Fiscal Showdown Looms in Capitol  —  The White House and Democratic lawmakers, with less than two weeks left to avoid a government shutdown, are assembling a proposal for roughly $20 billion in additional spending cuts that could soon be offered to Republicans, according to people close to the budget talks.

Ayers affirms he wrote Dreams from my Father  —  Last Thursday evening at Montclair State University, with a video camera rolling, Bill Ayers volunteered that yes indeed he had written the acclaimed Barack Obama memoir, Dreams from My Father.  —  Unprompted, Ayers also noted that while Dreams deserves …

Facebook May Hire Robert Gibbs, Former Obama Aide  —  Facebook is in talks to hire Robert Gibbs, President Obama's former White House press secretary, for a senior role in helping to manage the company's communications, people briefed on the negotiations said.

Libyan Rebel Gains Could Be Fleeting, U.S. Military Says  —  TRIPOLI, Libya — As rebel forces backed by allied warplanes pushed toward one of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's most crucial bastions of support, the American military warned on Monday that their rapid gains could quickly be reversed without continued coalition air support.

Maine governor removes labor mural  —  A mural depicting vignettes of state and national labor history was removed over the weekend from Maine's Labor Department headquarters in Augusta, Gov. Paul LePage's office said Monday morning.  —  The 11-panel mural that includes images of worker strikes and …

How my wait in a closet almost brought down the White House  —  I was kidnapped.  —  That was news to me.  —  My paper and I conspired to cover this up, to protect Vice President Joe Biden and his staff from charges they had imprisoned me at a fundraiser last week.  —  That was news to me too.

When standardized test scores soared in D.C., were the gains real?  —  WASHINGTON — In just two years, Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus went from a school deemed in need of improvement to a place that the District of Columbia Public Schools called one of its “shining stars.”

The Libya Strategy That-Shall-Not-Be-Named  —  Like Andrew, I'm ambivalent about military action in Libya — not because the cause isn't just, but because Libya does not pose a significant national security threat to the United States (as Ross Douthat discusses here).  And I'm ambivalent because we don't know the game plan.

Tom Toles on Gentrification  —  Much respect to Richard Layman for remembering and preserving this 1998 Tom Toles cartoon:  —  Funny.  —  Anonymous  —  Mass immigration from Latin America will not lead to the multiracial paradise liberals imagine.  Rather, it will lead to a stratified society …

QUOTE OF THE DAY.... That disgraced former House Speaker sure does say strange things. … Yeah, just think about it.  Unless we all become conservative Christians, the next thing you know, prominent leaders might start cheating on multiple wives.  —  Oh wait.  —  Everything about Gingrich's little tirade is bizarre.

The Kill Team  —  How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses - and how their officers failed to stop them.  Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon  —  By  —  Early last year, after six hard months soldiering in Afghanistan …

American Thought Police  —  Recently William Cronon, a historian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin, decided to weigh in on his state's political turmoil.  He started a blog, “Scholar as Citizen,” devoting his first post to the role of the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council …

A Strange Man Is Following You  —  Shouting about mind-control assassins, the 9/11 conspiracy, and the Bilderberg Group, radio host Alex Jones has cornered the bipartisan paranoia market.  —  A shadowy group of elites—mainly international bankers but also George W. Bush, Barack Obama …

TRENDING: Trump is now ‘really concerned’ about Obama's birthplace  —  (CNN) - He off-handedly questioned President Obama's birthplace last week - a comment that drew strong rebukes from some quarters - but now business mogul Donald Trump says he's more concerned than ever that the president was, in fact, not born in the United States.

Haley Barbour, slavery and the Civil War  —  Haley Barbour, the Mississippi governor and likely 2012 Republican presidential aspirant, has recently made a series of missteps involving race and the Civil Rights Movement.  He seemed unclear about basic historical points.

After Paying Zero Income Taxes, GE Plans To Ask Its Union Workers To Make Wage And Benefits Concessions  —  Our guest blogger is Mike Elk, a freelance labor journalist and third generation union organizer based in Washington, D.C. You can follow him for more updates on Wisconsin on twitter at @MikeElk.

To rescue or not to rescue?  —  Walking along the beach, I hear a cry of help.  I look into the ocean and spy a woman thrashing about in the rough surf.  I shuck my shoes and toss my sunglasses and dash toward the water.  Suddenly, I hear a voice: “Do you have an exit strategy?”  —  Good point.

Orphaned Works and Orphaned Political Causes  —  Julian Sanchez wonders about the political economy of “orphaned works”.  Granting that owners of valuable old content (Mickey Mouse, Batman) have a strong interest in preventing those works from coming into the public domain …

Govs face budget blowback  —  It was supposed to be one of the clearest messages of the 2010 elections: Voters were finally fed up with government spending.  —  It felt like the usual rules had changed, and that Americans were worried enough about the size of government to support a new era of belt-tightening.

Deficits are an important but incomplete metric  —  The budget debate will soon expand beyond the current short-term fight.  Negotiations on appropriations funding for the remainder of FY11 continue, and a government shutdown on April 9th is quite possible.

13% of all U.S. homes are vacant  —  NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — High residential vacancies are killing many housing markets, as foreclosed homes sit on the market and depress sale prices and property values.  —  And it's only getting worse: The national vacancy rate crept up to just over 13% according …