Obama Readies a Fallback Proposal  —  Scaled-Down Plan Would Expand Insurance to About Half as Many People as Pending Bill Envisions  —  President Barack Obama will use a bipartisan summit Thursday to push for sweeping health-care legislation, but if that fails to generate enough support …

Did the Congressional Budget Office find that premiums costs will go down?  —  Lamar Alexander and Barack Obama just had a contentious exchange on this point, so it's worth settling the issue: Yes, the CBO found health-care reform would reduce premiums.  The issue gets confused because it also found …

Photo Emerges Of Murderous Killer Whale At Tea Party Rally  —  Some quick investigate reporting by the folks at Daily Kos and Democratic Underground has unearthed a photo of Tilikum, the killer whale who yesterday killed a trainer at Sea World, at a Tea Party event in Omaha, Nebraska.

Marco Rubio charged personal bills on GOP card  —  Senate candidate Marco Rubio said he reimbursed the state GOP for expenses put on an American Express card given to him by his party.  —  BREINHARD@MIAMIHERALD.COM  —  U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio charged grocery bills …

Questions of Influence in Abuse Case of Paterson Aide  —  Last fall, a woman went to court in the Bronx to testify that she had been violently assaulted by a top aide to Gov. David A. Paterson, and to seek a protective order against the man.  —  In the ensuing months, she returned to court twice …

Most ‘tea party’ followers are baby boomers reliving the '60s  —  A poll debunks assumptions about the movement, showing that it's largely middle-class, college-educated, white and male.  —  Oceans of ink, terabytes of blog space and an eternity of television time have been devoted …

Maryland to recognize gay marriages from other places  —  Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) declared Wednesday that Maryland will recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and that its agencies should immediately begin affording gay married couples the same rights as heterosexual ones.

Can This Possibly Be True?  New Obama Missile Defense Logo Includes A Crescent  —  The Obama administration's determined effort to reduce America's missile defense capabilities initially seemed to be just standard Leftist fare — of a piece with the Democratic base's visceral hostility …

Republicans watching the clock  —  Before Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn started talking, the time of possession was:  —  Democrats: about 74 minutes Republicans: about 37 minutes  —  Post Comment  —  Pages  —  Sob stories take longer to tell than ideas and facts.

What to Expect in November  —  An Update on the House of Representatives  —  Just about everyone agrees that Republicans will be gaining a sizeable number of U.S. House seats come November, but this far in advance, few agree on the exact number.  We've seen a couple of dozen predictions so far …

US refuses to endorse British sovereignty in Falklands oil dispute  —  Giles Whittell, Washington and James Bone, New York  —  Washington refused to endorse British claims to sovereignty over the Falkland Islands yesterday as the diplomatic row over oil drilling in the South Atlantic intensified in London, Buenos Aires and at the UN.

The Myth of the Incumbent 50% Rule  —  I don't like criticizing our good friends over at Pollster.com, but a Tuesday article by Pollster correspondent Robert Moran, also the Executive Vice President at StrategyOne, espouses a bit of conventional wisdom which happens to be completely wrong.

Audio: Pawlenty endorses McCain in AZ primary  —  Jamie Allman talked with Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty this morning on his St. Louis talk radio show and got him to endorse McCain publicly.  That doesn't exactly come as a shock; Pawlenty was one of the first major political figures …

Banks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide  —  Bets by some of the same banks that helped Greece shroud its mounting debts may actually now be pushing the nation closer to the brink of financial ruin.  —  Echoing the kind of trades that nearly toppled the American International Group …

McCain agrees to debate Hayworth.  —  Washington (CNN) - Sen. John McCain's Republican primary opponent, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, took a page right out of the underdog playbook on Thursday by challenging McCain to ten debates, the same demand McCain made of Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential race.