CASE CLOSED!  CONGRESSMAN WEINER WAS FRAMED!  (An important update to “The Weiner affair: Close to solution (but I need your help!)”  —  Readers — please pass along the information here, including the all-important update.  In that update, you'll find that we have made an important breakthrough.

CNN Poll: Majority gives thumbs down to Ryan plan  —  Washington (CNN) - A new national poll indicates that a majority of Americans don't like what they've heard so far about congressional Republicans' plans to change Medicare.  —  According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey …

GOP lawmaker rejects White House trip, says he won't be ‘lectured to’ by Obama  —  A freshman GOP lawmaker rejected an invitation to the White House on Wednesday, saying he didn't want to be “lectured” by President Obama.  —  “I have respectfully declined the president's invitation to the White House today …

Palin meets with Fox News officials  —  New York (CNN) - Sarah Palin met with officials at Fox News in midtown Manhattan for over an hour on Wednesday.  —  After checking out of her Jersey City hotel earlier in the day for the fourth day of her “One Nation” bus tour, Palin told a gaggle …

Romney leads in Iowa, Cain surging  —  Mitt Romney has the lead in PPP's first Iowa poll since Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump exited the race, but with six different candidates polling in double digits it's clear this thing is wide open.  —  Romney polls at 21%.  Sarah Palin and Herman Cain are tied for second at 15%.

APNewsBreak: HHS rejects Indiana Medicaid plan  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Health and Human Services Department is telling the state of Indiana that its Medicaid plan, which bans funding to Planned Parenthood, is illegal and must be changed.  —  In a letter sent to Indiana's Medicaid director …

Wall Street Baffled by Slowing Economy, Low Yields: Trader  —  Wall Street is having a hard time figuring out what to do now that the U.S. economy appears to be sputtering and yields are so low, Peter Yastrow, market strategist for Yastrow Origer, told CNBC.

Gov. Christie arrives at son's high school baseball game in State Police helicopter  —  TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie arrived at his son's baseball game this afternoon aboard a State Police helicopter.  —  Right before the lineup cards were being exchanged on the field …

DNC Chair Throws Truth to ‘Wolves’  —  Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz falsely claimed that seniors with preexisting medical conditions would be denied Medicare coverage under the GOP's plan.  The House GOP plan specifically says insurance companies “must agree to offer insurance to all Medicare beneficiaries.”

Voting Rights Act: I was wrong about racial gerrymandering  —  WASHINGTON — I won't procrastinate.  I'll get the most difficult part of this column over right now: I was wrong.  I was shortsighted, naïve and narrow-minded to endorse the concept of drawing Congressional districts to take racial demographics into account.

A Venture Capitalist Makes The Case Against Software Patents  —  Here's a great little post from venture capitalist Fred Wilson venting his rage at America's growing empire of software patents.  Key sentence: “these ‘developers in a garage’ can't afford lawyers to represent themselves in a fight with a patent troll.”

TV Executives Admit in Taped Interviews That Hollywood Pushes a Liberal Agenda  —  The cast of “Friends” Warner Bros. Television  —  Some of TV's top executives from the past four decades may have gotten more than they bargained for when they agreed to be interviewed for a politically charged book …

‘Handcuffed by policy’: Fire crews watch man die  —  First responders, up to 75 others watch suicidal man stand in water for an hour until he drowns  —  Below:  —  msnbc.com staff and news service reports  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Fire crews and police could only watch after a man waded …

Some Immigrants Turn to Tea Party  —  Lolita Mancheno-Smoak, an immigrant from Ecuador who once dreamed of becoming her country's president, has found an unlikely home in the tea party movement.  —  When she launched her campaign for county school board last week at Brion's Grille in Fairfax …

Kapanke hopes public employees “are sleeping” during recall vote  —  By Daniel Bice of the Journal Sentinel  —  State Sen. Dan Kapanke, a Republican facing a possible recall election, says he's got one huge obstacle that he must overcome to keep his seat.  —  All the government workers in his district.