Obama's Conundrum: Shunning Iran's Opposition  —  The turmoil in Iran since last week's election has confused the foreign policy debate here in the United States in interesting ways.  Supporters of President Obama, who until very recently had railed against the Bush administration's …

Extraordinary scenes: Robert Fisk in Iran  —  The long-standing Middle East correspondent for The Independent, Robert Fisk, is defying the government crackdown on foreign media reporting in Iran.  —  As he explains, he has been travelling around the streets of Tehran all day and most of the night and things are far from quiet:

Out of Washington, Edwards Finds Worries Remain  —  John Edwards says he has few illusions.  He knows the picture many Americans hold of him is not a pretty one.  He also knows that even before he was engulfed in tabloid scandal, his electoral appeal had limits.

ENSIGN, WHOA.... Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't much care what Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) does in his personal life.  What he does in his bedroom is his business.  —  But the larger context of this story matters a great deal.  Stupid personal mistakes are easily overlooked; breathtaking hypocrisy isn't.

Bachmann Boasts About Breaking The Law: I'm Refusing To Fill Out The Census  —  Next year, the 2010 Census will be sent to every American household, as required by the U.S. Constitution.  The far right has issued dire warnings of the Census; on a May 29th episode of Bill Bennett's radio show …

Fired AmeriCorps IG responds: White House charges are false  —  Fired AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin strongly denies the White House's claim that he was “confused, disoriented [and] unable to answer questions” at a May 20, 2009 board meeting of the Corporation for National and Community Service …

Poll Finds Unease With Obama on Key Issues  —  A substantial majority of Americans say President Obama has not developed a strategy to deal with the budget deficit, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, which also found that support for his plans to overhaul health care …

Barney Frank throws us under the bus.  Lauds incest brief.  Says language was appropriate.  —  Well, it seems a trip to the Oval Office is all openly gay congressman Barney Frank needs to stab his community in the back.  After criticizing the DOJ's anti-gay DOMA brief this morning …

Nathan Bedford Forrest Has Beautiful Eyes  —  Of the many reckonings that black people of honest political consciousness must endure, the appointment with black slavery is the most agonizing.  I don't mean the appointment with the notion of white people as the enslavers of our ancestors …

Why are Iranian police markings written in English?  —  Post-election protests continued in Tehran for the fifth day on Wednesday.  In many photos, riot police wear uniforms with the English word police on them.  Ambulances, too, bear the word ambulance in English.

Dems reel on healthcare  —  Congressional Democrats and the White House are scrambling to regain their footing after a series of setbacks has stalled political momentum to reform the nation's healthcare system.  —  Despite having a popular president in the White House and comfortable majorities in Congress …

Paul Krugman's Prophetic Prescience  —  Wow.  Just . . . wow. … As Arnold Kling says, there's a paragraph I'm sure glad I didn't write.

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off  —  SADLY, AND TO my horror, I am divorcing.  This was a 20-year partnership.  My husband is a good man, though he did travel 20 weeks a year for work.  I am a 47-year-old woman whose commitment to monogamy, at the very end, came unglued.  This turn of events was a surprise.

Healthcare CEOs Shoot Themselves in the Foot  —  Yesterday the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations decided to investigate the practice of recission.  This is when you pay your premiums for years to a healthcare insurer, then get sick, and then have your insurance cancelled.

Weekly Standard sold to Washington Examiner parent company  —  Clarity Media Group CEO Ryan McKibben announced today that the company had acquired The Weekly Standard magazine, which he characterized as “one of the most highly respected publications of public policy and political commentary in America.”

‘I CAN HAVE 2 VOTES’  —  ESPADA'S DEADLOCK ‘SOLUTION’: GIMME SENATE SUPERPOWERS  —  ALBANY — Renegade Democratic Sen. Pedro Espada claimed yesterday he and his Republican allies are forging an explosive new plan to give him an unprecedented two votes to break the newly emerged deadlock in the state Senate.

I'm pretty sure this is why Juan Williams isn't allowed to associate himself with NPR when he appears on The O'Reilly Factor  —  If folks didn't see this clip from Monday night, it's a beaut.  Not only does the reliable O'Reilly backstop Juan Williams eagerly assure the host that he was right …

GOP Introduces Bill To Derail Comparative Effectiveness Research  —  On Monday, Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Pat Roberts (R-KS) introduced the “Preserving Access to Targeted, Individualized, and Effective New Treatments and Services (PATIENTS) Act of 2009,” …

New honors for CNN's Crowley  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) - Tonight, a key member of the CNN political team will add an award to her already long list of honors.  —  Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley will be among the honorees at the Women's Media Center's first annual Media Awards at the Sackler Foundation in New York City.

In huge change, Obama'd strip Fed of credit card oversight  —  Elizabeth Warren, who chairs the Congressional Oversight Panel overseeing bailout spending, talks to McClatchy reporters about the president's proposed regulatory changes.  —  WASHINGTON — Among the sweeping changes …

The recession tracks the Great Depression  —  Green shoots are bursting out.  Or so we are told.  But before concluding that the recession will soon be over, we must ask what history tells us.  It is one of the guides we have to our present predicament.  Fortunately, we do have the data.

Maureen Dowd Thinks You're an Idiot  —  The New York Times' Maureen Dowd has written a piece that seems to indicate that President and Mrs. Obama are responsible for providing the rest of the nation with good examples of how we should eat.  —  Seriously.  —  Dowd writes:

IRAN AND THE VEIL.  —  Photo from Tehran by Farhad Rajabali, via Flickr  —  The photos coming out of Tehran demonstrate, movingly and beautifully, that women are on the front lines of the protests taking place there, veils and all.  The images reminded me of President Obama's focus …

Emanuel, Sebelius Headline New DLC Policy Forum  —  On June 17, the New DLC hosted its first policy forum.  Rahm Emanuel opened a program that featured panel discussions on education reform and health reform.  And Kathleen Sebelius delivered the keynote address.

Health Care Rationing Rhetoric Overlooks Reality  —  Rationing.  —  More to the point: Rationing!  —  As in: Wait, are you talking about rationing medical care?  Access to medical care is a fundamental right.  And rationing sounds like something out of the Soviet Union.  Or at least Canada.

Twitter Vindicated?  —  Andrew responds to my complaint, citing Joshua Kucera's fact-checking, about Twitter's accuracy.  Score a point for Andrew/Twitter on the specific example about crowd sizes, although I'm still a Twitter skeptic.  (My sense is that many other tweets have generated …

Iran's soccer team wears symbolic green bands  —  TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Members of Iran's national soccer team wore green arm and wrist bands Wednesday during their World Cup qualifying match against South Korea.  —  The team does not normally wear green bands.