Obama plans to send 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan  —  WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama met Monday evening with his national security team to finalize a plan to dispatch some 34,000 additional U.S. troops over the next year to what he's called “a war of necessity” in Afghanistan, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

Even Monbiot says the science now needs “reanalyising”  —  Even George Monbiot, one of the fiercest media propagandists of the warming faith, admits he should have been more sceptical and says the science now needs to be rechecked: … Sure, Monbiot claims the fudging of what he extremely optimistically puts …

1 in 4 Borrowers Under Water  —  The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%, threatening prospects for a sustained housing recovery.  —  Nearly 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes in the third quarter …

The small-d democratic case against the filibuster  —  “Are progressives really willing to take their chances with a future GOP-controlled Senate empowered to pass whatever they have 51 votes for?” asks Scott Winship.  “With the Supreme Court nominees who could be seated (to say nothing of other judgeships)?

Gee, that's De Pressing  —  Second estimate of third-quarter GDP out; growth rate marked down to 2.8%.  —  This is really quite grim.  At this growth rate it's far from clear that we're doing anything to reduce the output gap — the gap between what the economy could produce and what it's actually producing.

Yes, she can: Palin has a shot at the presidency  —  How Sarah Palin might win the White House  —  President Sarah Palin.  To many pundits and late-night comedians, this sounds like a punch line, and to many die-hard Democrats it sounds like a reason to leave the country.

The Values Question  —  It's easy to get lost in the weeds when talking about health care reform.  But, like all great public issues, the health care debate is fundamentally a debate about values.  It's a debate about what kind of country we want America to be.

Dobbs mulls White House bid  —  Former CNN host Lou Dobbs fueled already rampant speculation about his political future Monday, sending the clearest signals yet that he's mulling a bid for president—and leaving third-party political operatives salivating over the possibility of a celebrity recruit for the 2012 campaign.

Some Conservatives Push a ‘Purity Test’ for GOP Candidates  —  Conservative Republican Party activists want to withhold money from GOP candidates who stray too far from party orthodoxy.  —  Ten Republican National Committee members are distributing a plan to impose a purity test …

Lieberman Digs In on Public Option  —  Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: “I'm going to be stubborn on this.”  —  Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a …

Right and Left Join Forces on Criminal Justice  —  WASHINGTON — In the next several months, the Supreme Court will decide at least a half-dozen cases about the rights of people accused of crimes involving drugs, sex and corruption.  Civil liberties groups and associations of defense lawyers have lined up on the side of the accused.

Fiscally Responsible Stimulus With Front-Loaded Infrastructure Investments  —  Light rail construction in Seattle (cc photo by Oran Viriyincy)  —  On a call with bloggers earlier today to talk about job creation policies, Nancy Pelosi outlined a smart idea for “front-loading” …

Inspector General: Rhee visited me to intervene for Johnson  —  On June 27, 2008, Michelle Rhee, head of the Washington, D.C., school system, paid a visit to Gerald Walpin, who was inspector general of the government volunteer organization AmeriCorps.  —  At the time, Walpin was investigating …

Beware the Result of Outrage  —  The biggest news story of last week?  —  O.K., maybe it was Oprah Winfrey announcing she was going to call it quits with her daytime show in 2011.  —  But it's a close call.  Though Oprah sucked up a lot of the media oxygen, last Thursday was an important …

Top Republican lawmakers not attending State Dinner  —  While the White House is mum about who will be among the 300 or so lucky invitees to President Obama's first state dinner Tuesday night, word is already leaking out about who's not going to be there.  —  Chief among the non-attendees: top Republican lawmakers.

NY Senator Gillibrand Facing Tough Election Fight  —  Zogby International Poll Shows Senator Running Even with Giuliani and Leading Pataki in Potential 2010 General Election Match-ups  —  UTICA, New York—In what could be one of the most hotly contested Senate races in 2010 …

The Failure Option  —  Josh Marshall puzzles over what's changed in American politics to make the 60 vote threshold so difficult to overcome, and argues that “we're also deluding ourselves if we do not figure in a large role for larger structural changes in our politics.

Free Speech Silenced at Columbia and Princeton  —  Nonie Darwish, the executive director of Former Muslims United and author of Cruel And Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, was scheduled to speak at Columbia and Princeton University last week …

Nuclear power regains support  —  Even green groups see it as ‘part of the answer’  —  LONDON — Nuclear power — long considered environmentally hazardous — is emerging as perhaps the world's most unlikely weapon against climate change, with the backing of even some green activists who once campaigned against it.