U.S. Attorney Steps Down From O'Keefe Case  —  James O'Keefe, accused of trying to tamper with the phones of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, was “framed” by the media and the U.S. attorney's office, Andrew Breitbart, publisher of BigGovernment.com, told Fox News Monday.

Huge Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power  —  WASHINGTON — In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power.  —  The first is the projected deficit in the coming year …

Obama Budget Would Impose Host of Tax Increases  —  Obama budget plan would imposes host of tax increases on businesses, wealthy families  —  While President Barack Obama is proposing to cut some taxes for companies that hire workers, his budget would raise a host of other taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals.

Climate emails scientist ‘hid’ flaws  —  Exclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures  —  • How the location of weather stations in China undermines data  —  • How the ‘climategate’ scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies

Curveball Alters Talks on Wall St. Reform  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama's proposals to tax and curb the activities of Wall Street have thrown an unpredictable element into the debate over financial regulatory reform.  They also have touched off an intensive new round of lobbying …

Ending 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'  —  When the Senate Armed Services Committee hears Tuesday morning from the Defense Department's top leaders, we will hopefully begin the task of ending the “don't ask, don't tell” policy on gays in the military.  This change would improve our military's capability …

Poll: Republicans Think Obama Is A Socialist, And Palin More Qualified To Be President  —  A new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, conducted among 2,000 self-identified Republican respondents nationwide, gives an interesting peek into the psyche of the minority party's base.

Bill Kristol agrees that Obama's ‘been doing all kinds of crazy stuff that risks destroying America’  —  One of the key points President Obama made in his back-and-forth with House Republicans seems to be really sticking in the craw of the right-wing pundit class: … Bill Kristol, yesterday on Fox News Sunday:

Sarah Palin magazine hits newsstands and convenience stores  —  One of the things Sarah Palin has sought to do since stepping down from the governor's office in Alaska is seize control of her image.  So it is perhaps a sign of how difficult a task that remains for the GOP's former vice presidential nominee …

Danny Williams going to U.S. for heart surgery  —  Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams is set to undergo heart surgery this week in the United States.  —  CBC News confirmed Monday that Williams, 59, left the province earlier in the day and will have surgery later in the week.

Rep. Paul Ryan's daring budget proposal  —  The White House's 2011 budget is only the second-most interesting budget proposal released recently.  First prize goes to Congressman Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, who's released a budget proposal that actually erases the massive long-term deficit.

Bill Watterson, creator of beloved ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ comic strip looks back with no regrets  —  This marks the 15th year since “Calvin and Hobbes” said goodbye to the comics pages.  Creator Bill Watterson, who grew up in Chagrin Falls and still makes Greater Cleveland his home …

Obama to unveil small biz lending plan drawn from bailout funds  —  President Barack Obama on Tuesday will call for a new, $30 billion small business lending fund drawn from bailout funds as part of his push for new job creation.  —  The president will unveil his new “Small Business Lending Fund” …

Chris Matthews Compares Conservative Republicans to Murderous Khmer Rouge Regime  —  Appearing on the January 29 “Rachel Maddow Show,” fellow MSNBCer Chris Matthews compared Republican conservatives to the Khmer Rouge, the murderous Communist regime that racked up a body count of some two million during its reign of terror:

Virginia Senate bills say no to requiring health insurance  —  RICHMOND — Virginia's Democratic-controlled state Senate passed measures Monday that would make it illegal to require individuals to purchase health insurance, a direct challenge to the party's efforts in Washington to reform health care.

Iraq Veteran Leads 'Don't Ask' Push  —  The Obama administration's staunchest ally in the uphill fight to allow gays to openly serve in the nation's military is a little-known Democratic congressman named Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war veteran who has written the only legislation that would repeal the “don't ask, don't tell” restrictions.

Are You Capable of Decency, Rahm Emanuel?  —  The newly-released mind-boggling, record-smashing $3,400,000,000,000 federal budget invites plenty of opportunity to debate the merits of incurring more and more debt that will drown the next generation of Americans.  Never has it been possible to spend your way out of debt.

The Death of Global Warming  —  The global warming movement as we have known it is dead.  Its health had been in steady decline during the last year as the once robust hopes for a strong and legally binding treaty to be agreed upon at the Copenhagen Summit faded away.

PRIVATE SPACEFLIGHT GOES PUBLIC  —  “Apollo on steroids”?  Forget about it.  Back to the moon?  Not anytime soon.  NASA's new vision for space exploration is less specific on a destination, but more focused on making room for new technologies and new players in spaceflight.

Arkansas Poll Preview  —  We are going to have Blanche Lincoln-John Boozman numbers tomorrow and they aren't pretty for Lincoln.  —  If I had to name one reason Lincoln is in so much trouble it's that voters are no longer differentiating her from national Democrats.

Obama answers questions submitted on YouTube  —  President Obama continued efforts to open himself to direct scrutiny from his critics on Monday, sitting for a half-hour of questions submitted to YouTube during his State of the Union address last week.  —  The online news conference …

Senate Aides Identify Key Roadblock To Passing Reform Via Reconciliation  —  Senate leadership aides have identified what they see as a key roadblock to passing a fix to their bill via reconciliation — and parliamentarians in the Senate and House are hard at work trying to identify a solution, aides say.

Specter To Sestak: Imma Let You Finish ...  At a Pennsylvania Progressive forum this Saturday, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) were supposed to be doing separate Q&As, one after the other.  —  But Specter apparently jumped the gun and climbed onstage while Sestak was giving …

No Room for Reagan  —  In the end, chairman Michael Steele persuaded the Republican National Committee not to require that any candidate hoping to receive help from the party promise to support eight out of ten principles in the so-called Reagan Resolution.  That requirement …