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 …

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

A Twist in Wall St. Reform Talks  —  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 and raised questions …

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.

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 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 …

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:

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:

Getting real about Congress  —  “No single vote by any single senator could possibly illustrate everything that is wrong with Washington today,” writes Fred Hiatt.  “No single vote could embody the full cynicism and cowardice of our political elite at its worst, or explain by itself why problems do not get solved.”

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.

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.

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.

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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” …

College tuition hikes in double digits  —  State budget deficits contribute to higher education costs  —  SEATTLE - As students around the country anxiously wait for college acceptance letters, their parents are sweating the looming tuition bills at public universities.

We've got a big announcement  —  I'm just going to republish the press release that went out:  —  The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) - a project of the American Conservative Union Foundation, in association with Young America's Foundation and Human Events …

The Geezers' Crusade  —  We like to think that in days gone by, the young venerated the elderly.  But that wasn't always so.  In “As You Like It,” Shakespeare's morose character, Jaques, calls old age “second childishness and mere oblivion.”  Walt Whitman hoped that the tedium and pettiness …