Dems warn Baucus with gavel threat  —  In an apparent warning to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), some liberal Democrats have suggested a secret-ballot vote every two years on whether or not to strip committee chairmen of their gavels.

WARNING EXPLICIT CONTENT: - A copy of the email sent by Police Officer Justin Barrett  — Weather - Traffic - News - Sports - Business - Entertainment - Morning - Health - On TV - Blogs - About Us  —  Many pages in this Fox Television Stations, Inc. web site feature links to other sites …

Obama Set to Have Beers With Gates and Police Sergeant  —  Obama Hopes Chat With Gates and Policeman Will Defuse Controversy Over Arrest  —  President Obama will welcome a well-known scholar and the police officer who arrested him to the White House on Thursday, in an effort to put to an end …

Debra Burlingame: Revenge of the ‘Shoe Bomber’  —  The terrorist sues to resume his jihad from prison.  The Obama administration caves in.  —  Multimedia  — previous  — next  —  Health Care Reform  —  President Obama's effort to overhaul the health-care system may have momentum.

EXCLUSIVE: No. 3 at Justice OK'd Panther reversal  —  Case involved polling place in Philadelphia  —  Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the No. 3 official in the Obama Justice Department, was consulted and ultimately approved a decision in May to reverse course and drop …

Exclusive: Earmark critic steered cash to blimp research  —  Rep. Pete Sessions — the chief of the Republicans' campaign arm in the House — says on his website that earmarks have become “a symbol of a broken Washington to the American people.”  —  Yet in 2008, Sessions himself steered …

Poll: Obama loses ground on health care  —  NBC/WSJ survey also shows a drop in his overall job-approval rating  —  President Barack Obama discusses health care reform during a town hall meeting at Broughton High School on Wednesday in Raleigh, N.C.  —  Deputy political director

How nervous should those Blue Dogs be?  —  OK, as promised the other day, I've run some numbers about the Democratic Blue Dogs in the House of Representatives, and they're quite interesting.  Here's the deal.  This is a long post, but it's got lots of actual new information, and no difficult-to-discern irony.

Debts paid, Hillary Clinton builds $3+ million campaign fund for ...?  —  With all of the immense numbers coming out of Washington these days, former senator, ex-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign debt is chump change.  Make that, “was.”  —  Here's the news: There is no more Hillary Clinton campaign debt.

Obama's Ratings Slide Across the Board  —  The Economy, Health Care Reform and Gates Grease the Skids  —  Barack Obama's approval ratings have suffered major declines.  The president's overall job approval number fell from 61% in mid-June to 54% currently.

Tough on Israel  —  Why President Obama's battle against Jewish settlements could prove self-defeating  —  ONE OF THE MORE striking results of the Obama administration's first six months is that only one country has worse relations with the United States than it did in January: Israel.

50 Most Beautiful 2009 - Top 10 (HTML)  —  1. Rep. Martin Heinrich … Rep. Martin Heinrich has gone from climbing mountains to climbing stairs.  —  The avid outdoorsman, who once ran a wilderness adventure program for children and teens, now has to rely on his trips from his fifth-floor Longworth office …

Cash for Clunkers: Federal rebate revs up buyers  —  Dale Skreen, left, of Loretto, took a last look at his 1993 Ford F-150 pickup truck before he drove away in his 2009 Ford F-150 XLT pickup.  Salesman Adam Notsch helped Skreen get a federal rebate in the Cash for Clunkers program.

Texas Hospital Flexing Muscle in Health Fight  —  McALLEN, Tex. — One of the largest sources of campaign contributions to Senate Democrats during this year's health care debate is a physician-owned hospital in one of the country's poorest regions that has sought to soften measures that could choke its rapid growth.

Self-Hating Jews and Other Sad Cases  —  I've received a lot of mail already in reaction to my post about the crisis in Israel — a crisis caused by the willful disregard of settler extremists to Israeli law, and by the Israeli government's impotence in the face of such law-breaking …

‘Auto-Tune’ the latest, greatest spoof  —  With his mashup of news, music and video called “Auto-Tune the News,” Michael Gregory is taking political satire into the digital era.  “Auto-Tune the News” is the brainchild of Gregory, 24, and his two brothers and sister-in-law.

Dissent Of The Day  —  A reader writes: … Watching CNN and countless other “mainstream” news sources display blatant anti-healthcare reform bias has been like a punch in the gut.  Where are the journalists decrying the “rationing” of healthcare by income?

Dan Rather wants Obama to help save the news  —  Login or register to post comments  —  Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute.

Officers Run Background Check On Obama; Placed On Leave  —  DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Two DeKalb County police officers have been placed on paid administrative leave after an investigation revealed they ran a background check on President Barack Obama.  —  A representative for the DeKalb County …

Practicalities v. principles: the prime Beltway affliction  —  As I briefly noted yesterday, Michael Massing wrote a lengthy analysis of online journalism and blogs for the newest issue of The New York Review of Books.  In general, his article is much more reasonable, thoughtful …