The Numbers Don't Lie  —  A Democratic senator I can't name, who reluctantly voted for the health-care bill out of loyalty to his party and his admiration for Barack Obama, privately complained to me that the measure was political folly, in part because of the way it goes into effect …

Sarah Palin To Host First Fox News Show Thursday - With LL Cool J  —  This is not an April Fool's joke.  Sarah Palin will take her first stab at television hosting when she fronts a new Fox News series, Real American Stories, premiering Thursday April 1 at 10pmET.

REAPING WHAT ONE SOWS ON THE CENSUS.... Prominent right-wing voices decided last year that the U.S. census was not to be trusted.  Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said the process could lead to “internment camps.”  Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) called the census “invasive.”

EXCLUSIVE: Iran Nuclear Scientist Defects to U.S. In CIA ‘Intelligence Coup’  —  Shahram Amiri Disappeared Last June in Saudi Arabia, Reportedly Now Resettled in the United States  —  An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances …

Militia Probe Included Undercover FBI Agent  —  An undercover agent was part of the federal investigation of a Michigan-based Christian militia group that allegedly planned to spark an uprising against the government by killing police officers, court documents show.

Hating Us For Our Degeneracy  —  This morning Bret Stephens dusted off D'Souza's thesis on jihadism: … That must be why America was beset by jihadist attacks since at least 1948.  Oh, wait, this never happened?  How strange.  That might mean that the decadence-as-cause …

John McCain Calls For National Guard Deployment To The Border  —  Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), under fire from the right for not being tough enough on immigration in his Senate primary race, has called on Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to dispatch National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Charles Johnson “Fairly Sure” the Tennesee State Flag is a Neo-Nazi Logo...  And I'm fairly sure the Husky Ponytailed Blogger's a washed-up has-been...  The link he provides goes to this picture:  —  Umm yeah, that's the Tennesee state flag...  FAIL.

Lo, the Mideast Moves  —  BRUSSELS — The passage of the U.S. health care bill is a major foreign policy victory for President Barack Obama.  —  It empowers him by demonstrating his ability to deliver.  Nowhere is that more important than in the Middle East.

RNC Fires “Young Eagles” Director  —  The RNC has fired the director of its young donors program after she approved an expense for a risque L.A. nightclub, multiple sources tell Hotline OnCall.  —  Allison Meyers, director of the RNC's “Young Eagles” program, was terminated yesterday …

Henry Waxman's War on Accounting  —  Accounting basics: when a company experiences what accountants call “a material adverse impact” on its expected future earnings, and those changes affect an item that is already on the balance sheet, the company is required to record the negative impact …

Obama Defends Health Care Law  —  President Obama defended his health care program in an interview broadcast on Tuesday morning, portraying it as a “centrist approach” that Republicans are opposing mainly because they want “political benefit in November.”  —  Speaking on NBC's “Today” show …

Companies Push to Repeal Provision of Health Reform  —  An association representing 300 large corporations urged President Obama and Congress on Monday to repeal a provision of the health care overhaul that prompted AT&T, Caterpillar and other companies to announce substantial charges for the current quarter.

Palin Inc.  —  I'm increasingly convinced that Sarah Palin is running to head a media empire rather than a presidential campaign.  —  On that front, she is nothing short of an extraordinary success.  She's got a multi-year gig at Fox News.  She just signed a deal with Discovery's TLC for a documentary about her native Alaska.

Obama Prepared to Move Agenda Forward With or Without GOP  —  ABC News' David Chalian Reports: In the aftermath of President Obama's health care victory without a single Republican vote, White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod still holds out hope for some bipartisan agreement on future policy proposals …

Ehrlich announces run for governor  —  Decision to challenge O'Malley comes after months-long ‘listening tour’  —  Former Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. confirmed Tuesday that he will challenge Gov. Martin O'Malley this fall.  —  Ehrlich, the state's only Republican governor in a generation …

Half of Commercial Mortgages to Be Underwater: Warren  —  By the end of 2010, about half of all commercial real estate mortgages will be underwater, said Elizabeth Warren, chairperson of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, in a wide-ranging interview on Monday.

Google Buzz Privacy Flaw Snags Another Victim: White House Deputy CTO Andrew McLaughlin  —  It's been several weeks now since the disastrous rollout of Google Buzz's initial social networking platform.  It was on February 9ththat Google Buzz unleashed its newest foray into social media to compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

NASA Data Worse Than Climate-Gate Data, Space Agency Admits  —  NASA can put a man on the moon, but the space agency can't tell you what the temperature was back then.

The Rich Can't Pay for ObamaCare  —  The president intends to squeeze an extra $1.2 trillion over 10 years from a tiny sliver of taxpayers who already pay more than half of all individual taxes.  It won't work.  —  President Barack Obama's new health-care legislation aims to raise $210 billion …

Blanche goes bogus  —  On the day that Lt. Gov. Bill Halter formally accepted the draft of national left-wing activists and announced he would run in the Democratic primary against U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a person close to Lincoln told me Blanche was going to get tough.

Assessing John Thune's 2012 chances  —  Photo by Melina Mara of the Washington Post  —  Today's candidate filing deadline in South Dakota marks the start of serious talk about Sen. John Thune's potential presidential campaign in 2012.  —  The Thune forces have been loathe to discuss …

Rove Gets Branded ‘War Criminal’ At Book Signing  —  BEVERLY HILLS (CBS) ― About 100 fans came out to hear Karl Rove at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills Monday night to discuss his book “Courage and Consequences: My Life As a Conservative In The Fight,” — but the fight wasn't contained to his book.

Rail cops go great guns  —  Stand clear of the submachine guns.  —  In an unusual move, a heavily armed NYPD security battalion with enough firepower to wipe out Downtown Brooklyn descended onto the city's subway trains yesterday in response to suicide bombings in Russia that killed dozens of passengers in Moscow's subway.

Time's Tumulty joins WaPo  —  Time magazine's Karen Tumulty will soon be joining The Washington Post as the paper's national political correspondent, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.  —  Tumulty has spent the past 16 years at Time, writing cover stories and regularly contributing to the magazine's “Swampland” blog.

Trey Grayson, Rand Paul and the politics of Sept. 11, 2001  —  Six weeks out from the Kentucky Republican primary for Senate, Secretary of State Trey Grayson and ophthalmologist Rand Paul are in a pitched battle over that most touchy of political subjects: the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.