Helen Thomas: Not Even Nixon Tried to Control the Media Like Obama  —  (CNSNews.com) - Following a testy exchange during today's briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control …

Job Losses Rise in June as Unemployment Reaches 9.5%  —  The pace of job losses quickened in June after slowing just a month earlier, casting a shadow over the Obama administration's attempts to stanch months of declines in the labor market.  —  The American economy shed 467,000 jobs last month …

WashPost sells access, $25,000+  —  For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors.

Taliban capture U.S. soldier  —  KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) — A U.S. soldier has been captured by militants in Afghanistan, the U.S. military and the Taliban said Thursday.  —  The unidentified soldier has been missing since Tuesday.  U.S. forces are exhausting all resources to find the soldier, the military said.

39 trips for Sanford with no security in '09  —  EXCLUSIVE: Governor's secret trip prompts scrutiny  —  Gov. Mark Sanford left the Governor's Mansion without a security escort, 38 times in 2008.  In the first six months of this year, he left the mansion without security, 39 times.

Barney Frank: Let's spend TARP profits before taxpayers can get them  —  When President Obama announced on June 9 that some financial institutions would be allowed to repay Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars, he said the massively expensive TARP bailout had made money for the federal government.

Palin E-mails Show Infighting With Staff  —  Exclusive: Spat Over Todd Palin's Membership In Secessionist Party Was Major Distraction On Critical Day In '08 Campaign … Internal campaign e-mails exchanged three weeks before Election Day offer a rare look at just how frustrated …

Time for an Israeli Strike?  —  With Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever.  —  Iran's nuclear threat was never …

Cracks In Obama Facade As Disapproval Grows, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; But Voter Outlook On Economy, Nation Improve  —  President Barack Obama's first five months in office have seen his job approval remain stable overall - currently at a politically healthy 57 - 33 percent …

Black Reporters on the Beat of Michelle Obama  —  While Michelle Obama was meeting with doctors and patients at the Upper Cardozo Health Center, nearly two dozen journalists stood behind a white rope in a small room upstairs, most finally growing so tired during the hour-long wait that they sat on the floor.

Terror from the Right  —  75 plots, conspiracies and racist rampages since Oklahoma City … What follows is a detailed listing of major terrorist plots and racist rampages that have emerged from the American radical right in the years since Oklahoma City.

Michelle Malkin Reports on IG-Gate  —  Michelle Malkin's syndicated column today moves the story forward substantially with this: … Read the whole thing.  She gives me credit for pushing the story last week.  I had mentioned this at The American Spectator blog:

Congress's Travel Tab Swells  —  Spending on Taxpayer-Funded Trips Rises Tenfold; From Italy to the Galápagos  —  WASHINGTON — Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows …

U.S. Nuns Facing Vatican Scrutiny  —  The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition.  —  Nuns were the often-unsung workers who helped build …

House of Pain: GOP's Class of '94  —  The sex scandals that have tarnished Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) don't appear to have much in common.  Yet there is one thread that binds them together: Both Ensign and Sanford were members of the famed Republican House class of 1994, as well as its latest casualties.

Times Square Tea Party Denounces Obama, Media, Imaginary Tax Rates, Etc.  —  They had another one of those Tea Party things this evening, this time right next to the Times Square subway station on Broadway.  The anti-Obama pep rally occupied part of the street and part of the sidewalk …

Obama administration touring competitive rural districts  —  Cabinet secretaries will fan out this summer to hear concerns and possibly sway some more-conservative voters.  —  Reporting from Washington — The White House bills it as a “listening tour,” a chance for President Obama's Cabinet …

Let the Usurpers Writhe  —  TEHRAN — Think of normalized relations with the United States as the big prize.  Who gets to deliver it?  One thing is certain: Iran's ruthless usurpers are determined to ensure reformists are never in a position to claim the breakthrough.

A few victory laughs for Sen.-elect Franken  —  Al Franken is funny again.  —  The senator-elect alternated between jokes and emotion Wednesday in a victory rally that was, as he acknowledged, more than two years in the making.  —  “It was close,” Franken began, garnering a big laugh for his even bigger understatement.