Obama's Interactive Town Hall Meeting  —  President Obama is trying to talk directly to the American people these days, making the case for his ambitious agenda in forums as varied as Jay Leno's late-night television show and a news conference on Tuesday.  Now Mr. Obama will have a chance …

U.S. Accused Of Killing 39 In Sudan Strike  —  A government minister in Sudan is accusing the United States Air Force of killing dozens of people in that north African country this past January - but the semi-official American version of the story is very different.

Rahm Emanuel's profitable stint at mortgage giant  —  Short Freddie Mac stay made him at least $320,000  —  Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the current housing crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting scandal that led to a management shake-up …

MICHAEL STEELE'S MASTER PLAN.... Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele went into a temporary, self-imposed exile recently, after a series of humiliating mistakes that put his job in jeopardy.  After insulting, annoying, and frustrating nearly every member of the party establishment …

Geithner Calls for Major Overhaul of Financial Rules  —  WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday detailed its wide-ranging plan to overhaul financial regulation by subjecting hedge funds and traders of exotic financial instruments, now among the biggest and most freewheeling players on Wall Street …

WSJ Says Bayh Wants to Shake Up Status Quo By Protecting Business Interests  —  Here's a curious report from The Wall Street Journal's Naftali Bendavid and Greg Hitt: … The presumption here being that over the past eight years, the political powerhouses in Washington were insufficiently solicitous …

Bachmann Introducing Bill to Ban Use of Made-Up Global Currency  —  The madness continues as Michelle Bachmann introduces legislation that “would bar the dollar from being replaced by any foreign currency.”  —  What the Chinese were proposing, of course, was to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

AIG London Execs: Returning Bonuses Is Blackmail  —  American International Group executives in Europe are adamant they should not have to return their controversial bonuses and some feel that pressure on them to do so may amount to blackmail, according to a company employee and internal emails.

GOP gloves off for budget brawl  —  House Republicans have begun unveiling detailed alternatives to President Barack Obama's policies — a concerted effort to push back against Democratic efforts to label them “the Party of No.”  —  On Wednesday, it was a housing plan.

The Times Plans Temporary Pay Cuts  —  Facing a steep drop in revenue, The New York Times Company plans to cut the pay of most employees by 5 percent for nine months, in return for 10 days' leave, and will lay off 100 people and make other budget cuts, executives said on Thursday.

Obama overhauls US Afghan strategy  —  The Iraq-style troop surge is one part of a plan that hopes to bring stability through civilian know-how and a fresh Pakistan policy.  —  WASHINGTON -  —  Since the United States invaded Iraq six years ago, its attention, effort, and military know-how has tilted toward the Gulf.

Obama's bank plan could rob the taxpayer  —  The Geithner-Summers plan, officially called the public/private investment programme, is a thinly veiled attempt to transfer up to hundreds of billions of dollars of US taxpayer funds to the commercial banks, by buying toxic assets from the banks at far above their market value.

Is the Bonus Tax Unconstitutional?  —  The Supreme Court defers too much to Congress.  —  Bills now winding their way through Congress would tax between 70% and 90% of bonuses paid to any executive earning in excess of $250,000, if he or she is employed by a business that received more than $5 billion from U.S. bailout funds.

Cutting Deficit Will Require Tax Increases  —  The debate on the budget is phony, the howling on deficits a charade.  Few politicians want to acknowledge that if you really are concerned about long-term deficits, you have to support tax increases.  —  That's why the most significant moment …

Learning How to Think  —  Ever wonder how financial experts could lead the world over the economic cliff?  —  One explanation is that so-called experts turn out to be, in many situations, a stunningly poor source of expertise.  There's evidence that what matters in making a sound forecast …

The Odd Lies Of Sarah Palin: XXVII  —  She said she'd turned down some of the federal stimulus money: … No, she didn't say she did. … But she did: … But she didn't:

Dems warn against first lady bill  —  House Republicans are pressing for a change in federal law that could force Michelle Obama and future first ladies to do more of their policy work in public.  But Democrats warn President Obama may take the attempt personally “as an attack on his wife.”

Why I Called Justice Scalia A Homophobe  —  While responding to questions from journalists about my characterization of Justice Antonin Scalia as a homophobe, I realized that the fact that I made that comment in conjunction with a potential lawsuit about the Defense of Marriage Act created …

US deploys warships as North Korea prepares to launch missile  —  The US has deployed two warships with anti-missile capabilities in the waters off Japan as tensions mount over North Korea's plans to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile capable of striking Alaska.

China and the Dollar  —  Markets don't like Treasury talking down the dollar's status.  —  As if the dollar didn't have enough problems, Timothy Geithner took China's bait yesterday and said he was “quite open” to its suggestion this week to displace the greenback with an “international reserve currency.”

POLITICS-US: Neo-Con Ideologues Launch New Foreign Policy Group  —  A newly-formed and still obscure neo-conservative foreign policy organisation is giving some observers flashbacks to the 1990s, when its predecessor staked out the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy that came to fruition under the George W. Bush administration.

Voters Voice Concern about Ethics in Mass. Government in Poll from Rappaport Center at Suffolk Law School  —  BOSTON - Massachusetts voters have serious concerns about honesty, ethics and influence in state government, according to a new poll from the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Service at Suffolk University Law School.

Jindal Spurns Obama's Jobless Aid as Mayor Pleads ‘Help Me Now’  —  Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican, cited fiscal responsibility when he turned down about $98 million in unemployment aid that was part of President Barack Obama's $787 billion federal stimulus package.

Obama 2.0 Volunteer Effort: Still a work in progress  —  Organizing for America, the Democratic National Committee-based group that took over for Barack Obama's prodigious grassroots campaign organization released the results of their weekend canvassing effort in support of Obama's budget proposal.