Obama to Offer Aid for Families in State of the Union Address  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama will propose in his State of the Union address a package of modest initiatives intended to help middle-class families, including tax credits for child care, caps on some student loan payments …

Is This Obama's Pet Goat Moment?  —  Update 2: Elevated from comments - So, Obama needed a teleprompter because he was intro-ing a program that paves the way for a Federal curriculum?  Hmm.  Not so funny, anymore. … Update: No way, not a teleprompter for 6th graders??

Democrats, Get Down to Business  —  SCOTT BROWN'S victory last week in the Massachusetts Senate race, following the Republican gubernatorial triumphs in New Jersey and Virginia, marked the third time in three months that the Democratic Party has lost the support and trust of independent voters.

Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry to retire  —  Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry is expected to announce his retirement tomorrow morning, according to three sources briefed on the decision.  —  Berry will become the sixth Democrat in a competitive seat to leave in the last two months but the first to announce …

The Bernanke Conundrum  —  A Republican won in Massachusetts — and suddenly it's not clear whether the Senate will confirm Ben Bernanke for a second term as Federal Reserve chairman.  That's not as strange as it sounds: Washington has suddenly noticed public rage over economic policies …

Poll: 3 out of 4 say most of stimulus money wasted  —  Washington (CNN) — Nearly three out of four Americans think that at least half of the money spent in the federal stimulus plan has been wasted, according to a new national poll.  —  A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday morning …

Obama's Approval Most Polarized for First-Year President  —  Shows much greater party differences than approval for any prior first-year president  —  PRINCETON, NJ — The 65 percentage-point gap between Democrats' (88%) and Republicans' (23%) average job approval ratings for Barack Obama …

‘Chemical Ali’ executed in Iraq  —  Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former Iraqi official known as Chemical Ali, has been executed by hanging, a government spokesman has announced.  —  Majid, an enforcer in Saddam Hussein's regime and his cousin, had earlier been sentenced to death four times for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Ask Obama About Don't Ask, Don't Tell  —  Gay voters are growing impatient for equality.  —  As a candidate for president, Barack Obama told the country's leading gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, “America is ready to get rid of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.  All that is required is leadership.”

LET'S PUT THEM SIDE BY SIDE.... Throughout the lengthy debate on health care reform, Republicans refused to negotiate in good faith.  Compromises were considered out of the question.  Blatantly, demonstrably false claims were the norm.  Perhaps worst of all, GOP leaders would embrace specific reform ideas …

Tishman Venture Gives Up Stuyvesant Project  —  High-Profile Purchase of Manhattan Complex Collapses Under Debt Mountain  —  A First Avenue view in New York of Peter Cooper Village, foreground, and Stuyvesant Town apartment complexes in October.  —  A group led by Tishman Speyer Properties …

Abdulmutallab interrogated for less than an hour; White House defends handling of terrorist case  —  The White House is not disputing a report that FBI agents questioned accused Northwest Airlines bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for just 50 minutes before deciding to grant him the right …

Giannoulias, Kirk continue to lead Senate races  —  Tribune/WGN-TV poll shows undecided voters could still swing Feb. 2 primary  —  State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias entered the final days of the campaign for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination with a significant advantage over rivals Cheryle Jackson …

Too Big to Reform  —  We've been here before.  —  Not with this much melodrama, maybe.  It didn't take a rakish Senate candidate in a pick-up truck to stop George W. Bush's push for Social Security reform in 2005.  MSNBC wasn't around in 1994, so we didn't get to watch Keith Olbermann's head explode …

‘Make Them Filibuster’: Gov. Rendell Tells President Obama, Democrats, to Play ‘Hardball’  —  Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania has some advice for his fellow Democrats skittish about health care reform in the wake of the Republican upset in that Massachusetts special election.

Losing Kennedy's seat a gift, Dem says  —  Washington (CNN) - Democrats' stunning loss of the Senate seat held for more than 4 decades by a liberal icon is an early warning sign that the party should heed, a prominent Democratic strategist said Sunday.  —  National Democrats are reeling …

Amis in row over ‘euthanasia booths’  —  • Novelist wants euthanasia booths for elderly  —  • Warning of ‘civil war’ between young and old  —  Martin Amis has never fought shy of an argument, whether it be with the critic Terry Eagleton (over Islamist extremism) …

Election 2010: Indiana Senate  —  Indiana Senate 2010: Pence (R) 47%, Bayh (D) 44%  —  Indiana Senator Evan Bayh is another Democratic incumbent who could find himself in a tough reelection battle this fall.  A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds …

Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn't been verified  —  The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.