Obama ‘amused’ by Tea Party rallies  —  President Barack Obama struck a hyperpartisan note Thursday, telling Democrats that he was “amused” by the Tax Day Tea Party rallies.  —  Obama, addressing a Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraiser in Miami, did little to endear himself …

White House complains about CBS News blog post saying that possible Supreme Court nominee is gay  —  The White House ripped CBS News on Thursday for publishing an online column by a blogger who made assertions about the sexual orientation of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, widely viewed as a leading candidate for the Supreme Court.

Obama orders hospitals to grant same-sex couples visitation rights  —  President Obama on Thursday signed a memorandum requiring hospitals to allow gays and lesbians to have non-family visitors and to grant their partners medical power of attorney.  —  The president ordered the Department …

The Fire Next Time  —  On Tuesday, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, called for the abolition of municipal fire departments.  —  Firefighters, he declared, “won't solve the problems that led to recent fires.  They will make them worse.”  The existence of fire departments …

C.I.A. Document Details Destruction of Tapes  —  WASHINGTON — Porter J. Goss, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in 2005 approved of the decision by one of his top aides to destroy dozens of videotapes documenting the brutal interrogation of two detainees, according to an internal C.I.A. document released Thursday.

Former Sen. Mack withdraws as Crist campaign chair  —  TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Charlie Crist's political mentor, former U.S. Sen. Connie Mack, resigned Thursday as Crist's campaign chairman in his race for the U.S. Senate.  —  Mack wrote a terse, two-paragraph letter to his one-time protege …

U.S. SENATE RACE: Poll: Reid loses full ballot test  —  Third-party, nonpartisan candidates have little impact  —  U.S. Sen. Harry Reid must pick up far more support from crossover Republicans and independents to win re-election, according to a new poll that shows him losing to the GOP front-runner …

DNC Pledges $50 Million for Midterms  —  ABC News' Teddy Davis reports: A Democratic Party official confirms that the DNC will contribute over $50 million in cash and services for the midterm elections (House, Senate, and gubernatorial races).  —  In making this announcement about the DNC's plans …

Dueling Columnists  —  A surprising disagreement has broken out between two Times columnists, with Paul Krugman demanding an apology from Andrew Ross Sorkin and Sorkin so far refusing to back down.  —  The argument is over what approach Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who writes …

Lawyer: Laptops took thousands of images  —  The system that Lower Merion school officials used to track lost and stolen laptops wound up secretly capturing thousands of images, including photographs of students in their homes, Web sites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats …

New House Ratings: 44 Seats Moved Toward GOP  —  We are still seven months until the midterm elections, so there is at least some possibility that the landscape could shift or that Democratic attacks on the GOP could keep Republican gains down to a minimum.  —  Substantial Republican gains …

Recalling '95 Bombing, Clinton Sees Parallels  —  WASHINGTON — With the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing approaching, former President Bill Clinton on Thursday drew parallels between the antigovernment tone that preceded that devastating attack and the political tumult of today …

Merrill Lynch's $50 billion feud … (Fortune) — For Stan O'Neal, late August 2007 was a period of great anxiety.  The chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch was vacationing at his home on Martha's Vineyard and, as the world would later learn, playing a lot of golf.

‘Tea party’ protesters gather in Washington to rally against taxes, spending  —  Thousands of conservative “tea party” activists streamed into the nation's capital Thursday to protest Obama administration policies and denounce what they regard as excessive taxation and government spending.

Experts: Angry rhetoric disturbing but protected  —  (CNN) — Letting disgruntled citizens vent is important to national security, experts say, but some messages emanating from angry Americans in recent weeks have pressed the boundaries of free speech.  —  Politicians have reported slurs as well as threatening letters and phone calls.

Imam and Informant Tells Why He Lied  —  Ahmad Wais Afzali, after his sentencing on Thursday.  Mr. Afzali avoided imprisonment, but he must leave the country.  —  He had built a life in this country.  He grew up in Queens, attended high school there, and became a religious leader in his community.

Obama's nuclear strutting and fretting  —  There was something oddly disproportionate about the just-concluded nuclear summit to which President Obama summoned 46 world leaders, the largest such gathering on American soil since 1945.  That meeting was about the founding of the United Nations …

Lobbyists and Lawmakers Bond During Springsteen Concerts  —  by Marcus Stern and Sebastian Jones, ProPublica -  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. - As Bruce Springsteen belted out his working-class anthems on the floor of the Verizon Center last May, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chair of the House Highways …

Graft Feeds Greek Crisis  —  ATHENS—Behind the budget crisis roiling Greece lies a riddle: Why does the state spend so lavishly but collect taxes so poorly?  Many Greeks say the answer needs only two words: fakelaki and rousfeti.  —  Fakelaki is the Greek for “little envelopes,” …

What People Don't Know About Federal Income Taxes  —  As readers of this blog know, one of my pet peeves is all of the tea party demonstrators who are outraged by the high level of taxation in America, but who in fact know virtually nothing about taxation and grossly overestimate its burden.

The heart and soul of Israel  —  It is not a perfect analogy, but imagine King George III asking America's founding fathers to surrender Philadelphia in exchange for ending the Revolutionary War.  America's birthplace, including Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, would fly the Union Jack.