False ‘Death Panel’ Rumor Has Some Familiar Roots  —  WASHINGTON — The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama's health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks.

Giuliani says Sarah Palin's debunked ‘death panels’ claim is legit.  —  Yet another prominent Republican has endorsed former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's astonishingly false claim, which she doubled down on today, that health care reform will lead to “death panels.”

E-mails from public overload House Web site  —  WASHINGTON (AP) - Amid a boisterous debate on health care reform, people flooded members of Congress on Thursday with so many e-mails that they overloaded the House's primary Web site.  —  Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the House's chief administrative officer …

Republican Death Trip  —  “I am in this race because I don't want to see us spend the next year re-fighting the Washington battles of the 1990s.  I don't want to pit Blue America against Red America; I want to lead a United States of America.”  So declared Barack Obama in November 2007 …

Sources: Edwards to admit paternity of ex-mistress' child  —  RALEIGH, N.C. — Sources have told WRAL News that they expect former U.S. Sen. John Edwards to admit that he is the father of his former mistress' 18-month-old daughter.  —  Edwards, a two-time Democratic presidential candidate …

Host Loses Some Sponsors After an Obama Remark  —  ABOUT a dozen companies have withdrawn their commercials from “Glenn Beck,” the Fox News Channel program, after Glenn Beck, the person, said late last month that President Obama was a racist with a “deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”

Boswell: Obama willing to be one-term president  —  Congressman Leonard Boswell (D-Des Moines, Iowa) held a town hall meeting in Sigourney this afternoon.  Despite one group's ad which “thanks Boswell for his support” of health care reform, Boswell told the crowd he may vote against it.

Iran inmates ‘tortured to death’  —  One of Iran's defeated opposition presidential candidates has said some protesters held after July's disputed poll were tortured to death in prison.  —  The claim by Mehdi Karroubi comes days after he said a number of prisoners, both male and female, had been raped.

GOP thinks the unthinkable: Victory in 2010  —  It's a possibility many Republicans speak of only in whispers and Democrats are just now beginning to face.  After passionate and contentious fights over health care, the environment, and taxes, could Democrats lose big — really big — in next year's elections?

Hardball: Lawrence O'Donnell Exposes Clueless Town Hall Protester  —  Lawrence O'Donnell filled in for Chris Matthews on Hardball Wednesday, and somehow managed to avoid savaging clueless town hall protester, Katy Abram.  Abram went on a moronic tirade at Senator Arlen Specter's town hall meeting on Tuesday …

Newt's advice for Palin comeback  —  If Sarah Palin wants to make a 2012 political comeback, she'll need three types of speeches, some serious television face time, a credible organization and a bucket load of sheer determination.  —  Oh, and she might want to get a place outside of Alaska, somewhere in the lower 48.

The GOP's Misplaced Rage  —  Blogs and Stories  —  Leading conservative economist Bruce Bartlett writes that the Obama-hating town-hall mobs have it wrong—the person they should be angry with left the White House seven months ago.  —  Where is the evidence that everything would be better if Republicans were in charge?

Toxic Loans Topping 5% May Push 150 Banks to Point of No Return  —  Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) — More than 150 publicly traded U.S. lenders own nonperforming loans that equal 5 percent or more of their holdings, a level that former regulators say can wipe out a bank's equity and threaten its survival.

‘Town Halls’ a Chance for the President, Not the Public, to Vent  —  A look at President Obama's health care “town hall” Tuesday in Portsmouth, N.H., shows the president out-spoke his audience by a margin of nearly 9-to-1 — hardly the kind of even-handed exchange of ideas that marked the town meetings of colonial America.

Climate Change Measure Should Be Set Aside, U.S. Senators Say  —  Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Senate should abandon efforts to pass legislation curbing greenhouse-gas emissions this year and concentrate on a narrower bill to require use of renewable energy, four Democratic lawmakers say.

“Death to Obama” Sign Holder Detained by Secret Service  —  Secret Service now involved  —  There were signs comparing President Barack Obama to a Nazi and showing him with an Adolf Hitler-style mustache, but federal officials believe another sign referencing the president and his family went too far.

Les Paul, Guitar Innovator, Dies at 94  —  Les Paul, the virtuoso guitarist and inventor whose solid-body electric guitar and recording studio innovations changed the course of 20th-century popular music, died Thursday in White Plains, N.Y. .  He was 94.  —  The cause was complications of pneumonia …