Welcome to the anti-stimulus  —  The good news: The private sector gained 64,000 jobs in September.  The bad news?  The public sector lost 159,000.  And they weren't all census jobs, either.  Local governments fired 76,000 workers.  In other words, this is the first jobs report in recent months that isn't driven by census layoffs.

An associate of Jerry Brown calls Meg Whitman a “whore” over pension reform (AUDIO)  —  In a private conversation that was inadvertently taped by a voicemail machine (audio below), an associate of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown can be heard referring to his Republican opponent Meg Whitman as a …

Donilon to Replace Jones as National Security Adviser  —  President Obama will announce on Friday that Gen. James Jones, the national security adviser, is resigning and will be replaced by Thomas E. Donilon, the principal deputy national security adviser, senior administration officials said.

Michigan District Court Upholds Individual Mandate Against Challenge by the Thomas More Law Center  —  Michigan federal district Judge George Caram Steeh just issued an opinion upholding the Obama health care plan's individual mandate against a challenge by the conservative Thomas More Law Center …

Flawed Foreclosure Documents Thwart Home Sales  —  OCALA, Fla. — Amanda Ducksworth was supposed to move in to her new home this week, a three-bedroom steal here in central Florida with a horse farm across the road.  Instead, she is camped out with her 7-year-old son at her boss's house.

Nobel Peace Prize Given to Jailed Chinese Dissident  —  BEIJING — Liu Xiaobo, an impassioned literary critic, political essayist and democracy advocate repeatedly jailed by the Chinese government for his writings, won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in recognition of …

The End of the Tunnel  —  The Erie Canal.  Hoover Dam.  The Interstate Highway System.  Visionary public projects are part of the American tradition, and have been a major driver of our economic development.  —  And right now, by any rational calculation, would be an especially good time to improve the nation's infrastructure.

Rory Reid: Healthcare reform could end up hurting Nevada  —  Gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid (D) said Thursday that the new health reform law could hurt Nevada.  —  During a televised debate, Rory Reid, the son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said he does not support the legal challenges against the health overhaul.

Paladino Meltdown Watch.  —  Faced with a political race that didn't involve proving he hated Muslims more than the other candidate, Republican gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino's candidacy has struggled to gain ground on Democrat Andrew Cuomo.  An initial Quinnipiac poll showed Paladino …

A Florida Double Crist?  —  Kendrick Meek might drop out of the Florida senate race and thereby pave the path to victory for Charlie Crist.  —  TAMPA — Republican leaders in the Sunshine State are fretting that a deal may be in the works to get Democratic nominee Kendrick Meek …

Why Barack Obama is an anti-colonialist  —  If you want to understand what is going on in the White House today, you have to begin with Barack Obama.  No, not that Barack Obama.  I mean Barack Obama Sr., the president's father.  Obama gets his identity and his ideology from his father.

HHS errs on Medicare Advantage  —  The Department of Health and Human Services quietly changed the web version of a speech in which HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius described how the health care overhaul is going to affect Medicare Advantage plans, a controversial section of the law …

Lou Dobbs: ‘I have done nothing illegal’  —  Lou Dobbs is firing back against claims of hiring undocumented workers.  In an exclusive interview on Msnbc's Lawrence O'Donnell on Thursday, the radio host said, “The bottom line is I have done nothing illegal.”

Sarah Palin in West Palm Beach: “I'll run for president if the American people want me to!”  —  Former vice-presidential hopeful and governor of Alaska Sarah Palin told a small studio audience during the taping of a Newsmax.com webcast Wednesday in West Palm Beach that she would run for president in 2012 if …

Caught Spying on Student, FBI Demands GPS Tracker Back  —  A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online.  The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real …

The Colbert Democrats  —  A president's first midterm election is inevitably a referendum on his two years in office.  The bad news for Democrats is that President Obama's “reelect” number is 38 percent — precisely Bill Clinton's in October 1994, the eve of the wave election …

How Dumb Can They Get?  —  The people who run the New York Times, along with columnists like Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd, are so ill-informed and out of touch that their efforts to tell the rest of us what to think grow more pitiful every day.  This is from today's NYT Corrections Section.

The Real Israel Lobby  —  Now we know who constitutes the real Israel lobby: the American public.  Especially the Republican-leaning part of it.  —  Consider the results of a new poll, a survey of 1000 likely voters done October 3 to 5 by McLaughlin and Associates for the Emergency Committee for Israel.