The President Ties His Own Hands on Terror  —  The point of interrogation is intelligence, not confession.  —  The Obama administration has declassified and released opinions of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) given in 2005 and earlier that analyze the legality …

Fox-Bashing CNN Reporter Applied for a Job at Fox  —  CNN's Susan Roesgen went nuts on the air Wednesday at a Chicago tea party, blaming everything (accurately) on Fox News.  But maybe she was angry because Fox turned her down for a job—twice!  —  Roesgen got snippy with a crazy interviewee …

McCain Guru Urges GOP to Back Gay Marriage  —  ABC News' Teddy Davis reports:  —  Former top McCain adviser Steve Schmidt is planning to use a Friday speech to the Log Cabin Republicans to urge the GOP to drop its opposition to same-sex marriage.  —  “I'm confident American public opinion …

Happening NOW  —  For those of who you who can't get enough Palin and/or miss Campaign '08, C-SPAN's Howard Mortman sends over this note:  —  At about 1:30 p.m. ET today (Friday, April 17), C-SPAN2 will show A.B. Culvahouse discussing the vetting process for Sarah Palin's selection as John McCain's running mate, plus other issues.

E.P.A. Clears the Way for Regulation of Warming Gases  —  WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday formally declared carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that threaten public health and welfare, setting in motion a process that for the first …

Palin Says She Considered Abortion  —  In her first out-of-state political appearance since last fall's presidential election, former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin confided to 3,000 at a right-to-life event here that she had “just for a fleeting moment” contemplated seeking …

Taxes & Tyranny  —  Amidst all of the hooplah, I've heard a lot of complaints from liberals.  Here are the most frequent complaints and my responses.  1. All of this tyranny talk is overheated and idiotic.  Well, some of it surely is.  But look: According to that Reason video I posted below …

One of the most hateful rants in history  —  http://www.youtube.com/watch?  v=jAAHMDpk7Ik  —  Surprisingly, Olbermann is not the craziest person in this video.  That alone puts this into a special category of left-wing vile that stands out as some of the most hateful speech you will ever hear on television.

Culture Shock  —  What happened when one conservative Web site ventured outside the movement bubble.  —  Last May, Conor Friedersdorf, a twenty-eight-year-old recent graduate of NYU's Journalism School, decided he was going to save conservative journalism.

In Texas, 31% Say State Has Right to Secede From U.S., But 75% Opt To Stay  —  Thirty-one percent (31%) of Texas voters say that their state has the right to secede from the United States and form an independent country.  —  However, the latest Rasmussen Reports poll in the state finds …

Tea Party Fallout: Independents Turned Off, Some GOPers Worried  —  It's been two days now since angry conservatives hosted a series of tea parties across the country, and the fallout has some Republicans nervous.  —  While the anti-tax sentiment of the protests may have been sincere …

Burr told constituents not to mob ATMs  —  Sen. Richard Burr (D-N.C.) told his wife to pull the family's cash out of an ATM at the height of last fall's financial crisis — but he advised North Carolinians not to panic when Charlotte-based Wachovia was taken over by Citigroup in an emergency transaction around the same time.

Rescued Banks Balk at Chrysler Deal  —  Creditors Pushed To Surrender Claims Of Billions  —  At a meeting with executives from four of the nation's largest banks earlier this month, the chief of the government's auto task force, Steven Rattner, delivered a message that shocked some in the room.

Newly Released Memo Inadvertently Reveals CIA Held (and Abused) Missing Prisoner  —  Among the OLC memos released today, one appears to inadvertently reveal that a top al-Qaida suspect captured in northern Iraq in January 2004 was held by the CIA in a secret prison.

Morning Thread: Epilogue  —  Since the right-wing blogs likely will not revisit and the press certainly will not.  —  The coda of the Beauchamp Affair: … If you cannot place the name, Master Sgt. Hatley was the direct superior of Pvt. Scott Beauchamp and the person most used to discredit …

Limbaugh's ‘just an entertainer,’ says GOP congressman  —  U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt of Kansas is a feisty and ardent conservative.  But he said something Tuesday that might irritate Rush Limbaugh's ditto-head followers.  —  Tiahrt was asked by a Kansas City Star Editorial Board member whether Limbaugh …

Turning Tables, U.S. Troops Ambush Taliban With Swift and Lethal Results  —  KORANGAL OUTPOST, Afghanistan — Only the lead insurgents were disciplined as they walked along the ridge.  They moved carefully, with weapons ready and at least five yards between each man, the soldiers who surprised them said.

Goodbye Bland Affluence  —  Get ready for authenticity chic.  —  A small sign of the times: USA Today this week ran an article about a Michigan family that, under financial pressure, decided to give up credit cards, satellite television, high-tech toys and restaurant dining, to live on a 40-acre farm and become more self-sufficient.

Tax Tea Party Time, Part Two  —  A look at today's taxes compared to those in the past.  —  Last week, I presented data comparing taxation in the United States to other major countries and concluded that Americans are not especially overtaxed.  The almost universal reaction to this analysis was, “So what?”

Washington Diarist: Dead Of Exposure  —  The evidence that transparency is returning to Washington may be found not in its politics but in its architecture.  Everywhere buildings are going up in glass.  Many of these gleaming stacks of work spaces with nothing to hide …

Jay Bybee  —  I don't really have much to add to what's being said by the usual progressive blogosphere suspects on the subject of the torture memos or torture in general.  But it is worth emphasizing the chilling fact that one of the principle authors of this nonsense, Jay Bybee, is now a federal judge on the 9th Circuit.

New gun law aimed at asserting sovereignty  —  Gov. Brian Schweitzer has signed into law a bill that aims to exempt Montana-made guns from federal regulation, adding firepower to a battery of legislative efforts to assert states' rights across the nation.  —  “It's a gun bill …