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.

NEWS ALERT: Kentucky State Police Will Announce Sparkman Investigation Result UPDATE: Official: It Was Suicide  —  UPDATE 2:15 p.m.: It's now official: Bill Sparkman committed suicide.  So much for “Southern populist terrorism” — and the credibility of Andrew Sullivan.

Alex Castellanos To Continue CNN Gig, Downplays New Post At RNC  —  WHAT'S YOUR REACTION?  —  Longtime Republican media strategist Alex Castellanos will continue to serve as an on-air personality for CNN despite recently taking on a consulting role for the Republican National Committee, the network confirms.

Obama State Dinner Official Food and Wine Menu  —  Place card at the Obama first state dinner (photo by Lynn Sweet)  —  Desert plate, Obama first state dinner (photo by Lynn Sweet)  —  Potato and Eggplant Salad  —  White House Argula with onion seed vinaigrette

Strip away the figleaf and reveal naysayers  —  Lord Lawson's foundation claims it wants a ‘balanced’ climate change debate.  But really it wants to disprove the science  —  Yesterday in the late afternoon, after a day of leaving messages on someone's Orange answerphone (an unnamed someone) …

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.

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 …

Pelosi warns of history repeating itself ‘if we pull our punch’ on job creation.  —  With the unemployment rate above 10 percent and states across the country facing budget shortfalls, Democrats in Congress are looking at various measures to spur job creation.

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.

Palin to Obama: Acknowledge troops  —  Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday accused President Barack Obama of not acknowledging the sacrifices made by the men and women in the U.S. military.  —  “There's been a lack of acknowledgement by our president in understanding …

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.

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.

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.

Quietly, the President Finds That Golf Is No Slam Dunk  —  A Star on the Court, He's Called a Hacker On the Course; Fans Miss the ‘Original Guy’  —  One day last summer, Gene Mulak, observing carnage in the sand trap, decided it was time to rescue the Leader of the Free World.

How worried should we be about the deficit?  —  There have been many posts on this topic lately, start with Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong if you need to catch up.  Today I have a few simple points:  —  1. Even if “it is fine to borrow more” is the most likely scenario, it is not the only scenario.