Budget Press Briefing (Arlington, VA)  —  As Prepared for Delivery by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Arlington, VA, Monday, April 06, 2009  —  Today, I am announcing the key decisions I will recommend to the president with respect to the fiscal year 2010 defense budget.

New and worse secrecy and immunity claims from the Obama DOJ  —  When Congress immunized telecoms last August for their illegal participation in Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program, Senate Democratic apologists for telecom immunity repeatedly justified that action by pointing …

Focus on the Family narrator arrested for luring teenage girl for sex on Net  —  A Colorado Springs man who narrates the Bible in Spanish on CDs and works in the Spanish broadcasting department of Focus on the Family appeared in court Monday in Golden on two felony counts of using the Internet …

‘Turkey foils plot to assassinate Obama’  —  Turkish security services have arrested a man of Syrian descent who was planning to assassinate US President Barack Obama during his current trip to Turkey, the Saudi daily Al Watan reported Monday.  —  According to the report, the man …

Stolen Cessna Pursued by Jet Fighters Lands on Highway  —  Pilot Took Off Running After Landing Plane, Officials Say  —  A Cessna stolen from a Canadian flight school landed on a Missouri highway late today, after being pursued for hours across the Midwest by fighter jets ready to shoot it down if it was determined to be a threat.

The Apology Tour: Will It Ever End?  —  Earlier today, President Obama addressed the Parliament of Turkey.  What made news were his positive references to Islam: … This is, of course, indistinguishable from many similar pronouncements that were made by President Bush.

Poll: Obama Approval Hits New High - 66%  —  CBS/NY Times Survey Finds Most Believe World Leaders Respect President, Though They Maintain U.S. Is Not Respected Overall  —  (CBS) As President Obama concludes his well-publicized trip to Europe, Americans are more positive about the respect accorded …

Bachmann fears ‘politically correct re-education camps for young people’  —  U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann says she fears the Obama administration will create “re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward …

A.P. to Take On Web Aggregators  —  Taking aim at the way news is spread across the Internet, The Associated Press said on Monday that it will demand that Web sites obtain permission to use the work of The A.P. or its member newspapers, and share revenue with the news organizations, and that it will take legal action those that do not.

Frank 'I'm A Member Of Dick Cheney's Fan Club' Gaffney: Obama's ‘Respect’ For Muslims Is Code For Submission  —  The right wing has been apoplectic over President Obama's words and actions while in Europe.  A large amount of their outrage has been over the fact that Obama briefly bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Murphy Leads by 83; Judge Says Start Counting Paper Ballots on Wednesday, Finish Machine Recanvass ASAP  —  ALBANY—The most up-to-date figures we can muster in the race to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in Congress now has Democrat Scott Murphy leading by 83 votes over Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, state and county elections officials said.

The Geithner-Summers Plan is Even Worse Than We Thought  —  Two weeks ago, I posted an article showing how the Geithner-Summers banking plan could potentially and unnecessarily transfer hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth from taxpayers to banks.  The same basic arithmetic was later described …

A Tale of Two Depressions  —  Often cited comparisons - which look only at the US - find that today's crisis is milder than the Great Depression.  In this column, two leading economic historians show that the world economy is now plummeting as it did in the Great Depression; indeed …

Scenes From the Real America  —  I spent Saturday at the bi-annual Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot, right outside of Louisville, Ky. Gun enthusiasts of all stripes were there — from the National Rifle Association and sportsmen to militia members to white supremacists and Obama birthers.

Lincoln Says She Will Vote Against Employee Free Choice Act  —  Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., told a Monday meeting of the Little Rock Political Animals Club that she will oppose the Employee Free Choice Act.  —  Lincoln's office said the senator will release a statement on the legislation this afternoon.

Poll Finds New Optimism on Economy Since Inauguration  —  Americans have grown more optimistic about the economy and the direction of the country in the 11 weeks since President Obama was inaugurated, suggesting that he is enjoying some success in his critical task of rebuilding the nation's confidence …

Bob Dylan on Barack Obama, Ulysses Grant and American Civil War ghosts  —  Listen to an exclusive track from Bob Dylan's new album, and read his views on US politics and history, exclusively on Times Online  —  Exclusive track: Listen to Feel A Change Comin' On

A MESSAGE TO THE RICH  —  The Washington Post ran a column a few days ago, in which a Mr. Joel Berg applauds the Obama Administration for reducing the amount of charitable deduction that The Rich are allowed to take when they write a check to charity.  —  Mr. Berg - who runs a charitable foundation …

US Recovery Is Far Off, Banks Are ‘Basically Insolvent’: Soros  —  The U.S. economy is in for a “lasting slowdown” and could face a Japan-style period of relatively low growth coupled with high inflation, billionaire investor George Soros said on Monday.  —  Soros, speaking to Reuters …

Newt: U.S. at greater risk under Obama  —  The U.S. is at greater risk of terrorist attack because of the Obama administration's actions, Newt Gingrich said Monday.  —  In a chat with POLITICO readers, Gingrich also called the administration's response to the North Korean missile launch a …

Fun With Phosphates  —  The blogosphere had a few laughs last week at the expense of RedState head honcho Eric Erickson, who warned that revolution was coming and told residents of Washington state, “I'd be cleaning my gun right about now waiting to protect my property from the coming riots …

Geithner Wrong, Crap Assets Correctly Priced, Say Harvard And Princeton Profs  —  The government's official view that toxic assets are incorrectly priced due to illiquidity “fire sales” is wrong, a new study by Harvard and Princeton finance professors suggests.

Report Calls CIA Detainee Treatment ‘Inhuman’  —  Medical officers who oversaw interrogations of terrorism suspects in CIA secret prisons committed gross violations of medical ethics and in some cases essentially participated in torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded …

Whigs, Federalists Strongly Differ on Support for Obama  —  These are highly partisan times in America.  “Bipartisanship” (or, in the Obama nomenclature, “post-partisanship") makes for a catchy campaign slogan, but is difficult to execute upon in practice.  The White House's aspirations …

When Is a Cartel Not a Cartel?  —  This seems mighty odd to me: … It seems to me that when your trade association is contemplating cartelization schemes that are so clearly illegal that you need to keep a lawyer on hand to ensure that you're avoiding illegal cartelization schemes, you're probably contemplating an illegal cartel.

Raul Castro meets with 6 visiting US lawmakers  —  HAVANA - President Raul Castro met with six visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus for more than four hours, his first face-to-face discussions with U.S. leaders since he became Cuba's president last year.