CNN Poll: Was Bush better president than Obama?  —  (CNN) - Americans are divided over whether President Barack Obama or his predecessor has performed better in the White House, according to a new national poll.  —  And a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday also indicates …

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.

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.

Why no one will miss Jim Jones, the departing national security adviser.  —  The harshest and most telling critique of Gen. James Jones' tenure as national security adviser is that his absence will barely be noticed.  President Obama announced today that Jones is resigning and that his deputy, Tom Donilon, will replace him.

Reid gets top GOP endorsements  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid racked up the endorsements of two high-profile Nevada Republicans Thursday and Friday, a sign that the state's GOP establishment remains at a distance from Republican Sharron Angle.  —  Dema Guinn, Nevada's former first lady …

‘This is the biggest fraud in the history of the capital markets’  —  Janet Tavakoli is the founder and president of Tavakoli Structured Finance Inc. She sounded some of the earliest warnings on the structured finance market, leading the University of Chicago to profile her as a …

Sarah Palin speaks to electability issue  —  Speaking to a group of well-connected Republicans at a private dinner in Florida this week, Sarah Palin implicitly addressed questions about her own electability by noting that critics also said Ronald Reagan couldn't win in 1980, three attendees told POLITICO.

GLENN BECK REVEALS HE'LL UNDERGO MEDICAL TESTS FOR COMBINATION OF CONDITIONS  —  This morning on his radio program, Glenn Beck discussed in more detail some of the physical challenges he's been facing.  Glenn told his audience that he will be taking several days off next week to undergo tests at a hospital “out west.”

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.

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 …

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 …

Foreclosure Fraud For Dummies, 1: The Chains and the Stakes  —  The current wave of foreclosure fraud and the consequences for the economy are difficult to follow.  As such, I'm going to write a few posts to simplify what is going on so you can follow stories as they unfold.

GUESS WHO'S VOTING?.... The other day, I had an idea for a short election-related video, so I jotted down a few notes.  Of course, I don't know anything about turning back-of-the-napkin ideas into a finished product, so I took the concept to my friend Bill Simmon, a skilled filmmaker …

The IRS and the latest licensing outrage  —  Who would you rather prepare your taxes?  A professional tax return preparer with over a dozen years experience in preparing tax returns for taxpayers without incident.  Or me, an attorney who has never so much as taken a law school class …

A different way to make a big difference in 2010  —  As the election approaches, the buzz in Democratic activist circles is the need for GOTV.  If we can turn out the vote, and get the composition of the electorate back to what it was in 2008, then Democrats will win.

Duke Winces as a Private Joke Slips Out of Control  —  DURHAM, N.C. — For nearly two weeks, many here on the Duke University campus had been aware of a certain senior “thesis” that a recent graduate wrote, apparently as a private joke, about her sexual exploits with 13 student-athletes.

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.

Donna Brazille: Mystery funds undermine democracy  —  (CNN) — Give them credit where credit is due: Republicans know how to spend big dollars.  In this election, Republican political strategists and their rich, anonymous supporters are really thinking big.

DSCC Moving Money Out of Missouri  —  The DSCC is moving TV ad money out of Missouri, a sign that the Senate race may be moving beyond Democrats' grasp.  —  Four Republican sources who monitor media buying and three Missouri TV stations have confirmed to Hotline On Call that the DSCC has canceled reservations from Oct. 11 to Oct. 25.

In spiked Vanity Fair piece, Jewish leaders worry about Obama  —  Prominent American Jewish leaders cast doubt on President Obama's policy in the Middle East in a long article posted today on Huffington Post by the writers Ed Klein and Richard Chesnoff.  —  The most striking material is from the Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman:

Al-Qaeda takes a big hit  —  ISLAMABAD - Pakistani Mohammad Usman was little-known other than for being wanted for the killing of a police officer in 1997 and his connections with prayer leaders at the Taliban-friendly Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad in the early 2000s.

Rock-Throwing Palestinian Boy Hit by Car in Jerusalem  —  A group of masked boys converge on a car and begin throwing rocks at it in Jerusalem.  In the midst of the chaos, the car up-ends one of the rock-throwers and speeds off.  —  This website uses IntenseDebate comments …

The Cap-and-Trade Crackup  —  A Virginia Democrat with a ‘safe’ seat angers constituents with his anti-coal vote.  —  Even as Speaker Nancy Pelosi twisted arms for the final votes to pass her climate bill in June 2009, Democrats feared they might be “BTU'd.”

LaHood Weighs Urging Ban on All Driver Phone Use in Cars  —  U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he believes motorists are distracted by any use of mobile phones while driving, including hands-free calls, as his department begins research that may lead him to push for a ban.