THEY CAN DO, PALIN CAN DO DUMBER.... If there's one thing elected officials in Alaska know how to do, perhaps better than anyone else in the country, it's accepting federal dollars for state programs.  It was curious, then, to see a certain Alaskan governor decide she'd like to reject economic recovery funds.

Obama White House bars press from press award ceremony  —  We are not making this up:  —  Barack Obama was elected commander in chief promising to run the most transparent presidential administration in American history.  —  This achievement and the overall promise of his historic administration caused …

Seeking Everyman, Obama Does Leno  —  President Obama didn't look burdened by his office on “The Tonight Show” on Thursday; he seemed bemused.  —  As he described the problems of American International Group and the credit crisis to Jay Leno, Mr. Obama behaved less like a beleaguered president …

Scorn Trails A.I.G. Executives, Even in Their Driveways  —  The A.I.G. executive who was nicknamed “Jackpot Jimmy” by a New York tabloid walked up the driveway toward his bay-windowed house in Fairfield, Conn., on Thursday afternoon.  “How do I feel?” said the executive, James Haas, repeating the question he had just been asked.

90% Tax?  Now We Really ARE Screwed  —  The frantic passage of the Populist Rage Tax was a new low in the US government's response to this crisis.  It shows just how likely we are to doom ourselves to a decade or more of misery—by choking our markets, closing our borders …

Mass Hysteria Over AIG Obscures Simple Truths: Michael Lewis  —  Last September the U.S. government began to dole out the first of $173 billion to American International Group.  A big chunk of it passed right through to banks that had bought insurance from AIG against mortgage and corporate defaults …

Aides: U.S. deficit forecast to top $1.8 trillion this year  —  Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition  —  WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates …

Special Olympics Champ to Barack: Bring it On!  —  A bowling phenom in the Special Olympics has just challenged Prez Barack Obama to a White House roll-off ... and he'll probably kick Barack's butt.  —  Kolan McConiughey, a Special Olympics competitor who has bowled three perfect 300 games …

Connecticut Senator Draws Voters' Ire for His Bonus Role  —  Clarence Randolph, a 50-year-old dump truck driver from New Haven, has been out of work for two months.  —  He is not happy that financial firms bailed out by the government are paying bonuses to their executives.

AIG  —  Preliminary thoughts on the tax bill:  —  1. It's not the way you should make policy — it's clumsy, and it will punish some innocent parties while letting the most guilty off scot-free  —  2. But — there wasn't much alternative at this point.  And for that I blame the Obama people.

Off With the Bankers  —  A.I.G. can hardly claim that its generous bonuses attract the best and the brightest.  So instead, it defends the payments by arguing they're needed to retain employees who are crucial for winding down transactions that are “difficult to understand and manage.”

Many in Government Knew Weeks Ago About A.I.G. Bonuses  —  WASHINGTON — The question was direct and prescient.  Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, asked the Treasury secretary in an open hearing what could be done to stop American International Group from paying $165 million …

Latest CIA Scandal Puts Focus on How Agency Polices Self  —  As a novice CIA case officer in the Middle East, Andrew Warren quickly learned the value of sex in recruiting spies.  Colleagues say that he made an early habit of taking informants to strip clubs, and that he later began arranging …

THIS FEED IS CLOSED TO THE PRESS.  —  Huh, I wonder why Jake Tapper, press access warrior, has blocked me from following his Twitter feed.  —  Time for a blogger ethics panel?  —  UPDATE: Tapper has also blocked Talking Points Memo.  —  Bonus Tapper: His exchange with White House Press …

Bastards: Vandals strike at Berkeley Marine recruiting center again  —  It's never over.  Bush is out of office.  Obama is moving to withdraw troops from Iraq.  Last October, Code Pink gave up on its daily harangues against the Marines who staff a recruiting office in Berkeley …

Bonfire of the Trivialities  —  A $14 trillion economy hangs by a thread composed of (a) a comically cynical, pitchfork-wielding Congress, (b) a hopelessly understaffed, stumbling Obama administration, and (c) $165 million.  —  That's $165 million in bonus money handed out to AIG debt manipulators …

Officials struggle with data for Recovery.gov  —  Tracking the spending from the $787 billion economic stimulus package is proving difficult because of shortcomings in the available data, the chairman of the stimulus act oversight board said today.  —  “I am concerned about data quality,” …

Joe the Plumber Wants to Make Love to Washington  —  The Republican's Working Man hero Joe the Plumber could barely contain himself last night before a crowd of adoring, media-bashing conservatives.  —  “God, all this love and everything in the room - I'm horny,” declared Joe, whose real name is Samuel Wurzelbacher.

US Navy: 2 vessels collide in Strait of Hormuz  —  MANAMA, Bahrain - Two U.S. Navy vessels — a nuclear-powered submarine and an amphibious ship — collided during the early morning hours Friday in the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the Arabian peninsula, the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet reported.