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 …

Howard Dean: “Mosque” should move  —  (Updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV [Dean's response] - Update V)  —  Certain things are disappointing and surprising even for the most hardened cynics.  Hearing Howard Dean — the former liberal standard-bearer …

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 …

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.

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.

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 …

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.

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.”

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 …

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 …

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” …

Home Aquariums as Decorating Elements  —  KARIN WILZIG has a hard time choosing a favorite color from among the 64 that she and her husband can use to illuminate the 14 1/2- foot, 450-gallon aquarium in their TriBeCa town house.  The default is fuchsia, which turns the dozen koi a deep pink.

The Gulf Disaster Is Far From Over  —  A few weeks ago, I flew over the Deepwater Horizon site and saw what looked like the opposite of all the news reports: it looked more like somebody had spilled water into a Gulf filled with oil.  —  You don't have to make a personal trip to the Gulf …