Growing Number of Americans Say Obama is a Muslim  —  Religion, Politics and the President  —  OVERVIEW  —  A substantial and growing number of Americans say that Barack Obama is a Muslim, while the proportion saying he is a Christian has declined.  More than a year and a half into his presidency …

Weekly Jobless Claims Post Surprise Jump, Hit 500,000  —  New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed to a nine-month high last week, yet another setback to the frail economic recovery.  —  Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 500,000 …

The shame of New York  —  The real story of the Ground Zero mosque is that the project only became feasible because of the appalling and astonishing fecklessness of the officials who were charged with the reconstruction of the site and the neighborhood all the way back in 2001.

Last U.S. combat convoy has left Iraq  —  Mosul, Iraq (CNN) — The last U.S. brigade combat team in Iraq has left the country, a move that helps U.S. President Barack Obama reach his goal of 50,000 troops in the country by September 1.  —  Their departure leaves about 56,000 U.S. troops in the country, according to the U.S. military.

Breaking: Blago Holdout Retired State Employee Who Once Handed Out Campaign Literature For Relative Seeking Office; NPR and Liberal Talk Radio Listener  —  Here's what Fox local news in Chicago reports: … Note that that is not yet confirmed.  It is now confirmed by CBS local news Chicago.

Sarah Palin Supports Dr. Laura In N-Word Controversy, Wants Her To ‘Reload’  —  Apparently Sarah Palin fully supports Dr. Laura, who announced Tuesday she would be quitting radio following controversy over her numerous use of the N-word on her show earlier this week.

If only Obama had ...  See if this structure seems familiar to you: Over the past two years, Barack Obama has done X. Now, his poll numbers have slipped to 44 percent.  His party is slated to lose a lot of seats in the 2010 midterms.  Obama's decision to do X is to blame.  —  “X” can be a lot of things.

Sink Inching Up In Close Florida Gov Race, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Crist Leads Three-Way Senate Race  —  Apparently bolstered by the civil war for the Republican nomination for Governor in Florida, State Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, the Democrat, is on the plus side …

NRSC: ‘The Next Time Democrats Call You Extreme, Show Them This Video.’  —  You see it here first, folks: the new web video from the NRSC about just whose views are “extreme” around here.  —  Their closing sequence, showcasing that the so-called extreme candidates are either leading or in dead heats …

Mosque a long shot to be built  —  When President Barack Obama turned the battle over a planned New York Islamic center into a national debate over religious freedom, he unwittingly allied himself and his party with an ill-planned, long-shot development project described by one of its most prominent allies as “amateur hour.”

Federal prosecutors should not retry Rod Blagojevich  —  U.S. ATTORNEY Patrick J. Fitzgerald should back off his vow to retry former governor Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.).  With moral thunder in December 2008, the aggressive prosecutor declared that the state's chief executive was nabbed …

How To Lose A Guy In 75 Days  —  Two years after his coattails helped sweep two dozen Democrats into office, President Obama is proving more a boon to Republicans than to Democrats during the midterm elections.  His poll numbers are so morose that Democrats are planning ways to avoid his shadow …

Skip the lecture on Israel's ‘risks for peace’  —  In the intifada that began in 2000, Palestinian terrorism killed more than 1,000 Israelis.  As a portion of U.S. population, that would be 42,000, approaching the toll of America's eight years in Vietnam.  During the onslaught …

Nancy's nefarious conspiracy theory  —  Is Nancy Pelosi making a bid to join Rob ert Welch, longtime leader of the John Birch Society, as a truly great conspir acy theorist?  —  It would seem only an inspired paranoic could find it so unaccountably strange — cue the “Twilight Zone” …

Rick Santorum: Farther down 2012 path than he expected  —  Rick Santorum today is farther down the road of weighing a presidential campaign than he expected to be when he first set foot in Iowa 10 months ago, the former Pennsylvania senator said in Iowa Wednesday.