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.

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.”

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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

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.

Bold claims of stimulus jobs can't be measured  —  Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition  —  WASHINGTON - If space exploration were conducted like the job forecasts under the government's new stimulus law, man surely would have missed the moon.  But this isn't rocket science.

Budget Has Obama Courting Fellow Democrats  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama loped up the stairs inside the Capitol on Wednesday, running a few minutes late for a lunch with Democratic senators.  The standing ovation as he entered the room masked an undercurrent of friendly but distinct differences within.

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 …

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT: FOURTH QUARTER 2008 (Final)  —  Corporate Profits, Fourth quarter 2008  —  Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 …

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.

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:

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 …

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.

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.

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 …

AIG Fights a Fire at Its Paris Unit  —  Executives' Resignations Put Billions in Contracts at Risk of Default  —  Amid the flap over bonuses at American International Group Inc. two of the company's top managers in Paris have resigned.  Their moves have left the giant insurer …

Palin in Anchorage  —  Peter Hamby picks up a candid Sarah Palin speech to the Alaska GOP last week, in which she expressed her unhappiness with the media and her alienation from the McCain campaign: … The rest of the speech is here.  —  Also, Palin's PAC says it wasn't polling Iowa …

McAuliffe Criticized For Ties to Lobbyist  —  Terry McAuliffe came under fire from a Democratic opponent in the race for Virginia governor yesterday for accepting fundraising help from a top Republican lobbyist — the sharpest attack yet targeting McAuliffe's history as a Washington political insider.

Senate race is a broken record  —  The old record was set by the 1962 governor's election between DFLer Karl Rolvaag and incumbent Republican Elmer L. Andersen.  —  Minnesota's U.S. Senate race set a record Wednesday for delay.  No election for statewide office in Minnesota has dragged …

Can't a website be a newspaper?  —  I spent some of yesterday afternoon reading about Senator Benjamin Cardin's proposal to make it easier for newspapers to achieve tax-exempt nonprofit status.  The law has the mixed blessings of novelty, and I think that on balance it's a good idea.

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 …

Domino's ads delivering for Gov. contender  —  Corporate CEOs aren't the most popular people right now, but one of them wants to make it very clear that he had no part in this whole bailout thing.  —  Domino's Pizza Chairman and CEO David Brandon has been on national television for two weeks touting the …