King on Holder: 'You wonder which side they're on'  —  A “furious” Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a “disgraceful” Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO.

CIA Documents Provide Little Cover for Cheney Claims  —  Former Vice President Dick Cheney (Associated Press)  —  For months, former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that two documents prepared by the CIA, one from 2004 and the other from 2005, would refute critics of the Bush administration's torture program.

Obama Increases 2010 Deficit Forecast 19% to $1.50 Trillion  —  Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) — U.S. unemployment will surge to 10 percent this year and the budget deficit will widen to $1.5 trillion next year, reflecting a “deeper recession” than previously expected, White House budget chief Peter Orszag said.

Nemazee Is Arrested in $74 Million Citibank Fraud  —  Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) — Hassan Nemazee, chairman of Nemazee Capital Corp. and a fundraiser for President Obama and Hillary Clinton, was arrested on charges that he tricked Citigroup Inc. into lending him as much as $74 million using phony documents.

Angry right boos John McCain for stating that Obama ‘respects the Constitution of the United States.’  —  Today in a town hall forum in Arizona, an elderly woman asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) whether President Obama knows “that we still live under a Constitution.”

Comparing Obama to ‘Hitler,’ Grassley constituent says he'd ‘take a gun to Washington’ if crowd supported him.  —  Earlier this month, police detained a man at a health care town hall meeting held by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) because he was carrying a sign declaring “Death to Obama” and “Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids.”

Sen. Grassley On Health Care: “I Don't Think It's Going To Be Possible To Work It Out With The Administration” … ALL OVER THE BALL PARK  —  During a conference call with Iowa reporters, Sen. Chuck Grassley was asked: … Grassley's response is almost incomprehensible: … You read that right.

Calm, but Moved to Be Heard on Health Care  —  MONTEZUMA, Ga. — Until Thursday evening, nothing in Bob Collier's 62 years had stirred in him the slightest desire to take a stand — about anything — in public.  —  He skipped the antiwar protests of his college years, took a job …

Coburn tells weeping victim of broken health care system that government isn't the solution.  —  Yesterday CNN's Rick Sanchez aired a segment from a health care town hall where a weeping constituent explained to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that her husband's health insurer refuses to cover his treatment for a traumatic brain injury.

‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy  —  REMEMBER “peak oil”?  It's the theory that geological scarcity will at some point make it impossible for global petroleum production to avoid falling, heralding the end of the oil age and, potentially, economic catastrophe.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Political Terrorism In The Heartland - Inside the Quincy Tea Party Cell  —  Recently, Founding Bloggers was tipped off to the existence of a regional “political terrorist” cell calling itself the Quincy Tea Party.  —  When we learned that this group of Tea Party fundamentalists …

Dixie Dem won't vote for Pelosi  —  Freshman Rep. Parker Griffith (D-Ala.) — who has bucked Dem leadership on the stimulus and climate change — told a town hall back in north Alabama that he doesn't plan to back Nancy Pelosi as speaker again, saying she's too divisive.  —  “I would not vote for her.

Will There Be Outrage?  — By: Jonah Goldberg  —  I haven't read the IG report yet, I've just seen a few write ups and excerpts around here and other places.  Without getting into the substance of the controversy, I'm doubting that there will be a lot of popular outrage over any of the allegations of abuse.

Giuliani, Seeing Opening, Mulls a Governor Bid  —  ALBANY — Nineteen months after ending his disastrous run for the presidency, Rudolph W. Giuliani is clearing a path for a possible race for governor in 2010, believing public anger at an ineffectual Albany and unease over the economy …

Cons cash in on stimulus money  —  Federal economic stimulus cash was handed out to cons behind bars in Bay State prisons after a bureaucratic snafu resulted in $250 checks being sent to some inmates - and now red-faced feds want it back.  —  “Taxpayers already believe the inmates are running …

Bachmann: Prayer and fasting will help defeat health care reform  —  On Wednesday Rep. Michele Bachmann was part of a star-studded “teletownhall” meeting to discuss health-care reform.  The event, billed “Keeping Faith with the Unborn,” was sponsored by the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group.

Torture-slaying trial, Day 8: Cobbins guilty; jurors to consider death penalty  —  The jury will now consider the death penalty in the Channon Christian, Chris Newsom torture slayings.  —  KNOXVILLE - Jurors this morning convicted Letalvis Cobbins of first-degree murder in the torture-slaying …

Were the bailouts a good idea?  —  Following the renomination of Bernanke, it is worth revisiting this question.  Here is a recent report:  —  With the FTSE World Banks index up 130 per cent since its lows of early March, the paper losses that governments in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany are sitting on have also shrunk.

STEELE REDISCOVERS HIS OPPOSITION TO MEDICARE.... I really don't understand how Michael Steele is in a position to head a major political party.  —  Yesterday, the confused RNC chairman wrote an op-ed insisting that Democrats are trying to undermine Medicare.

The White House and the Pauline Kael Syndrome  —  The late New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael famously said after Nixon's landslide reelection, “How can he have won?  Nobody I know voted for him.”  My proposition for today is that the entire White House suffers from the Kael syndrome.

Will it never end?  McCaughey v. Ezekiel Emanuel  —  Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel should need no introduction to Atlantic readers.  Among his many pursuits is writing a number of interesting articles for our “Food Channel,” under Corby Kummer's auspices.  He should need no introduction to anybody …

Figures.  Local Top Dem Involved in St. Louis BOMBING  —  Democratic strategist and bomber— Milton H.  “Skip” Ohlsen III.  (P-D)  —  What a shock.  A local top Democratic strategist was involved in a bombing last year that seriously injured a St. Louis attorney.  —  The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported:

Foreign GPs who commute to Britain: £100-an-hour Poles and Lithuanians fly in for shifts our doctors won't do  —  The huge extent to which the NHS needs foreign doctors to treat patients out of hours is revealed today.  —  A third of primary care trusts are flying in GPs from as far away as Lithuania …