Banned Techniques Yielded ‘High Value Information,’ Memo Says  —  WASHINGTON - President Obama's national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.

Acting Freddie Mac CFO commits suicide  —  VIENNA, Va. — David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac, committed suicide in his Hunter Mill Estates home Wednesday morning.  —  Fairfax County Police spokeswoman Mary Anne Jennings tells WTOP police responded to the Kellermann home …

Court Debates Strip Search of Student  —  WASHINGTON — The United States Supreme Court spent an hour on Tuesday debating what middle school students are apt to put in their underwear and what should be done about it.  —  Justice Stephen G. Breyer, for instance, said it struck him as …

Israel Puts Iran Issue Ahead of Palestinians  —  JERUSALEM — The new Israeli government will not move ahead on the core issues of peace talks with the Palestinians until it sees progress in U.S. efforts to stop Iran's suspected pursuit of a nuclear weapon and limit Tehran's rising influence in the region …

Global economy is expected to shrink this year  —  WASHINGTON - The world economy is likely to shrink this year for the first time in six decades.  —  The International Monetary Fund projected the 1.3 percent drop in a dour forecast released Wednesday.  That could leave at least 10 million …

A Pentagon Cyber-Command Is in the Works  —  The Obama administration is finalizing plans for a new Pentagon command to coordinate the security of military computer networks and to develop new offensive cyber-weapons, sources said last night.  —  Planning for the reorganization of Defense Department …

How they lie: a case study  —  Did an Obama judicial nominee really express a preference for Allah over Jesus?  No, not by a long shot  —  From the second I read the sentence, I knew there was something fishy about it.  Many years' experience in reading and then looking into rightwing canards set off …

Muslim who called for engagement with Muslim Brotherhood to advise White House  —  Mogahed, along with John Esposito, cooked the results of a Gallup survey of Muslims to increase the number of “moderates.”  —  Mogahed was also a member of U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project, which called for engagement with Muslim Brotherhood.

Stopping Dem 60 ‘real hard,’ Cornyn fears  —  The man in charge of electing more Republicans to the Senate said it will be difficult to stop the Democrats from winning a 60-seat majority in 2010.  —  Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the new head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee …

Fuzzy Math  —  According to an MIT study, cap and trade could cost the average household more than $3,900 per year.  —  It's just another inconvenient truth: If Americans want any of the government remedies that would supposedly save a planet allegedly imperiled by global warming, it's going to cost them.

Obama Blames America  —  Demonizing Harry Truman may not play well with voters.  —  The president of the United States has completed another outing abroad in his now standard form: as the un-Bush.  At one stop after another — the latest in Latin America, where Hugo Chávez expressed wishes …

$%^&*!!: Civility and tolerance in the Age of Obama  —  My syndicated column today looks at the outbreak of Obama-esque discourse across the country.  Couldn't even mention some of the misogynist sleaze prompted by the Tea Party movement because newspapers wouln't print it.  And they call us an “unhinged mob?”

Shirtless Obama to appear on magazine cover  —  (CNN) - It's not every day a President of the United States lands shirtless on a magazine cover.  —  But the May issue of Washingtonian Magazine, to hit newsstands Wednesday, is causing a bit of a sizzle inside the beltway.