Assailant Was a Coakley Staffer on Loan from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee?  —  Or just a really good lookalike?  —  A tipster tells me that the man who was pushing me outside of a Capitol Hill fundraiser Tuesday night for Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley is Michael Meehan.

PM: Hundreds of thousands dead in Haiti quake  —  Watch live reports from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  Anderson Cooper is on scene for firsthand accounts of the horror and devastation from the earthquake.  —  Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — “Port-au-Prince is flattened” after a 7.-magnitude earthquake struck …

Senate Hopeful in New State Airs Evolving Views  —  In his first extensive interview since he began weighing a run for United States Senate from New York, Harold E. Ford Jr. distanced himself from his previous opposition to same-sex marriage, his description of himself as “pro-life” …

MA-Sen: No longer stealth  —  As E. J. Dionne notes, this past week, things have gotten tougher for Scott Brown: … Brown has been caught in a vice.  His support from teabaggers was critical to becoming competitive — his moneybomb on Monday was the first real moneybomb conservative activists …

Support Grows for U.S. Health Exchange  —  WASHINGTON — The White House wants to include a national health-insurance exchange in the health bill, which would give House Democrats one of their top remaining demands, according to an official involved in the discussions.

VIDEO- Pat Robertson: Haiti disaster due to Haiti's “pact at the Devil.”  —  Relevant segment starts at about 6:00:  —  “When these disasters strike, we are there to help the people.”  —  Of course you are, Pat... after you come out with outlandishly despicable statements about why Haiti …

Democrat wins Va. Senate race  —  Defying recent voting trends that saw several Northern Virginia Republicans win big in November, Del. David W. Marsden (D-Fairfax) narrowly won a special election Tuesday night to represent a broad swath of southwestern Fairfax County in the Virginia Senate.

When Jon Stewart Fails.  —  There is an unexpected silence in the liberal blogosphere after last night's highly anticipated Daily Show episode, in which Jon Stewart hosted John Yoo, the author of many of the Bush administration's torture memos and one of the people most responsible for giving legal sanction to the practice of torture.

How the White House Used Gruber's Work to Create Appearance of Broad Consensus  —  Up until this point, most of the attention regarding the failure to disclose the connection between Jonathan Gruber and the White House has fallen on Gruber himself.  Far more troubling, however …

Obama's Prescription for Low-Wage Workers: High Implicit Taxes, Higher Premiums … House and Senate Democrats have produced health care legislation whose mandates, subsidies, tax penalties, and health insurance regulations would penalize work and reward Americans who refuse to purchase health insurance.

Unions Tentatively Strike A Deal Regarding Excise Tax  —  by Anna Edney, with Billy House contributing  —  THIS CONTENT IS FOR SUBSCRIBERS OF CONGRESSDAILY ONLY.

Prop 8 trial -day 3 - You all have ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and it even got awards - gay discrimination is over  —  (Marriage Equality USA's Davina Kotulski is blogging for The Bilerico Project and other outlets on a blogger passed shared with Michael Petrelis.  She sent this via email this morning.

CPAC keeps GOProud, loses other sponsor  —  Liberty University Law School has withdrawn as a co-sponsor of next month's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington because a Republican homosexual activist group is being allowed to co-sponsor the event.  (See earlier article)

It's hometown vs. old hand in spat in Franken's office  —  The resignation of an aide from Minnesota highlighted the new senator's reliance on Washington veterans, and the delicate balance politicians must strike.  —  WASHINGTON - In mid-November, four months into his new job as a U.S. senator …