Top Items:

There Will Be Blood — Former Senator Alan Simpson is a Very Serious Person. He must be — after all, President Obama appointed him as co-chairman of a special commission on deficit reduction. — So here's what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: “I can't wait for the blood bath in April. ...

Response to “Young Boy Strip Searched by TSA” — A video is being widely circulated showing a shirtless boy receiving secondary screening from a Transportation Security Officer (TSO). A passenger filmed the screening with their cell phone and posted the video on the web.
RELATED:

TSA kept quiet on new rules to not provide ‘roadmap’ to terrorists
Discussion:
The Note


Administration to Seek Balance in Airport Screening
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online, Gothamist, CBS New York, The Gateway Pundit, Jezebel, The Other McCain and TPMMuckraker

Obama Politically Tone Deaf On TSA Outrage
Discussion:
Scared Monkeys, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Atlantic Online and CNN


View from Middle East: President Obama is a problem — JERUSALEM — Vowing to change a region that has resisted the best efforts of presidents and prime ministers past, Barack Obama dove head first into the Middle East peace process on his second day in office. — He was supposed to be different.
Discussion:
Israel Matzav, Right Wing News, Ruby Slippers and Left Coast Rebel
RELATED:

Obama's foreign policy needs an update — For help understanding the foreign policy headlines of the past week, let's return, briefly, to the spring of 1983, when Barack Obama was a student at Columbia University. What were the burning international issues of that time?
Discussion:
Hot Air, Commentary, Pundit & Pundette and democracyarsenal.org


Sarah Palin drops 2012 presidency hint with staff visit to Iowa — Palin scouts for office space in early voting state, suggesting next week's visit will be ‘more than just a book signing’ — Sarah Palin has dropped another hint of her intention to run for the White House in 2012 …
Discussion:
Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Ben Smith's Blog, Mediaite, Raw Story, The Political Carnival and ABCNEWS
RELATED:

Palin v. Gawker
Discussion:
Capital New York, The Confluence and Moe Lane

Bombshell evidence may make Waters an ethics nightmare for Dems — Apparently, the Charlie Rangel ethics trial was just the warm-up act. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the House Ethics Committee suddenly postponed the trial of Maxine Waters on ethics violation because it found …
Discussion:
YID With LID, Weasel Zippers, Moe Lane, Wake up America, Commentary and Power Line

U.S. corn ethanol “was not a good policy"-Gore — * U.S. ethanol consumes about 40 pct corn crop — Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was “not a good policy”, weeks before tax credits are up for renewal.
Discussion:
Moe Lane, Sweetness & Light and OpenMarket.org
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The Answer Is No — New Jersey governor Chris Christie is denying money to teachers and tunnels, oxygen to Democrats, and intentions to run for president in 2012. Which is only making him more popular. — C — hris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, was trolling for clicks.
Discussion:
The Hill

'Don't ask, don't tell' study to be released day earlier than planned — Signaling the growing seriousness of the Obama administration's commitment this year to ending the military's ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces, the Defense Department said Sunday that it will release …
Discussion:
Firedoglake, Politics Daily, ThinkProgress, Washington Monthly, ChattahBox News Blog, Jezebel, TPMMuckraker, Advocate, Daily Kos, The Page and Federal Eye


Meghan McCain: 'Kick Obama's ass' … No comments yet. Be the first!
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers and The Daily Caller


On Mrs. Kennedy's Detail — IT was with great trepidation that I approached 3704 N Street in Washington on Nov. 10, 1960. I had just been given the assignment of providing protection for the wife of the newly elected president of the United States, and I was about to meet her for the first time.
Discussion:
msnbc.com


WHAT GOOD IS WALL STREET? — Much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless. — A few months ago, I came across an announcement that Citigroup, the parent company of Citibank, was to be honored, along with its chief executive, Vikram Pandit, for “Advancing the Field of Asset Building in America.”
Discussion:
Money & Company and DealBook

Anti-earmark amendment cedes lawmakers' powers to White House — Even if the full Senate doesn't pass an earmark moratorium, a refusal by lawmakers to direct funding to their congressional districts will likely give more spending-priority power to the Obama administration and won't do much to chip away at the federal deficit.
Discussion:
The Political Carnival, Prairie Weather and Balloon Juice

The Kennedy Assassination: 47 Years Later, What Do We Really Know? — Despite the enduring popularity of conspiracy theories about President John F. Kennedy's death on November 22, 1963, it's a mainstream consensus that these theories have always been essentially the work of cranks …

Snowe: Constitutionality of care law is arguable — and Rebekah Metzler rmetzler@mainetoday.com — Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are co-signing an amicus, or friend of the court, brief to be submitted to the federal court in Florida that will hear a constitutional challenge of the federal health care reform law.
Discussion:
Boston Globe, The Atlantic Online, Washington Post, Taegan Goddard's … and AMERICAblog News


Special Underwear Makes Your Privates Invisible to TSA Scanners — Citizens, take heart: Even as our country falls under the total domination of our new TSA overlords, capitalism continues unabated. A Colorado man has developed undergarments with special body scanner-blocking fig leafs to hide your privates.
Discussion:
Mediaite, Balloon Juice, Israel Matzav and Outside the Beltway

The underwhelming Irish bailout — Color me underwhelmed by the Irish bailout. By all accounts it's going to be less than €100 billion — probably in the €80 billion to €90 billion range — and that sum has to cover the country's entire borrowing needs for the next three years.
Discussion:
New York Times, Yglesias, National Review, FT Alphaville and DealBook


Mosque Money Shocker — The so-called Ground Zero mosque recently applied for a $5 million federal grant from a fund designed to rebuild lower Manhattan after 9/11, reports The Daily Beast's John Avlon. — Developers of the controversial Park51 Islamic community center and mosque located …
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers and Atlas Shrugs