Obama, the ICRC Report and ongoing suppression  —  (updated below)  —  Following up on the latest extremist Cheney/Addington/Yoo arguments advanced by the Obama DOJ in order to shield Bush lawbreaking from disclosure and judicial review — an episode I wrote about in detail yesterday …

Pilot of Stolen Cessna Wanted U.S. Fighter Jets to Shoot Him Down  —  Trooper Said Yavuz Berke, Now in Custody, Wanted U.S. Military to Kill Him  —  The Canadian man wholed fighter jets on a chase across six states yesterday flew his stolen plane into the U.S. in hopes the military would shoot …

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 …

Lieberman-Obama honeymoon stops at missile defense  —  Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) has tried to mend his relationship with President Obama in recent months but their reconciliation hit a snag Monday over ballistic missile defense.  —  Lieberman, the self-described independent Democrat …

Official: Man freed amid Obama murder ‘hoax’  —  Anonymous e-mail sparked arrest of ‘mentally disturbed’ suspect in Turkey  —  ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish police detained a man after receiving a hoax tip that he was plotting to kill President Barack Obama but quickly released him without charge, a government official said Tuesday.

Reality hits Obama Express  —  President Barack Obama, after a lightning-quick start for his agenda on Capitol Hill, is bracing for a much slower pace and big changes in his proposals as early urgency and excitement give way to the more languid rhythms that are the norm for Congress.

Obama Makes Unannounced Visit to Iraq  —  BAGHDAD — President Obama made an unannounced trip to Baghdad on Tuesday, punctuating his week-long overseas trip with a stop to talk to American troops and Iraqi leaders.  —  Air Force One landed at Baghdad International Airport under heavy security …

‘No-Risk’ Insurance at F.D.I.C.  —  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was set up 76 years ago with the important but simple job of insuring bank deposits.  —  Now, because of what could politely be called mission creep, it's elbowing its way into the middle of the financial mess as an enabler of enormous leverage.

Giannoulias raises $1.1 million for Senate bid  —  He's still just at the “exploratory committee” stage, but Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias has already raised $1.1 million in the 28 days since he announced he was “exploring” a run for U.S. Senate.  —  He is eyeing the seat formerly held …

President Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq  —  President Obama made a surprise visit to Iraq Tuesday afternoon, landing on Air Force One in Baghdad at 4:42 p.m. local time after concluding an eight-day overseas tour through Europe.  —  The unannounced visit to a war zone was a closely guarded secret …

When it comes to healthcare, the U.S., Britain and Canada are hurting  —  Healthcare in all three countries has the same problem.  They just feel it in different places.  —  When asked by the New England Journal of Medicine to detail his healthcare vision during the campaign …

Public Policy That Makes Test Subjects of Us All  —  Suppose you wanted to test the effects of halving the amount of salt in people's diets.  If you were an academic researcher, you'd have to persuade your institutional review board that you had considered the risks and obtained informed consent from the participants.

Rick Warren says he's not an anti-gay-marriage activist  —  Rick Warren was on Larry King and says he is not against gay marriage: … He says he's not interested in Iowa's court ruling that made gay marriage legal.  —  I guess he's trying to get in a mea culpa for the BeliefNet interview …

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 …

Judge: U.S. hid witness' mental illness in Guantanamo cases  —  WASHINGTON — The Justice Department improperly withheld important psychiatric records of a government witness who was used in a “significant” number of Guantanamo cases, a federal judge has concluded.

BEAT SWEETENERS.  —  Matt Yglesias pulls the curtain back a bit on the “beat sweeteners:” … I'm not sure this is quite as calculated as Matt implies.  New administrations tend to spark a lot of positive profiles because new administrations usher in new players whose power merits attention …

Taleban-style law for women in Afghanistan is dropped after outcry  —  A controversial law condoning marital rape and reintroducing Taleban-era rules for Afghan women has been shelved after an outcry in the West.  —  The Afghan Foreign Ministry said that the law had not been enacted …

Cantor's strategy: Ambush Democrats  —  Peril awaits any first-term lawmaker who ventures to the House floor unprepared for a duel, but Ohio Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy had a particularly rough go of it the other day.  —  Kilroy took the floor to support an amendment to a popular public-service bill …

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.