Palin, Visible and Vocal, Is Positioned for Variety of Roles  —  WASHINGTON — Without leaving home, Sarah Palin will be able to reach much of her political base, courtesy of a soon-to-be-built television studio in her living room paid for by her newest media patron, Fox News.

Eulogy To The Unknown Campaign Volunteer; Obama Misstates Facts  —  Obama is getting a bit of a bum rap for eulogizing a campaign volunteer (Melanie Shouse, per this, or this) who Obama claims, incorrectly, died without health insurance but insisted on being buried in an Obama t-shirt.

Blame the childish, ignorant American public—not politicians—for our political and economic crisis.  —  In trying to explain why our political paralysis seems to have gotten so much worse over the past year, analysts have rounded up a plausible collection of reasons including …

How Can Securitization Lending Be Made Safer ? … In his column today, Floyd Norris asks “Can the world be made safe for the return of securitizations?”  —  To a degree, that is the wrong question.  —  While some people have become focused on securitization, what we should really be looking …

EMPTY CHAIRS.... Democrats were pretty aggressive yesterday in going after Sen. Richard Shelby (R), after the right-wing Alabama lawmaker put a blanket hold on 70 administration nominees.  For Shelby, he'll consider letting the Senate vote on the officials, just as soon as he gets some defense earmarks for his state.

Climate scepticism ‘on the rise’  —  The number of British people who are sceptical about climate change is rising, a poll for BBC News suggests.  —  The Populus poll of 1,001 adults found 25% did not think global warming was happening, a rise of 8% since a similar poll was conducted in November.

Gigi Jordan feeds son, 8, fatal dose of pills, leaves strange 2-page note in botched murder-suicide  —  A multimillionaire mom fed her 8-year-old son a fatal dose of pills, then spent the night with his body inside a ritzy midtown hotel before a failed suicide try, police said.

Source: Cohen Considering Dropping Out  —  U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin Joins Call For Lt. Gov. Nominee To Step Aside  —  CHICAGO (CBS) ― Under increasing pressure to step down, Democratic lieutenant governor nominee Scott Lee Cohen is reportedly considering stepping aside.

No Holds Barred  —  Washington was immobilized by snow on Friday.  This is highly unusual.  Normally, Washington is immobilized by senators.  —  This time storm warnings came just as the Senate had hit a point of uncommon productivity.  In a single week, it managed to not only confirm two U.S. marshals …

Steele: ‘Trust Me, After Taxes, A Million Dollars Is Not A Lot Of Money’  —  RNC Chairman Michael Steele and former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN) held a joint appearance Thursday night at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.  When the debate turned to President Obama's plan …

Saving Money vs Spending Less Money  —  When talking about the household budget, I think it's commonplace to draw a distinction between a claim like “you could save money by bringing Diet Coke from the store into the office rather than using the soda machine” and a claim like …