Mitch McConnell Stands Firm: No Partial Bush Tax Cut Extension  —  Updated at 2:50 p.m. ET.  —  The House Republican leader on Sunday suggested he may be willing to concede to Democrats who want to let the Bush tax cuts lapse for the wealthiest Americans, but the Senate Republican leader today said he is standing his ground.

Tom Ross, Delaware GOP Chair, Threatened With ‘Bullet In The Head’  —  WHAT'S YOUR REACTION?  —  The chairman of the Delaware Republican Party received a death threat last week over his support for Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del) over Tea Party challenger Christine O'Donnell in the state's upcoming Senate primary …

Forbes Embraces Birtherism Lite.  —  Sometimes it's best to think of racism as intellectual laziness.  That is, it reflects a failure to evaluate people for who they actually are, because its easier to slip them into a familiar, predetermined category that doesn't upset other related conclusions a person might have come to as a result.

An Apology  —  Nicholas Kristof and I do not see the world—and America's role in it—in the same way.  I have sometimes expressed my disagreements with his opinions vociferously (vociferousness is my business).  But in yesterday's The New York Times, he quotes two sentences that I recently wrote …

Obit: In lieu of flowers, donate to anybody running against Obama in 2012 … ROME, GA (NBC) - About 50 people attended the funeral for Don Unsworth, a northwest Georgia businessman, father, grandfather and husband.  —  Described by family as lively, humorous and politically conservative …

Pelosi has pocketed nearly twice as much lobbyist cash as Boehner  —  If you read this weekend's New York Times' hit job on would-be Speaker John Boehner and his “lobbyist friends,” you might think, as the reporter clearly thinks, that John Boehner is cozier with lobbyists than most powerful politicians are.

Halperin's Take: Brown Escalates War of Words With Bill Clinton  —  HALPERIN'S TAKE: The Whitman ad is probably the best TV spot by any campaign all cycle.  Clinton and Brown have always had a rough relationship, which probably hit rock bottom...  ... in 1992, when, in the same debate …

Meghan McCain's Dirty, Sexy Politics  —  On June 20, 2002, the United States Supreme Court decreed, in the case of Atkins v. Virginia, that the mildly mentally retarded were categorically exempt from capital punishment, reasoning that fully functional adults of diminished mental capacity …

What will — and won't — get you banned from the U.S.  —  President Obama's Department of Homeland Security and State Department are hard at work making sure that no drunk foreign teens who call the commander-in-chief names ever set foot in our country.  —  Feel safer?

America Is a Joke  —  The worst of times for politics and media has been the best of times for The Daily Show's host—and unfortunately things are getting even funnier.  —  I  —  t's hard to top a kick in the nuts.  —  Especially when the kicker is Linda McMahon, the Connecticut Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.

INTOLERANCE  —  When a dozen cartoons satirizing the Prophet Mohammed appeared in the conservative Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, in September, 2005, there was only a muted outcry from the small Danish Muslim community, and little reaction in the rest of the Muslim world.

The Exit Interviews: Sen. Bob Bennett  —  Q: What things do you think are most misunderstood by the public about being a senator or how Congress works?  —  A: They have no understanding of what we do.  They expect that we spend most of our time on the Senate floor debating.

China, Japan, America  —  Last week Japan's minister of finance declared that he and his colleagues wanted a discussion with China about the latter's purchases of Japanese bonds, to “examine its intention” — diplomat-speak for “Stop it right now.”  The news made me want to bang my head against the wall in frustration.

63% say trade out Snowe  —  Last November, right after she supported the health care bill in committee, we found that 59% of Maine Republicans wanted to replace Olympia Snowe with someone more conservative while only 31% said they would support her again in 2012.

Ground Zero Mosque Group Includes 9/11 Denier  —  In his interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien on Wednesday, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf defended his plans to build a mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero, saying “You cannot heal a trauma by walking away from it.  We have to sit down.

MIDTERM BIEBER FEVER  —  Internet-savvy types know that teen heartthrob Justin Bieber pretty much rules the web.  Just last week, rumor spread that Bieber's fan base was so active on Twitter that the microblogging website has servers dedicated just to him.  Twitter didn't confirm, but they didn't deny it, either.