Sarah Palin's Unlikely Supporter  —  ABC News' Sheila Marikar (@SheilaYM) reports from Pella, Iowa:  —  There's the stereotype of the Sarah Palin supporter, and then there's Sonnie Johnson.  —  The 30-year-old African-American mother and wife is featured in “The Undefeated” …

Obama Gay Marriage Stance a Nod to 2012 Battlegrounds  —  Gay pride month celebrations hit the White House today as President Obama welcomes some of his gay and lesbian supporters and renews his commitment to helping them “win the future.”  —  But don't expect the president to flash …

Surprise: HHS drops plan to snoop on doctors  —  A follow-up to Ed's post from yesterday.  No worries: The program's not really dead, it's just ... resting.  It'll be back in a few years, once ObamaCare goes into effect and millions more Boomers have landed on the Medicare rolls.

BofA Nears Huge Settlement  —  $8.5 Billion Payment to Investors in Mortgage Securities Would Be Biggest Yet  —  Bank of America Corp. is close to an agreement to pay $8.5 billion to settle claims by a group of high-profile investors who lost money on mortgage-backed securities purchased …

Ethics watchdog calls for FBI to investigate Rep. Richardson  —  Allegations of ethics violations within the office of Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) are worthy of a criminal investigation, a leading ethics watchdog group charged Tuesday.  —  Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics …

Kucinich has language problem in Syria  —  Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) gave a press conference in Syria this week and appeared to heap praise upon Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is being widely criticized for the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in that country.

Top Democrats reject new plan to cut Medicare spending  —  View Photo Gallery —  The United States may have run up a huge debt, but it is not a poor country by any stretch of the imagination.  The federal government owns roughly 650 million acres of land, a million buildings …

Bombers attack luxury hotel in Kabul  —  Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) — A group of people using bombs and small arms attacked the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul Tuesday, and fighting was ongoing with Afghan security forces, Chief of Criminal Investigation Mohammed Zahir told CNN.

Americans Broadly Favor Obama's Afghanistan Pullout Plan  —  Fewer than half agree with specific troop reduction goals  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Americans broadly support President Barack Obama's plan to begin withdrawing U.S. forces in Afghanistan this year, with additional troops scheduled …

Catholic New Yorkers Approve Of Cuomo 3-1, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Cuomo Tops Other Governors, Over Christie By 20 Points  —  New York State voters approve 64 - 19 percent of the job Gov. Andrew Cuomo is doing, 20 points better than New Jersey Gov. Christopher Christie and leading governors …

Should Justices Keep Their Opinions to Themselves?  —  ARE there really only nine Supreme Court justices?  —  It seems that everywhere you look, you see one popping up: giving speeches, signing books, leading workshops, posing for pictures at charity functions.

Tearful Glenn Beck Describes How He And His Family Were Attacked In New York Park  —  “These people were some of the most hateful people I have ever seen,” said a distraught Glenn Beck this morning as he described an altercation he and his family had last night while watching a screening …

Bachmann plays Petty tune again  —  MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.—Maybe Tom Petty's cease-and-desist letter hasn't arrived yet.  —  The singer was reportedly nonplussed that Michele Bachmann played his “American Girl” classic when she officially kicked off her presidential campaign in Iowa Monday.

It's So Obvious  —  Believe it or not, Jason is the smartest of the trio.  —  My career in developing large scale systems that allow people to express themselves and communicate started in 1999 with Xanga.  I left after a couple years and got more academic about the democratization of information on the web.

Tea Party Finds Power Leads to Policy Splits  —  HARRISBURG, Pa. — When Tea Party groups celebrated their victories here in November — they had helped take the governor's office and the legislature — it seemed that one of their priorities, school choice legislation, would have an easy time passing.

BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL  —  Mainstream media covers up horrifying Obama mistake  —  No one in mainstream media seems inclined to mention Barack Obama's horrifying mistake last Thursday when, speaking at Fort Drum, he said that SFC Jared Monti was “the first person who I was able to award …

Two thousand years in one chart  —  An alternative timeline for the past two millennia  —  SOME people recite history from above, recording the grand deeds of great men.  Others tell history from below, arguing that one person's life is just as much a part of mankind's story as another's.

How the demise of a trusted adviser could bring down Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  —  Iran's President has survived mass uprisings, but a corruption row engulfing his inner circle may soon be his undoing.  Robert Fisk reports from Tehran  —  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's irascible …

The joke of ‘secure Britain’: Vile banned militant extremist strolls through Heathrow immigration as 200 Somalian criminals are allowed to stay due to human rights  — European Court ruling stems from appeals by two asylum seekers convicted of offences including burglary, making threats to kill and drug dealing

Economics  —  Join our invited guests to debate economics  —  A response to:  —  Don't base monetary policy decisions on estimates of “slack”  —  THE Bank for International Settlements argues that due to high levels of structural unemployment there is less slack in the global economy than is commonly believed.

The New York Times' natural gas fiasco  —  Talk about hot air.  The Gray Lady blew a spectacular bit of smoke with a recent article that suggested shale natural gas production is a shaky investment at best and, at worst, a Ponzi scheme of sorts, destined to devastate those who buy the “lie” …

Obama Troop Cuts Went Beyond Largest Withdrawal Offered By Top General  —  Marine Lt. Gen. John Allen, nominated to replace Gen. David Petraeus as head of coalition forces in Afghanistan, acknowledged Tuesday that President Obama's decision to draw down 10,000 troops by the end of this year …

More on the Medicare-for-Revenues Swap Floated in Debt Limit Deal  —  Last week I noted that Max Baucus gave away the endgame in the debt limit talks - aside from the $1.5 trillion or so in spending cuts already agreed to, further cuts to Medicare would have to be teamed with co-equal increases in revenue.