Obama Heads to the Front to Do Battle on Health-Care Reform  —  Six months into his presidency, Barack Obama may have no greater test of his ability to translate personal popularity into a successful legislative agenda than the upcoming two weeks.  —  With skepticism about the president's …

Frank McCourt, 'Angela's Ashes' Author, Dies at 78  —  Frank McCourt, a former New York City schoolteacher who turned his miserable childhood in Limerick, Ireland, into a phenomenally popular, Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, “Angela's Ashes,” died in Manhattan on Sunday.  He was 78 and lived in Manhattan and Roxbury, Conn.

Governors Fear Medicaid Costs in Health Plan  —  BILOXI, Miss. — The nation's governors, Democrats as well as Republicans, voiced deep concern Sunday about the shape of the health care plan emerging from Congress, fearing that Washington was about to hand them expensive new Medicaid obligations without money to pay for them.

Palin Hairdresser: NYT Was Lying About “Hair Thinning” Claim  —  Chalk this up as Stupid Palin Meme of the Week:  —  In a July 12th hit piece published on the front page of the New York Times, reporters Jim Rutenberg and Serge Kovaleski (assisted by Kim Severson and William Yardley in Alaska) made the following claim:

Hooker who worked for Kristin Davis says Eliot Spitzer wasn't her only governor  —  Another gubernatorial sex scandal may be looming.  Even as South Carolina's Mark Sanford waits to see whether his wife, Jenny, forgives his romp in the pampas, a New York call girl could plunge one of America's …

Video: Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl Full Hostage Video  —  Here is the entire video showing Private Bowe Berdahl in Taliban captivity.  The Taliban have threatened to murder him if the U.S. does not leave Afghanistan.  —  Until Bowe Bergdahl's captors are dead I will not rest.

Approval Ratings Drop for Obama on Health Care, Other Issues  —  Approval Rating on Health Care Falls Below 50 Percent  —  Obama's approval ratings on other front-burner issues, such as the economy and the federal budget deficit, have also slipped over the summer, as rising concern …

Let's Reach for The Stars Again  —  What is most striking about this 40th anniversary of the first human landing on the moon is that we can no longer do what we're celebrating.  Not “do not choose to,” but “can't.”  —  By the 40th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Oregon Trail was carrying settlers to the West.

‘I wed Iranian girls before execution’  —  Article's topics: Basiji, Ali Khamenei  —  In a shocking and unprecedented interview, directly exposing the inhumanity of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's religious regime in Iran, a serving member of the paramilitary Basiji militia has told this reporter …

Race in 2028  —  During last week's Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Republican senators kept bringing the conversation back to 2001 — the year when Sonia Sotomayor delivered the most famous version of her line about how a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences” might outshine a white male judge.

Cashing In, Again, on Risky Mortgages  —  LOS ANGELES — From the ninth floor of a downtown office building on Wilshire Boulevard, Jack Soussana delivered staggering numbers of mortgages to homeowners during the real estate boom, amassing a fortune.  —  By Mr. Soussana's own account, his customers fared less happily.

After bashing K Street, Dodd mingles with lobbyists  —  After distancing himself from lobbyists in campaign ads, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) was on Martha's Vineyard this weekend meeting with some of the most well known names on K Street.  —  The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee …

Commerce Secretary: America needs to pay for China's emissions  —  It's bad enough that the Obama administration wants to penalize all Americans for their energy use through the cap-and-tax scheme that will hobble our economy and hike electricity and gas costs, but until now they only proposed to penalize us for our own energy use.

WITH SO MUCH ON THE LINE.... In 1993, Bill Kristol privately advised congressional Republicans to do whatever it took to “kill” the Clinton health care reform initiative.  It wasn't that the policy proposal was a bad idea; it was that passage would help the Democratic Party for years to come.

Morning Joe  —  I think this Michael Hirsch piece on Joe Stiglitz somewhat misses the point.  —  Yes, Joe should be playing a bigger role — he's an insanely great economist, in ways you can't really appreciate unless you're deep into the field.  I'd say that he's more his generation's Paul Samuelson …

The Shuffle President  —  Like romantic comedies and superhero blockbusters, the modern presidency has evolved into a reliable form of dramatic narrative.  A candidate comes into office brandishing a broad theme — a vow to clean up government, perhaps, or to fearlessly prune it back …