Five NASCAR Drivers Decline President Obama's White House Invitation  —  President Barack Obama will honor NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and the 11 other Chase drivers from last year in a White House ceremony on Wednesday - but nearly half of the 2010 playoff contenders won't be there.

Obama pulls back proposed smog standards in victory for business  —  President Obama abruptly pulled back proposed new national smog standards Friday morning, overruling the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to compel states and communities nationwide to reduce local air pollution in the coming years or face federal penalties.

Why Sarah Palin Is Not Running  —  More ways to share...  Mixx  —  Stumbled  —  LinkedIn  —  Vine  —  Buzzflash  —  Newstrust  —  Technocrati  —  Forward Article  —  Sarah Palin will swoop into Iowa and New Hampshire to speak at tea party rallies this Labor Day weekend …

U.S. Showed No Job Growth in August; Rate Stays at 9.1%  —  The economy showed no job growth in August, the first time there has been no increase in net jobs in the United States in 11 months.  —  The flat performance in the job market was down sharply from a revised 85,000 gain of jobs in July …

The Conservative Recovery Teeters Into Recession  —  Looks like we had 17,000 thousand new private sector jobs in August, which were 100 percent offset by 17,000 lost jobs in the public sector.  —  The striking zero result should galvanize minds, but it's worth noting that this has been the trend all year.

U.S. Is Set to Sue a Dozen Big Banks Over Mortgages  —  The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold …

Regulations, taxes aren't killing small business, owners say  —  WASHINGTON — Politicians and business groups often blame excessive regulation and fear of higher taxes for tepid hiring in the economy.  However, little evidence of that emerged when McClatchy canvassed a random sample of small business owners across the nation.

Undocumented workers got billions from IRS in tax credits, audit finds  —  The Internal Revenue Service allowed undocumented workers to collect $4.2 billion in refundable tax credits last year, a new audit says, almost quadruple the sum five years ago.  —  Although undocumented workers …

GOP leaders stop taking credit for job data  —  When the jobs reports were looking quite good in the early spring, Republican leaders were eager to take credit for the positive numbers they had nothing to do with.  After all, as far as GOP officials were concerned, their mere presence …

Nevada 2012 Republican Presidential Caucus Survey (9/2/11)  —  Magellan Strategies today released the results of an autodial survey of 631 likely 2012 Nevada Republican Presidential caucus attendees.  The survey finds Rick Perry leading Mitt Romney by 5 points.

Eric and Irene  —  “Have you left no sense of decency?”  That's the question Joseph Welch famously asked Joseph McCarthy, as the red-baiting demagogue tried to ruin yet another innocent citizen.  And these days, it's the question I find myself wanting to ask Eric Cantor, the House majority leader …

Wonkbook: A jobs plan that might actually work  —  House Ways and Means Committee member Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill.Most of Washington's attention is on the jobs plans being announced by President Obama and various Republican presidential candidates.

Obama's Enron  —  Bush was flayed for Enron.  Where does that put Obama and his green-energy pet?  —  We have seen the future, and it went bankrupt.  —  If the praises of high-ranking Obama-administration officials were a viable business plan, the solar-panel maker Solyndra would be an industrial juggernaut.

Articles of Faith: What Journalists Should Be Asking Politicians About Religion  —  A few weeks ago, I opened up my Twitter feed early in the morning and immediately wondered if I was being punk'd.  Instead of the usual horse race speculation, my colleagues in the political press corps …

The Great Recession and Government Failure  —  When comparing the performance of markets to government, markets look pretty darn good.  —  The origins of the financial crisis and the Great Recession are widely attributed to “market failure.”  This refers primarily to the bad loans …

Florida Sheriff Saves $1 Million Over CCA by De-Privatizing Jail  —  Sheriff Michael Page of Hernando County, Florida, is the latest in a line of Sheriffs to inherit the headache that is the county jail.  After being operated by CCA for 22 years, the facility had fallen into exceptional disrepair …

The Senate refuses to consider Obama nominees  —  Once upon a time, we could have expected the following sequence: After considerable debate, Congress would have passed a bill creating an agency.  The president would then nominate someone to head that agency.  That nomination would be considered on its merits by the Senate.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s mixed legacy  —  Embrace of victimology tainted his call for a color-blind society  —  In Washington, there now stands a new memorial: a 30-foot-tall granite statue of Martin Luther King Jr. overlooking the Tidal Basin.  For decades, liberals and some conservatives …