STORMY DANIELS SWITCHES TEAMS  —  Stormy Daniels, the former porn star who has been debating whether to run for Senate in Louisiana for what seems like decades, says she'll make her decision April 15.  More important, she announced Tuesday that if she does run — because apparently …

Black conservative tea party backers take heat  —  ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - They've been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values.  Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement …

McDonnell's Confederate History Month proclamation irks civil rights leaders  —  RICHMOND — Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, reviving a controversy that had been dormant for eight years, has declared that April will be Confederate History Month in Virginia, a move that angered civil rights leaders Tuesday …

Obama Bans Islam, Jihad From National Security Strategy Document  —  The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war.

Rudy Giuliani and Joe Scarborough Humiliate Arianna Huffington  —  Arianna Huffington stuck her foot in her mouth during Tuesday's “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, and ended up being totally humiliated by host Joe Scarborough and guests Rudy Giuliani and Mort Zuckerman.

Volcker: Taxes likely to rise eventually to tame deficit  —  (Reuters) - The United States should consider raising taxes to help bring deficits under control and may need to consider a European-style value-added tax, White House adviser Paul Volcker said on Tuesday.

Economic Scene: To Cut Health Costs, U.S. Needs to Learn to Say No  —  How can we learn to say no?  —  The federal government is now starting to build the institutions that will try to reduce the soaring growth of health care costs.  There will be a group to compare the effectiveness …

Health care overhaul spawns mass confusion for public  —  WASHINGTON — Two weeks after President Barack Obama signed the big health care overhaul into law, Americans are struggling to understand how — and when — the sweeping measure will affect them.  —  Questions reflecting confusion …

The 9/14 Presidency  —  Barack Obama is operating with the war powers granted George W. Bush three days after the 9/11 attacks.  —  If you believe the president's Republican critics, Barack Obama takes a law enforcement approach to terrorism.  His FBI came under fire for reading Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab …

What Does Palinspeak Mean?  —  Why does Sarah Palin talk the way she does?  Just what is this sort of thing below? … Just forty years ago people would be shocked to read something like this as a public statement from someone even pretending, as Palin pretty much had to have been by the time of this quote …

Chopra Blames Own Meditation for Baja Quake  —  The U.S. Geological Survey is blaming day-to-day seismological changes for Sunday's 7.2 earthquake along the U.S.-Mexico border.  But Deepak Chopra, the famed alternative-medicine practitioner and transcendental meditation guru, is pretty sure he knows what really happened.

‘Riot Is the Voice of the Unheard’  —  Tea-party foe Maxine Waters once made excuses for real political violence.  —  “The Tea Party emerges as not only outrageous, but they have turned up the volume in ways that even Code Pink have not been able to do,” Rep. Maxine Waters said the other day on MSNBC.

Yakima County man charged with threatening to kill Sen. Patty Murray  —  A 64-year-old Yakima County man has been charged with threatening to kill U.S. Sen. Patty Murray over her support of the National Health Care Reform Act.  —  The FBI and local police arrested Charles Alan Wilson at his Selah home early Tuesday.

Yes, Larry Summers is Leaving  —  One angle in my recent profile of Tim Geithner concerned his relationship with Larry Summers, his former mentor and the director of the National Economic Council.  I contend that Geithner, not Summers, has emerged as Obama's key adviser on financial matters, and that Summers isn't happy about it.

Ex-U.N. envoy: Karzai may have drug problem  —  Peter Galbraith questions Afghan leader's mental stability  —  NEW YORK - A former U.N envoy to Afghanistan on Tuesday questioned the “mental stability” of Hamid Karzai and suggested the Afghan president may be using drugs.

Alan Simpson Blasts Antitax Critics  —  Former Sen. Alan Simpson is none too pleased with conservatives who say he lacks sufficient antitax fervor.  —  “I got the best damn record on no taxes of any son-of-a-bitch in the Senate,” says the blunt-speaking Wyoming Republican …

Thompson beating Feingold, 45-33, in poll; Doyle at low ebb  —  Republicans are beating Democrats handily in real or imagined fall election races, according to a new poll that also shows former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson favored over Sen. Russ Feingold, 45% to 33% in a head-to-head contest for the U.S. Senate.

Where is the NPR of Cable News?  —  The title of this post is a question asked by a student in my media and politics class a couple years ago.  It came to mind when I was reading Ross Douthat's column today.  (And a tip of the hat to another student in that class, Ben Balter, for forwarding the article to me.)

Dems dread Supreme Court fight after elections  —  Can John Paul Stevens say it any more clearly without actually saying it?  In a number of high-profile interviews, the Supreme Court justice, who will be 90 years old on April 20, has been sending the message in big, flashing letters: I'M GOING TO RETIRE.