Afflicting the Afflicted  —  If we're lucky, Thursday's summit will turn out to have been the last act in the great health reform debate, the prologue to passage of an imperfect but nonetheless history-making bill.  If so, the debate will have ended as it began: with Democrats offering moderate plans …

Bunning holds floor: ‘Tough s—t’  —  Senate Democrats spent Thursday night hammering away at Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) for single-handedly holding up action in the upper chamber - but he blurted out a message to one of them on the Senate floor: “Tough s—t.”

Gov. David Paterson pulls plug on election bid, but will not resign: insider  —  Embattled Gov. Paterson has pulled the plug on his election bid, a source close to the governor said Friday.  —  Paterson will announce the decision later Friday.  —  Paterson has been under fire for having contacted …

One last health-reform sprint: House, Senate race to an Easter deadline for ‘the big bill’ — Mitch ‘The Knife’ Daniels eyes '12 prez run — N.Y. tabs say Paterson must go  —  BREAKING — George W. Bush, whose book will be out Nov. 8, at this morning's closed-door Bush-Cheney alumni reunion breakfast …

Dems call for Rangel's gavel  —  After months of holding ranks, Democrats are finally turning on House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) in the wake of an ethics committee finding that he violated House rules by accepting a Caribbean junket.  —  Early Friday, Rep. Paul Hodes …

Gregg: Reconciliation Is The Rule Of The Senate (VIDEO)  —  Republicans are doing everything they can to convince the media and the public that using the budget reconciliation process to finish health care would be a grave crime against democracy.  —  But reconciliation is part of the Senate rules.

White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers to step down  —  WASHINGTON—White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers told me Friday she will step down next month, after presiding over 330 events in the White House in 14 months.  —  Rogers is departing after achieving a major goal …

Thoughts on the Health Care Summit  —  So, the health care summit.  What do we think?  —  Well, like the rest of the press, I think it was a phenomenal waste of time, if you thought we were maybe going to make some kind of policy progress.  What did we learn from the summit?

Defeated congresswoman's car still in House parking lot — more than 3 years later — even though she's a registered lobbyist  —  Former Rep. Melissa Hart may have hit the road and gone back home to Pittsburgh in 2006 when she lost her bid for re-election, but it appears that a car …

Coffee Party activists say their civic brew's a tastier choice than Tea Party's  —  Furious at the tempest over the Tea Party — the scattershot citizen uprising against big government and wild spending — Annabel Park did what any American does when she feels her voice has been drowned out …

Schultz: Rip out Cheney's heart  —  Liberal talk show host Ed Schultz would like to take the heart of former Vice President Dick Cheney - who is currently recovering from his fifth heart attack - and “rip it out and kick it around and stuff it back in him.”  —  On his radio show Wednesday …

Facebook Patents The News Feed (Updated)  —  On Tuesday, Facebook was awarded a major patent for “Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network”.  This is a huge deal for a number of reasons, most significantly that it grants Facebook the opportunity to pursue …

BIDEN: IT'S EASY BEING VP  —  There have been some tense moments during today's health care summit at the Blair House, but not for Vice President Joe Biden, it seems.  —  Just moments before the afternoon session got underway, C-SPAN's cameras picked up audio of Biden chatting casually with participants.

Senate Ratings  —  HOW SENATORS SCORED ON LIBERAL-CONSERVATIVE SCALES IN THREE ISSUE CATEGORIES AND OVERALL. … In the following list, senators are assigned separate scores for their roll-call votes on key economic, social and foreign-policy issues during 2009.

On Wall Street, a Romance With Curling  —  Wall Street trading is often described as a blood sport.  But inside the great investment houses, the sport of the moment is, of all things, curling — that oddball of the Olympics that is sort of like shuffleboard on ice.