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 ‘open’ to China proposal  —  Geithner, at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the U.S. is “open” to a headline-grabbing proposal by the governor of the China's central bank, which was widely reported as being a call for a new global currency to replace the dollar …

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 …

House Democrats Slash More Than $100B From Obama's Plan  —  Budget Leaders Refuse to Include More Funding for Financial Sector Bailout  —  House budget leaders today unveiled a $3.45 trillion budget blueprint for fiscal 2010 that slices more than $100 billion from the spending plan President Obama proposed last month.

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 …

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.”

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.

The man who survived both atomic bombings  —  Japan has certified a man aged 93 as the only known survivor of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both hit by atomic bombs towards the end of World War II.  —  Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on 6 August 1945 when a US plane dropped the first atomic bomb.

Limbaugh An Issue in New York Special  —  Democrats are seeking to use conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh to rally their base in advance of next week's special election in New York's 20th district.  —  A new direct mail piece from businessman Scott Murphy's campaign features …

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.

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 …

Former CNN Anchor Moves to The Onion  —  In yet another sign that the line between real news and fake news is getting thinner, one of CNN's main anchors during the 1980s and 1990s, Bobbie Battista, has taken a step through the looking glass and can now be seen anchoring reports online for ONN, The Onion News Network.

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 …

My speech to Gordon Brown goes viral  —  The internet has changed politics - changed it utterly and forever.  Twenty-four hours ago, I made a three-minute speech in the European Parliament, aimed at Gordon Brown.  I tipped off the BBC and some of the newspaper correspondents but, unsurprisingly …

U.S. to Detail Plan to Rein In Finance World  —  WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will detail on Thursday a 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 …

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 …

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.

Netanyahu, Lieberman ‘struck secret deal for West Bank construction’  —  Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has struck a secret deal with Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman for highly contentious construction on West Bank land known as E1, Army Radio reported Wednesday.

New best friends have a great meeting of the minds  —  BARACK OBAMA delivered Kevin Rudd the ultimate compliment yesterday by citing the Prime Minister while defending his own approach to the global financial crisis.  —  During a live, nationally televised press conference that had been hyped …

Clinton: U.S. Drug Policies Failed, Fueled Mexico's Drug War  —  Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Mexico on Wednesday with a stark mea culpa, saying that decades of U.S. anti-narcotics policies had been a failure and contributed to the explosion of drug violence south of the border.

U.S. Sees Chinese Military Rise, and a Need for More Contact  —  WASHINGTON — China is seeking technology and weapons to disrupt the traditional advantages of American forces, and secrecy surrounding its military creates the potential for miscalculation on both sides, according to a Pentagon study released Wednesday.

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.

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.

Obama's viewership declines  —  UPDATED: Most TV shows start strong in the ratings, then decline as their novelty wears off.  —  Apparently that trend also holds true for the president's primetime telecasts.  —  According to the national Nielsen ratings, Barack Obama's Tuesday-night press …

A Conversation with Timothy F. Geithner  —  Speaker:  —  Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. Department of the Treasury  —  Moderator:  —  ROGER C. ALTMAN: Good morning, everyone.  I'm Roger Altman, and welcome — (audio break) — on Foreign Relations and today's event featuring Treasury Secretary Geithner.

Is it back to the Fifties?  —  “My mother is 75,” said Jon Stewart, the US late-night comedian, at the end of his already famous interview with Jim Cramer, the television stock market pundit.  “And she bought into the idea that long-term investing is the way to go.  And guess what?”