NBC's David Gregory Defends Medicare Question As Newt Gingrich Spokesman Blasts Media ‘Minions’ … NEW YORK — When Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) sits down on “Meet the Press” this Sunday, he can expect to be asked about former House Speaker Newt Gingrich comparing his Medicare voucher plan to “right-wing social engineering.”

Dominique Strauss-Kahn Resigns From I.M.F.  —  Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned Wednesday as head of the International Monetary Fund after explosive allegations that he had sexually attacked a cleaning lady in a midtown Manhattan hotel room.  —  “It is with infinite sadness that I feel compelled today …

Osama bin Laden praises Arab spring in posthumously released tape  —  Bin Laden praises protest movements across Middle East and predicts revolutions will spread  —  A tape recorded by Osama bin Laden before his death in a US special forces raid earlier this month has been released posthumously onto Islamist militant websites.

Peter Fonda calls Obama ‘traitor’ at Cannes  —  CANNES, France — Peter Fonda launched a four-letter attack on US President Barack Obama at the Cannes film festival on Wednesday, calling him a traitor over the handling of the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill.

How Not to Write Satire  —  An Esquire writer lobs an egg at the birthers, but the yolk's on him.  —  “In a stunning development one day after the release of Where's the Birth Certificate?  The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President, by Dr. Jerome Corsi …

Many With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling  —  The individual stories are familiar.  The chemistry major tending bar.  The classics major answering phones.  The Italian studies major sweeping aisles at Wal-Mart.  —  Now evidence is emerging that the damage wrought …

Loud cell-phone talker removed from quiet car by police  —  A woman who was escorted off an Amtrak train by police this weekend after she allegedly refused to stop talking loudly on her cell-phone has the Internet cheering her fate.  —  Civilians and quiet-car champions are supporting …

Cornel West on Obama is no better than a birther  —  Anyone who knows me, and knows me well, knows that I have little patience for the “Blacker than thou” crowd.  These are the self-appointed guardians of what it means to be black — a decidedly limited and ignorant perspective …

You idiot!  Shamed politician John Edwards rages at mistress Rielle Hunter for not destroying sex tape  —  Furious John Edwards has allegedly vented his anger at mistress Rielle Hunter over the steamy sex video they made during his White House run.  —  In an amazing outburst …

President Obama Nominates Justice Morgan Christen for the United States Court of Appeals  —  WASHINGTON- Today, President Obama nominated Justice Morgan Christen for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  —  “I am proud to nominate this outstanding candidate to serve …

CDC Warns Public to Prepare for ‘Zombie Apocalypse’  —  Are you prepared for the impending zombie invasion?  —  That's the question posed by the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention in a Monday blog posting gruesomely titled, “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse.”

Michigan Man Still Receiving Food Assistance Despite Winning $2 Million Jackpot  —  (WJBK) - A Michigan man has continued to accept food aid from the state even though he won big in a state lottery game and said he told officials about it.  —  Leroy Fick won the $2 million jackpot in the “Make Me Rich!” contest in June.

Socialist Senator Sanders Hawks His Book Like an Evil Capitalist  —  Vermont's Sen. Bernie Sanders is a different kind of socialist: the kind who will partake in the capitalist venture of freely exchanging money for products... at least when it comes to selling his own book.

Dick Cheney's memoir will have ‘very strong views,’ daughter Liz says  —  NEW YORK — Dick Cheney has finished his memoir, according to his daughter, and the book is scheduled to come out on Aug. 30.  —  Liz Cheney said that the former vice president's manuscript was turned in at the beginning of the month.

Revisionaries  —  How a group of Texas conservatives is rewriting your kids' textbooks.  —  Don McLeroy is a balding, paunchy man with a thick broom-handle mustache who lives in a rambling two-story brick home in a suburb near Bryan, Texas.  When he greeted me at the door one evening last October …

Republican and Democratic Professors Grade Differently  —  When it comes to grading, Republican and Democratic professors at one unnamed elite university put their ideologies into practice, a new study finds: Republicans welcomed inequality, handing out more very high and very low grades …

Dorothy Parvaz: Inside Syria's secret prisons  —  ‘We could clearly hear the interrogator pummelling his fists into his subject,’ writes our correspondent.  —  I was standing in two fist-sized pools of smeared, sticky blood, trying to sort out why there were seven angry Syrians yelling at me.