McChrystal: More Forces or ‘Mission Failure’  —  Top U.S. Commander For Afghan War Calls Next 12 Months Decisive  —  The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them …

Bush In 2008: “I'm Not Going To Tell Some Gay Kid In The Audience That He Can't Get Married”  —  Speechwriter Matt Latimer's new book trains its gaze on the lunacy of the late-era Bush White House.  And there was plenty of material.  —  Latimer, who first wrote speeches and congressional testimony …

Obama's TV Blitz: On The Air, but Off His Game?  —  The White House doesn't buy the notion that President Obama, who appeared on five talk shows Sunday and is heading next for David Letterman's couch, could be wearing out his welcome on the tube.  —  Sure, this is a president …

Taxes and Mandates  —  On ABC News yesterday, George Stephanopoulos tried to get Barack Obama to agree than an individual mandate to buy health insurance is a kind of tax increase.  Obama disagreed: … Not being a politicians, I can just note that we generally speak the English language …

Americans More Likely to Say Government Doing Too Much  —  Belief that government is over-regulating business is at high for decade  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Americans are more likely today than in the recent past to believe that government is taking on too much responsibility for solving …

Obama open to newspaper bailout bill  —  The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.  —  “I haven't seen detailed proposals yet, but I'll be happy to look at them …

Sliming James O'Keefe: A case study  —  James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles are the young activists who have blown the lid off the criminal left-wing enterprise known as ACORN.  If they were left-wingers exposing some conservative or religious organization, government-funded or not …

Reform or Bust  —  In the grim period that followed Lehman's failure, it seemed inconceivable that bankers would, just a few months later, be going right back to the practices that brought the world's financial system to the edge of collapse.  At the very least, one might have thought …

Pregame Report: The NEA Conference Call  —  On August 25th 2009, Big Hollywood's Patrick Courrielche broke the story of a conference call he attended with other “rising artist and art community luminaries”: … The email invite came directly from Yosi Sergant, then-Director of Communications …

Secret interviews add insight to Clinton presidency  —  BALTIMORE — The call from the White House usually would come in late afternoon.  President Clinton had a few hours open in the evening.  Could he come over?  —  Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and civil rights historian …

First They Came for the Marlboros  —  The hazards of Michael Bloomberg's paternalist utopia.  —  Last Monday dawned clear and bright in the nanny state of New York City.  The newspaper brought word that the city's new health commissioner was working on ways to get residents to exercise more.

BLAGO SPEAKS.  AGAIN.  —  The American political memoir comes in many forms—the magisterial catalogue of heroic achievement, the backward glance at modest beginnings—but none of these sub-genres have thrived with more repetition and variation than the cri de coeur of the indicted-but-not-yet-convicted office-holding grandee.

Video of AFSCME's Gerald McEntee: Baucus Bill is “Bulls**t”  —  Last week at the AFL-CIO convention, it was reported that AFSCME President Gerald McEntee led the crowd in a derogatory chant about Max Baucus's Senate Finance Committee bill.  But the video was nowhere to be found.  —  We found it:

Ex-organizer says he was never a fan of mass protests  —  WASHINGTON - If any President might sympathize with the thousands of protesters expected to flood Pittsburgh this week for the G-20 summit, it would be the one who used to be a community organizer.  —  But in an Oval Office interview Friday …