BREAKING: NY-20: Tedisco Preps for Loss, Files Motion to Overturn Election Results Before Polls Even Close  —  Republican Jim Tedisco may be running for the House in a district where Republicans outnumber Democratic voters by some 70,000, but with the polls closing in a matter of hours, Tedisco's campaign is prepping for a loss.

Court to count up to 400 ballots in Senate recount trial  —  The absentee ballots are far fewer than Norm Coleman sought and appear to include many that Al Franken had identified as wrongly rejected.  —  In a potentially decisive ruling, a panel of three judges today ordered up to 400 …

Sebelius: Budget reconciliation on the table  —  President Obama's nominee to be secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) reaffirmed Tuesday that the administration is leaving the door open to using a controversial partisan procedural tactic to pass health reform.

Netanyahu to Obama: Stop Iran—Or I Will  —  In an interview conducted shortly before he was sworn in today as prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu laid down a challenge for Barack Obama.  The American president, he said, must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—and quickly …

Exclusive: Biden Daughter Cocaine Video Was a Setup  —  It was a setup.  —  The video purporting to show Vice President Joe Biden's daughter Ashley snorting cocaine was preplanned by a man trying to get rich selling the tape, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.

“Slightly smaller than Oregon”: a White House briefing on Britain  —  So here's what the White House is telling American reporters - and by extension the American people - about Britain.  It's laid out in an inch-thick “press kit”, with the Seal of the President of the United States emblazoned on the cover …

Hersh: Cheney ‘Left A Stay Behind’ In Obama's Government, Can ‘Still Control Policy Up To A Point’  —  In an interview on NPR's Fresh Air yesterday, host Terry Gross asked investigative journalist Seymour Hersh if, as he continues to investigate the Bush administration, “more people” were …

GOP dinner gets Newt, not Palin  —  Sarah Palin continues to have a rocky post-election season in the nation's capital.  —  Congressional Republicans are replacing their party's former vice presidential nominee as the headliner of their big spring fundraising dinner with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich …

With GM's Wagoner Ousted, Should Union Head Have Met the Same Fate?  —  Even though UAW President Ron Gettelfinger argues that his workers have made significant concessions in recent years, analysts say the offerings were too little, too late.  —  FOXNews.com

Partying like it's 1931  —  I'm detecting a trend in commentary that I find slightly ominous.  Some of the economic news lately has been slightly better than expected, which was bound to happen at some point (on average, after all, half the news should be better than expected).

Beyond AIG: A Bill to let Big Government Set Your Salary  —  It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses.

Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Fell by a Record 19%  —  Home prices in 20 U.S. cities fell 19 percent in January from a year earlier, the fastest drop on record, as demand plummeted and foreclosures rose.  —  The S&P/Case-Shiller index's decrease was more than forecast and compares with an 18.6 percent decrease in December.

Boats Too Costly to Keep Are Littering Coastlines  —  MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. — Boat owners are abandoning ship.  —  They often sandpaper over the names and file off the registry numbers, doing their best to render the boats, and themselves, untraceable.  Then they casually ditch the vessels …

McCain to Obama: Don't Be Like LBJ  —  ABC News' Teddy Davis reports:  —  Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has been largely supportive of President Obama's plans to bolster U.S. forces in Afghanistan but he said Tuesday that his former rival should go a step further and commit now to boosting US forces …

GM's Problems are 50 Years in the Making  —  Let's take something of a 30,000-foot view on the condition of General Motors.  The chart below details GM's operating margin — its profits divided into its revenues — over the past 50 years:  —  I haven't provided the dates on the chart because they aren't important.

The Man Who Ate the G.O.P.  —  In an ailing radio industry, with a graying audience and a pro-government landscape, Rush Limbaugh should be shuffling off into irrelevancy.  Instead, his ever more outrageous attacks have everyone debating whether he's the G.O.P.'s de facto leader, while the party shapes its ideology to fit his needs.

Absentee and paper ballots impounded in congressional election  —  NEW YORK - Absentee ballots and emergency paper ballots in the 20th Congressional District special election have been impounded under a court order, said Bob Brehm, a spokesman for the state Board of Elections.

YOUR WORLD IN GRAPHS: THE SENATE IS BROKEN EDITION.  —  Congressional expert Norm Ornstein's has a nice article arguing that the Senate is an increasingly broken and incapable institution.  It's anchored by this graph tracking the rise in filibusters over time.

Projection: Breitbart's new conspiracy theory is something Conservatives (like John McCain) have been doing to us for years  —  Andrew Breitbart tries to whip up the right wing bloggers into a frenzy over his new conspiracy theory about “comments” put by liberals on right-wing blogs which appears in the Moonie Times.

Miss Universe says had “lot of fun” in Guantanamo  —  MIAMI (Reuters) - A “relaxing, calm, beautiful place” may not be everyone's description of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States holds about 240 prisoners in a detention center that has drawn condemnation from around the world.

U.S. to Join U.N. Human Rights Council, Reversing Bush Policy  —  The Obama administration decided Tuesday to seek a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, reversing a decision by the Bush administration to shun the United Nations' premier rights body to protest the influence of repressive states.

Republican may vote for Obama budget plan  —  Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.) may buck his party when the House votes on President Obama's budget proposal later this week.  —  The freshman lawmaker told The Hill that his constituents are split, adding that he wants more information before deciding whether …