Obama's Speech to the United Nations General Assembly  —  Following is a text of President Obama's speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, as released by the White House.  —  Good morning.  Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen …

ACORN files suit against filmmakers  —  ACORN filed suit today in Maryland against conservative filmmakers James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles and conservative Web site Breitbart.com for secretly taping the organization's employees at its Baltimore office.  —  In the complaint, ACORN alleges …

AP source: Census worker hanged with ‘fed’ on body  —  The FBI is investigating whether anti-government sentiment led to the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery.  A law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word 'fed" was scrawled on the dead man's chest.

Dems Ramp Up Push For Colleagues To Block Filibuster On Health Care  —  Buoyed by news of a temporary replacement for the late Senator Ted Kennedy, Senate Democratic leaders are launching a renewed effort to get all 60 members of their caucus — even those who might eventually vote …

Excerpts of Sarah Palin's Speech to Investors in Hong Kong  —  Alex Frangos reports from Hong Kong on Sarah Palin's speech.  —  Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, delivered her first major international speech outside North America Wednesday in Hong Kong at an investor conference.

Democrats nix putting pre-vote health bill online  —  WASHINGTON — Senate Finance Committee Democrats have rejected a GOP amendment that would have required a health overhaul bill to be available online for 72 hours before the committee votes.  —  Republicans argued that transparency is an Obama administration goal.

Frank turns against ACORN  —  In a stunning turnaround, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is distancing himself from ACORN, blasting their response to a string of recent scandals — and contradicting a staffer who said the congressman would have voted against a GOP-sponsored bill banning the group from federal funding.

Carper Publicly Defends Secret PhRMA Pact; Deal Made in Exchange for Support Ads  —  In a stunning moment during the Senate Finance Committee markup Sen. Tom Carper defended a secret deal that the White House, Baucus, and PhRMA had reached.  The White House has long denied the deal.

Kamikaze Obstructionism  —  You guys like polls, right? … The Republican Party's strategy against health-care reform has been something of a kamikaze mission: destroy the bill through a strategy that also destroys the party, at least in the short-term.  The hope is that if they win the war …

Al Franken Reads the 4th Amendment to Justice Department Official  —  Just in case he wasn't familiar with it, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) decided to read the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution to David Kris, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's National Security Division …

Wife: Gov ‘stunned’ O wants him out  —  Gov. Paterson's wife — emotionally stunned at President Obama's request that her husband not run for another term — ripped into him today, saying that it's “very unfair” the president asked New York's “first African-American governor” not to seek office.

Obama's time warp: The U.S. is still the bad guy  —  Senior Political Analyst  —  In the early 1980s, while planning a vacation in Latin America, I went to bookstores to find histories of the region.  All I could find were Marxist tracts arguing that “the people” were exploited …

Glenn Beck, Post-Modern Conservative  —  Buried in the cross-tabs of the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is a question that takes a temperature reading of Glenn Beck.  Beck actually makes out pretty well.  While just 24 percent of Americans have a favorable view of him (13 percent strongly so) …

I went to Afghanistan and all I got was H1N1  —  It started as a cough.  It wasn't the kind of cough where something is temporarily stuck in your throat.  It wasn't the kind of cough where simply clearing your throat would've been adequate.  This was the kind of cough that hurts when you do it.

GOP Favors Public Option for Property, Not People  —  Atop the front page of the New York Times today is a color photo of Georgia homes flooded up to their rafters, an image that illustrates how when it comes to insurance our Congress applies two standards, separate and unequal, one for property and a lesser one for people.

Dancing Tom DeLay on Infighting in the ‘Leaderless’ GOP: ‘Even Rush and Hannity Are Doing It’  —  LOS ANGELES — Walking out of a restaurant in Los Angeles last week, the former House Majority Leader was stopped by a stranger.  —  “Aren't you Tom DeLay?” the man asked.  —  “Yes, I am.”

Is extremism becoming mainstream in 21st century American politics?  —  Our latest national poll would seem to say yes- 35% voters in the country either think that Barack Obama was not born in the United States or that George W. Bush intentionally allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur so that we could go to war in the Middle East.