U.S. to Hunt Down Afghan Drug Lords Tied to Taliban  —  WASHINGTON — Fifty Afghans believed to be drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be captured or killed, reflecting a major shift in American counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan …

CONSERVATIVES SLAM PALIN ATTACK AS ‘CRAZY’.... Newt Gingrich told a national television audience this morning that Sarah Palin's “death panel” argument is fair and legitimate.  I should note, in fairness to other conservatives, that others on the right have not been as kind to the former Alaska governor.

Deficit grew by $181 billion in July  —  Bailouts for financial firms and billions in tax revenue lost because of the recession drove the deficit to a record $1.3 trillion in July, according to the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO).  —  Tax receipts that have fallen due …

How the White House's Deal With Big Pharma Undermines Democracy  —  I'm a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration.  But I'm appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying arm to buy their support.

Let's mark this moment in the health debate as it happens  —  Nearly fifteen years ago, after the collapse of the Clinton health-reform effort, I spent a lot of time working on an Atlantic article (and subsequent book chapter) about how, exactly, the discussion of the bill had become so unmoored …

CONSERVATIVE PROTESTERS PREPPING FOR OBAMA N.H. TOWN HALL  —  From NBC's Chuck Todd  —  Pres. Obama holds his OWN town hall in New Hampshire this Tuesday where the issues of the economy and health care are likely to be the dominant issues.  Of course, what many will be watching …

Town hall tension: Meeting turns ugly over health care  —  Hundreds of people crowded into the BRIDGES building in Downtown Memphis on Saturday for a congressional town hall meeting that quickly deviated into a raucous shouting free-for-all, requiring extra law enforcement officers to watch over the scene.

Obama still isn't president in the south  —  Denying the leader's American birth is just another form of racism  —  A naive person might believe that Barack Hussein Obama was born, as he has long said he was, in Hawaii to a young American mother and a distant father from Kenya.

Dissent is patriotic - not  —  Imagine it's four years ago and an aide to President George W. Bush posted a blog on the Whitehouse.gov Web site that bemoaned Internet criticism of the Iraq war, then continued: “These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain e-mails or through casual conversations.

The Gangs of D.C.  —  In the Senate, Small States Wield Outsize Power.  Is This What the Founders Had in Mind?  —  Wonder why President Obama is having a hard time enacting his agenda after sweeping to victory and with large congressional majorities on his side?

‘Un-American’ attacks can't derail health care debate  —  Americans have been waiting for nearly a century for quality, affordable health care.  —  Health coverage for all was on the national agenda as early as 1912, thanks to Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose presidential run.