Unamplified, Beck's Voice Still Carries  —  Establishment Outlets Missed Van Jones Story  —  It has become a familiar chain reaction: Talk-show hosts whip up a noisy controversy, which hits higher decibels as it spreads to the establishment media, which costs some unfortunate soul his job.

Wait a Second.  Why Shouldn't We Insure Illegals?  —  Insuring undocumented immigrants might be unpopular, but it would be good for the economy.  —  Call it the shout heard round the world.  Since last Wednesday, when Rep. Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, interrupted Barack Obama's big speech …

ACORN Video: Prostitution Scandal in New York, NY … So, we headed up to New York...  [There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed.  Visit the blog entry to see the video.]  —  [There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed.  Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Opposition to Obama's Health-Reform Plan Is High, but Easing  —  President Obama continues to face significant public resistance to his drive to initiate far-reaching changes to the country's health-care system, with widespread skepticism about central tenets of his plan, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession  —  The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore.  Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination …

Government's Trial and Error Helped Stem Financial Panic  —  It was only a year ago that the world economy was enveloped in a financial panic of such dimensions that, if one believes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, it threatened to produce a calamity as bad as the Great Depression.

Some fear GOP is being carried to the extreme  —  The Republican establishment hopes cooler heads will prevail over strongly anti-Obama parts of the conservative base.  —  Reporting from Washington - Amid a rebirth of conservative activism that could help Republicans win elections next year …

Obama May Do Back-to-Back TV Interviews Sunday  —  It's going to be awfully hard to avoid President Obama on television this Sunday.  —  The president is going to appear on five Sunday talk shows - five - to press his case for health care, White House officials disclosed.  That is a presidential record.

Does Health Care Reform Debate Carry Risks For The GOP, Too?  —  One point that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves: When it comes to health care, Dems are not the only major American political party courting serious political risk.  —  The vast majority of commentary, understandably …

Senior al Qaeda leader killed in Somalia  —  Shabaab spokesman Mukhtar Robow (left) and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan (face covered) from Shabaab's latest videotape.  Image by Nick Grace.  —  A senior al Qaeda operative behind the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania is believed …

A Simple Request  —  The Atlantic has done me the honor of putting my open letter to George W. Bush on torture on the cover.  Commercially, this is not exactly an easy call (although the magazine did alternate a few newsstand editions with a more sellable cover of Jon Stewart).

Boortz compares President Obama to a child molester.  —  Today, on the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, President Obama will speak on Wall Street to “try to breathe new life into efforts to overhaul the financial regulatory system.”  Hate radio host Neal Boortz used …

Murtha to Obama: No more troops  —  House defense spending cardinal John Murtha, an early bellwether of congressional opposition to the Iraq war, has made his strongest comments yet opposing more U.S. troops for the war in Afghanistan.  —  The Pennsylvania lawmaker and Vietnam veteran …

Who are the undeserving “others” benefiting from expanded government actions?  —  The New York Times' Ross Douthat argues, uncontroversially, that the tea-party protests, townhall outbursts and related appendages aren't about specific health care proposals but, instead, are motivated …

Aceh passes adultery stoning law  —  Indonesia's province of Aceh has passed a new law making adultery punishable by stoning to death, a member of the province's parliament has said.  —  The law was passed unanimously by Aceh's regional legislature, said assembly member Bahrom Rasjid.

SONIC WEAPONS USED IN IRAQ POSITIONED AT CONGRESSIONAL TOWNHALL MEETINGS IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY  —  A Joint Investigative Report by East County Magazine and Liberty One Radio  —  “Long-range acoustic devices [LRADs] for crowd control can be extremely dangerous.  These are used in Iraq to control insurgents.

Freshwater rage  —  I'm still on the road, with only sporadic internet access.  So I've missed out on much of the outpouring of rage over my magazine article.  I gather, though, that the usual suspects are utterly outraged at my suggestion that freshwater macro has spent several decades heading down the wrong path.

A Destructive Toy Story Made in Washington  —  A dubious safety law is hammering small business, but Congress refuses to fix the mess it created in 2008.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  Last Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee finally held a hearing on the highly controversial …

I'm setting the protectionist threat level to safety orange  —  When the Obama administraton announced the decision to slap a 35% tariff on Chinese tire imports, I was pretty sure that free traders would be incensed.  And I haven't been disappointed — even the financial markets are freaking out over this one.

RIP, Jody Powell  —  ABC News has learned that former White House press secretary Jody Powell has died.  —  This afternoon at his house on the Eastern Shore in Maryland, Powell had an apparent heart attack, a family friend said.  —  The former press secretary for President Jimmy Carter was the CEO of the PR firm Powell Tate.

Media barred from Palin speech  —  Hong Kong - The first keynote speech outside North America by former US vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin will be closed to the media, organisers of the Hong Kong event said on Monday.  —  Palin, mocked during last year's presidential campaign for her lack …

March on Washington: How Big Was the Crowd?  —  Our attempt to calculate the true size of the 9/12 march.  —  “How big is it?” is certainly one of the world's most dreaded questions.  —  In fact, after the Million Man March in 1995, Congress restricted the National Park Service …