Obama's Afghan policy speech at West Point  —  Following is the transcript of President Obama's speech Tuesday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. (The Post's report on the president's address is here.)  —  Thank you.  Please be seated.  —  Good evening.

Tanner To Retire  —  Rep. John Tanner (D-TN), a leading Blue Dog Dem, will retire at the end of his current term, Dem sources tell Hotline OnCall.  —  [UPDATE: Tanner released a statement late tonight confirming the news.  “Betty Ann and I had considered retiring in 2007 at the end of the 110th Congress …

Matthews Calls West Point, Site of Obama Speech ‘The Enemy Camp,’ ‘Strange Venue’  —  Either MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews let one slip tonight, or it was an extremely poor choice of words.  —  Following President Barack Obama's Dec. 1 speech, which he announced his intentions …

Climate data row man steps down  —  The research director at the centre of a row over climate change data said he would stand down from the post while there is an independent review.  —  Professor Phil Jones, director of the Norwich-based University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU), has said he stands by his data.

Bernanke hearing brings Fed critics  —  There probably couldn't be a worse time for a Federal Reserve chairman to come up for renomination.  —  Public trust in the once-revered central bank is so low, it now ranks below the Internal Revenue Service in opinion polls.

8 Million Reasons for Real Surveillance Oversight  —  Disclaimer: The information presented here has been gathered and analyzed in my capacity as a graduate student at Indiana University.  This data was gathered and analyzed on my own time, without using federal government resources.

Atlanta mayor: Reed says police chief top priority  —  The morning after being elected mayor of Atlanta by a margin so narrow that opponent Mary Norwood has not yet conceded defeat, Kasim Reed said his first priority will be finding a new police chief well-versed in combating gangs.

ClimateGate III: The Mystery of the Missing Data  —  Over the weekend, I came in for some probably deserved criticism from Clive Crook over my initial, somewhat airy, reaction to ClimateGate.  In my defense, he quotes my first post on the topic, not the follow up.

November 30, 2009  —  There are news reports that on Decembers 1st, Obama will be at West Point to announce that he is sending tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan, this despite our rallies, vigils, petitions, phone calls and e-mails saying NO to MORE WAR.