Looters in Loafers  —  Last October, I saw a cartoon by Mike Peters in which a teacher asks a student to create a sentence that uses the verb “sacks,” as in looting and pillaging.  The student replies, “Goldman Sachs.”  —  Sure enough, last week the Securities and Exchange Commission accused …

Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor  —  The People and Their Government  —  By almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days.  A new Pew Research Center survey finds a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government …

Financial Reform and American Politics  —  Ryan Avent has a very good brief summary of the state of play in financial regulatory reform today.  It's worth a read.  Bewarned, however: the conference that inspired the post, he says, “has left me with a sense of resigned cycnicism.”

LEAVE THE 19TH AMENDMENT ALONE.... I like to think I can take a joke, and appreciate political commentary intended as humor, but this item from Thomas Mitchell, editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, wasn't amusing.  The headline read, “Time to repeal the 19th Amendment?”

Obama Health Team Turns to Carrying Out New Law  —  WASHINGTON — The success of the new health care law depends to a large degree on a handful of Obama administration officials, who are scrambling to make the transition from waging political war on Capitol Hill to managing one of the most profound changes …

Tea partiers in two camps: Palin vs. Paul  —  Tea party activists are divided roughly into two camps, according to a new POLITICO/TargetPoint poll: one that's libertarian-minded and largely indifferent to hot-button values issues and another that's culturally conservative and equally concerned about social and fiscal issues.

World warming to US under Obama, BBC poll suggests  —  Views of the US around the world have improved sharply over the past year, a BBC World Service poll suggests.  —  For the first time since the annual poll began in 2005, America's influence in the world is now seen as more positive than negative.

White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S.  —  When President Obama took the stage in Cairo last June, promising a new relationship with the Islamic world, Muslims in America wondered only half-jokingly whether the overture included them.  After all, Mr. Obama had kept his distance during the campaign …

Airlines condemn ‘European mess’  —  The body that represents the world's airlines, IATA, has criticised Europe's governments for the way they closed air space because of volcanic ash.  —  The head of the airline industry body, Giovanni Bisignani, told the BBC:"This is a European embarrassment and it's a European mess".

Hill's aides in ‘bully’ crystal  —  WASHINGTON — Politically connected staffers in Hillary Rodham Clinton's State Department twisted arms to steer a $5.4 million contract for crystal stemware to a tiny interior-design firm without putting it out for bid — a move that shut out a well-known …

David Gregory: “No, I won't fact check my guests and you guys can't make me...” A time line.  —  David Gregory, the host of NBC's Meet the Press, has painted himself into a strange corner with his assertion that there's no need to fact check what his guests say on the air because viewers can do that “on their own terms.”

North Carolina Democrats' votes against health care push labor to form party  —  RALEIGH, N.C. — A political rebellion is brewing inside an old funeral home near the state Capitol here.  Frustrated liberals and labor organizers are taking aim at the Democratic Party, rushing to gather enough signatures …

Op-Ed Contributor: Violence Is Unacceptable in a Democracy  —  FIFTEEN years ago today, the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City claimed the lives of 168 men, women and children.  It was, until 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in United States history.

Time's Klein: Beck, Palin Potentially Committing Sedition against U.S. Government; Heilemann Adds Limbaugh  —  Liberals are all too often eager to charge conservative personalities of using hyperbole to gain a political advantage, especially when it contradicts their world view …

Obama swooping into L.A. to boost Boxer in tough re-election fight  —  President Barack Obama returns to Southern California on Monday for his first fundraising swing in nearly a year to lend support to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).  —  The three-term Democrat has seen her reelection prospects diminish …