White House Blocks Testimony on Party Crashers  —  Updated |  10:22 p.m. The White House on Wednesday invoked the separation of powers to keep Desiree Rogers, President Obama's social secretary, from testifying on Capitol Hill about how a couple of aspiring reality television show celebrities crashed …

Boxer: Hackers should face criminal probe over ‘Climategate’  —  Leaked e-mails allegedly undermining climate change science should be treated as a criminal matter, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Wednesday afternoon.  —  Boxer, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee …

New York State Senate Votes Down Gay Marriage Bill  —  ALBANY — The State Senate defeated a bill on Wednesday that would legalize same-sex marriage, after an emotional debate that touched on civil rights, family and history.  The vote means that the bill, pushed by Gov. David A. Paterson …

Huffington Post Suffers ClimateGate Panic Attack  —  Your humble correspondent has been checking the Huffington Post Green section every day since the ClimateGate scandal exploded.  After all, that Green section is pretty much predicated on the theory that the earth is warming dangerously and that Man is the cause of it.

Senator Moves to Hold Up Bernanke Confirmation  —  WASHINGTON — Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont said on Wednesday that he would try to block the Senate from confirming Ben S. Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.  —  The move is unlikely to derail Mr. Bernanke's reappointment …

Afghanistan and Pakistan Rattled by Plan for Drawdown  —  ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Obama's timetable for American forces in Afghanistan rattled nerves in that country and in Pakistan on Wednesday, as American diplomats worked to convince the two countries at the center …

Franken fallout has GOP fuming  —  Republican senators feel burned by Al Franken — and not by his old jokes.  —  The Republicans are steamed at Franken because partisans on the left are using a measure he sponsored to paint them as rapist sympathizers — and because Franken isn't doing much to stop them.

All men watch porn, scientists find  —  Scientists at the University of Montreal launched a search for men who had never looked at pornography - but couldn't find any.  —  Researchers were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users.

Unbelievable update: The crappiest NYTimes column on Obamacare just got crappier; Update: Kristof's disingenuous non-response  —  Scroll for updates...Kristof non-responds...holes remain...  Today, I did something that Pulitzer Prize-winning NYTimes columnist Nick Kristof apparently didn't do …

GOP Senator Pens Obstruction Manual For Health Care  —  WHAT'S YOUR REACTION?  —  Sen. Judd Gregg, (R-NH) has penned the equivalent of an obstruction manual — a how-to for holding up health care reform — and has distributed the document to his Republican colleagues.

Utahns growing tired of Bennett  —  Poll shows most want a change — but rivals trail far behind senator  —  Two of every three Utahns want to see Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, ousted in his re-election bid next year.  —  However, all of the challengers seeking to unseat him currently trail far behind …

Anderson Cooper's Ratings Plummet  —  Anderson Cooper is fading in the ratings.  —  The respected CNN anchor has seen his numbers slip significantly through the past year.  His 10 p.m. show, “Anderson Cooper 360,” has declined 62% in total viewers and 70% in adults 25-54 from November 2008, according to Nielsen figures.

Washington Times cuts in staff, coverage cue new era  —  The Washington Times, which gained a strong foothold in a politically obsessed city as a conservative alternative to much of the mainstream media, is about to become a drastically smaller newspaper.  —  Nearly three decades …

Mean Street: The Sham of a Mockery of an Obama Jobs Summit  —  What is it about Thursday's White House “jobs summit” that rubs me the wrong way?  —  All presidents engage in these sorts of elaborate PR stunts.  Why not just dismiss it as another meaningless piece of Washington political theater?

Sens. Feinstein and Durbins attack on citizen journalism  —  The Senate is currently considering a media shield law, pushed by media outfits that want federal protection for their journalists.  —  The legislation originally had a broad definition of “journalist”, but that was curtailed thanks …

If you give away the public option, what do you get?  —  Most of the energy in the Senate right now is being directed into a mad rush for compromise proposals on the public option.  This reflects the sense that the right compromise on the public option is a compromised public option.

New Haven fire board approves long-sought promotions (full coverage)  —  NEW HAVEN — The Board of Fire Commissioners today approved the promotions of one Hispanic and 13 white firefighters, giving them the advancement they fought for all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A More Perfect Union  —  I have a pretty good marriage.  —  It could be better.  —  I.  —  There are things about my husband that drive me crazy.  Last spring he cut apart a frozen pig's head with his compound miter saw in our basement.  He needed the head to fit into a pot so that he could make pork stock.

The Fed's Market's Guy Eyes Asset Sales and Rate Increases  —  Brian Sack, who runs the markets group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, spoke to the Money Marketeers of New York University this evening on the Fed's expanding balance sheet and its implication for interest rates.