Perry Jumps To The Top Of GOP Pack, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Perry, Romney Each Run Neck And Neck With Obama  —  Texas Gov. Rick Perry has zoomed to the front of the line of GOP presidential candidates with a 24 - 18 percent lead over former Massachusetts …

Getting Away With Torture  —  Dick Cheney's memoir shows the importance of the law, not of torture.  —  This week Dick Cheney invites us all to join him again in a game he likes to play against the rest of us called Tedious Torture Standoff.  He continues to assert—this time in his memoir …

Obama targets GOP for fall offensive  —  “Kill the body, and the head will die.”  — Joe Frazier  —  President Obama is preparing to fight a political war this fall on two fronts — the first against Republicans who want his job and the second against Republicans who want to make his job more difficult.

Never-Wrong Pundit Picks Obama to Win in 2012  —  Allan Lichtman, the American University professor whose election formula has correctly called every president since Ronald Reagan's 1984 re-election, has a belated birthday present for Barack Obama: Rest easy, your re-election is in the bag.

Christine O'Donnell's Iowa appearance back on  —  First, Christine O'Donnell landed a place in the same Iowa tea party event as Sarah Palin, raising eyebrows over the inclusion of the controversial former Senate candidate.  Then O'Donnell was cut from the program, raising eyebrows over the very public snub.

Babysitting bill in Calif. Legislature  —  Office of Sen. Doug LaMalfa  —  How will parents react when they find out they will be expected to provide workers' compensation benefits, rest and meal breaks and paid vacation time for...babysitters?  Dinner and a movie night may soon become much more complicated.

How The Economy Quietly Entered A Recession On Friday, And Why The GDP Predicts A Sub-Zero Nonfarm Payroll Number  —  While the key market moving event from last Friday may have been Bernanke's Jackson Hole speech which merely left the door open to future QE episodes, the most important event …

Labor leaders must pay for parade if GOP banned, mayor says  —  (Reuters) - The mayor of a Wisconsin town said on Tuesday a local labor council would have to reimburse the city up to $2,000 for a Labor Day parade if organizers exclude Republican lawmakers from attending.

How Bill O'Reilly Tried to Get His Wife's Boyfriend Investigated By the Cops  —  Last summer, Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly came to believe that his wife was romantically involved with another man.  Not just any man, but a police detective in the Long Island community they call home.

Andre Carson: Tea party wants blacks ‘hanging on a tree’  —  A top lawmaker in the Congressional Black Caucus says tea partiers on Capitol Hill would like to see African Americans hanging from trees and accuses the movement of wishing for a return to the Jim Crow era.

Daryl Hannah Arrested at White House  —  Much-arrested Hollywood actress Daryl Hannah was taken away from the White House in restraints Tuesday afternoon.  —  Hannah was taking part in an ongoing protest against the unbuilt Keystone XL oil pipeline.  —  “Sometimes it's necessary to sacrifice …

Obama's uncle is called a fugitive  —  Said to ignore '92 deportation order  —  Onyango Obama is now being held on an immigration detainer in the Plymouth County House of Correction.  —  FRAMINGHAM - The uncle of President Obama arrested here last week on drunken driving and other charges …

Father slit throats of three daughters in ‘honour killing’ after they were raped by Gaddafi's troops  —  A father slit the throat of his three teenage daughters in an ‘honour killing’ after they were raped by Gaddafi loyalists during the siege of the port city of Misrata.

New body ‘liquefaction’ unit unveiled in Florida funeral home  —  Resomation founder Sandy Sullivan explains how the machine works  —  A Glasgow-based company has installed its first commercial “alkaline hydrolysis” unit at a Florida funeral home.  —  The unit by Resomation Ltd is billed …

Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging  —  CEOs rake it in while their corporations dodge taxes.

NASA fears leaving space station unmanned  —  WASHINGTON — The possible first-ever evacuation of the International Space Station, if a Russian spacecraft is not launched in November, would risk the loss of the orbiting lab, a NASA official has warned.  —  “There is a greater risk of losing …

Meet the New Boss...  Melson is out, only to be replaced by B.Todd Jones.  —  Jones was appointed to chair the Attorney General's Advisory Committee back in August of 2009, and was briefed in Gunwalker.  —  According to Senator Charles Grassley's June 15, 2011 congressional testimony attachment 4 …

Jane Jamison, R.I.P.  —  Dell Hill from Uncoverage.net called today to tell me that the blog's founder, Jane Jamison, died Saturday.  Dell told me — I hadn't previously known — that her name wasn't actually Jane Jamison, but that this was a pseudonym she used to keep her life …

Is Controversy Selling for Tina Brown?  Newsstand numbers for attention-grabbing covers revealed By Lucia Moses  —  Tina Brown has courted controversy with some of her recent Newsweek cover choices.  Now, newly available sales numbers are showing that those covers did not necessarily translate …

Texas Sonogram Law: Judge Strikes Down Key Provisions Of Abortion Bill … AUSTIN, Texas — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked key provisions of Texas' new law requiring a doctor to perform a sonogram before an abortion, ruling the measure violates the free speech rights of both doctors and patients.

Hurricane Cost Seen as Ranking Among Top Ten  —  Hurricane Irene will most likely prove to be one of the 10 costliest catastrophes in the nation's history, and analysts said that much of the damage might not be covered by insurance because it was caused not by winds but by flooding, which is excluded from many standard policies.

Thousands of public employees laid off in 2010  —  (Reuters) - Local and state governments axed more than 200,000 jobs in 2010, according to U.S. Census data released on Tuesday that showed the growing threat of public employee layoffs to the economic recovery.

Struggling with a great contraction  —  What has the market turmoil of August been telling us?  The answer, I suggest, is three big things: first, the debt-encumbered economies of the high-income countries remain extremely fragile; second, investors have next to no confidence in the ability …

Rick Perry's God  —  Does the Texas governor believe his idiotic religious rhetoric, or is he just pandering for votes?  —  I happened to spend several weeks in Texas earlier this year, while the Lone Star State lay under the pitiless glare of an unremitting drought.

Are Virginia's New Abortion Rules the Worst Yet?  —  On Friday evening, Virginia's Department of Health issued a strict new set of rules for abortion clinics—and women's health advocates fear that facilities that can't comply could be shuttered.  —  The regulations require Virginia's 22 clinics …

Flying Scot's warning to sportsmen  —  FLYING Scotsman Graeme Obree was hailed a hero after bravely revealing he was gay earlier this year.  —  The divorced dad-of-two decided he could no longer live a lie, and exclusively told The Scottish Sun the truth about his sexuality in January.