Cantor Watched Britney Spears Concert During Obama Presser, Landrieu Denies Rumors  —  There was more than one whip at last night's Britney Spears concert in Washington DC.  —  Three GOP aides confirmed to the Huffington Post that House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) …

Ed Henry's take on exchange with Obama  —  Ed Henry, CNN's senior White House correspondent, got a tough answer from President Obama when he asked Tuesday night why Obama waited days to express outrage on the AIG bonuses.  “Because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak,” Obama said.

Geithner to Propose Vast Expansion Of U.S. Oversight of Financial System  —  Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner plans to propose today a sweeping expansion of federal authority over the financial system, breaking from an era in which the government stood back from financial markets …

Palin unplugged in speech to Alaska GOP dinner  —  (CNN) - Sarah Palin is teeing off on the media once again.  —  In a little-noticed speech to a GOP dinner in Alaska last week, Palin riffed for nearly an hour on a variety of topics — including her relationship with former McCain staffers …

Another Obama nominee withdraws  —  Chalk up another casualty in the Obama administration's attempts to staff federal agencies.  —  Jon Cannon, nominated to be the deputy director of the Environmental Protection Agency, pulled his name from consideration today, citing questions over a non-profit …

US backing for world currency stuns markets  —  US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner shocked global markets by revealing that Washington is “quite open” to Chinese proposals for the gradual development of a global reserve currency run by the International Monetary Fund.

E.U. President Blasts U.S. Spending  —  Czech Premier Calls Obama Administration's Economic Policies ‘a Road to Hell’  —  The president of the European Union on Wednesday ripped the Obama administration's economic policies, calling its deficit spending and bank bailouts “a road to hell.”

Cities Deal With a Surge in Shanty Towns  —  FRESNO, Calif. — As the operations manager of a outreach center for the homeless here, Paul Stack is used to seeing people down on their luck.  What he had never seen before was people living in tents and lean-tos on the railroad lot across from the center.

The Civil Heretic  —  FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has quietly resided in Prince­ton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, this country's most rarefied community of scholars.

Steele On Rush Flap: “It's All Strategic”  —  Michael Steele just doesn't know how to stop.  —  Steele appeared on CNN this afternoon, and was asked by host Don Lemon whether he's ever considered running for president, and right off the bat he managed to give the sensible, correct answer …

Auto Task Force to Back More Loans, With Strings  —  President Barack Obama last month handed his auto-industry team a seemingly impossible task: to engineer the most complicated industrial restructuring ever attempted by the federal government, and to do it fast.

White House announces tax reform task force  —  The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it is creating a task force to examine ways to simplify the tax code, close tax loopholes, lessen tax evasion and reduce corporate welfare.  —  The task force will be part of former Federal …

Treasuries Fall on Supply Concern as Seven-Year Sale Looms  —  Treasury 10-year note yields rose the most in more than two weeks after an auction of $34 billion in five-year notes drew a higher-than-forecast yield, spurring concern record sales of U.S. debt are overwhelming demand.

The Fierce Urgency of Peace  —  Pressure on President Obama to recast the failed American approach to Israel-Palestine is building from former senior officials whose counsel he respects.  —  Following up on a letter dated Nov. 6, 2008, that was handed to Obama late last year by Paul Volcker …

Gay Marriage in Vermont Faces Veto by Governor  —  BOSTON — Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont said Wednesday that he would veto a same-sex marriage bill if it reached his desk, setting a new hurdle for a measure that had been moving swiftly through the legislature.

O'Reilly Lashes Back At ThinkProgress: 'They're Insects'  —  O'Reilly Lashes Back At ThinkProgress: 'They're Insects'  —  Tonight on The Factor, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly offered a host of attacks on ThinkProgress and Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta that were rich with irony.

British-run orphanage in Bangladesh ‘is Islamist training camp’  —  A raid on an orphanage in Bangladesh has uncovered a suspected Islamic militant training camp with links to a British charity run by a man acquitted of being part of an al-Qaeda bomb plot.  —  The home of Faisal Mostafa …

Obama's Prime Time Pitch  —  Some exaggerations and misstatements from his evening news conference.  —  President Obama sometimes strayed from the facts or made dubious claims during his hour-long evening news conference March 24.  — He said his budget projections are based on economic assumptions that …

MGM gets its ‘Stooges’  —  Penn, Carrey, Del Toro part of studio's plan  —  MGM and the Farrelly brothers are closing in on their cast for “The Three Stooges.”  —  Studio has set Sean Penn to play Larry, and negotiations are underway with Jim Carrey to play Curly, with the actor already making plans …

Feds' plan to poison banks of Rio Grande stalled  —  (CNN) — Federal officials postponed poisoning a mile-long stretch of the Rio Grande's banks this week after residents complained that doing so posed health and environmental risks on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Modeling an FDIC Robbery.  —  I want to explain the Geithner Put for those without a finance background who want to understand how FDIC is going to get looted.  (Warning: Will contain graphs, and be long and boring even by normal standards here.)  Recap: Banks have “toxic waste” assets, which they want to sell.

Democrats vs. Democrats  —  House Minority Leader John A. Boehner snarled at moderate Democrats Wednesday, but the real bite came from liberal groups frustrated by centrist opposition to Barack Obama's budget priorities.  —  As Boehner accused Blue Dog Democrats of being “lap dogs” for Obama …

The war on charity and prosperity, part III  —  Marty Feldstein attacks on the president's proposal to reduce the rate at which high-income taxpayers can deduct charitable donations: … Let me try to awaken his imagination.  —  Here is the rationale: The deduction is deeply regressive.

DOUBLE-DIPPERS  —  CITI, BOFA BUYING BACK LAUNDERED LOANS AT LOWER RATES  —  As Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner orchestrated a plan to help the nation's largest banks purge themselves of toxic mortgage assets, Citigroup and Bank of America have been aggressively scooping up those same securities …