Jon Tester: Senate Dems' canary in the coal mine  —  Since August, President Obama has made “running against Congress” a centerpiece of his reelection strategy, as President Truman did in 1948.  But the comparison between 1948 and 2012 contains one inconvenient fact: the Senate is still controlled …

Romney jabs controversial speaker at Values Voter Summit  —  Washington (CNN) - Addressing the Values Voter Summit in Washington, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney chided a controversial conservative leader who has denounced Mormonism.  —  The former Massachusetts governor …

Obama, the loner president  —  Beyond the economy, the wars and the polls, President Obama has a problem: people.  —  This president endures with little joy the small talk and back-slapping of retail politics, rarely spends more than a few minutes on a rope line, refuses to coddle even his biggest donors.

Steve Jobs: The Secular Prophet  —  Steve Jobs turned Eve's apple, the symbol of fallen humankind, into a religious icon for true believers in technology.  But can salvation be downloaded?  —  For every magical thing Steve Jobs revealed in his Apple keynote addresses, there were many other things he concealed.

INSIDE MAN: IS PRESIDENT OBAMA SUPPORTING THE PROTESTERS?  —  Despite claiming to represent ‘the 99 per cent’, not all Americans are behind the Wall Street protests.  —  But according to the Financial Times, the President himself is unofficially backing their cause.

Wall Street Weeks  —  The Occupy Wall Street encampment in Lower Manhattan is covered with damp sleeping bags, interspersed among piles of wet, abandoned clothes.  Molding stuff is everywhere.  It looks like a scene from “Outdoor Hoarders.”  —  “How about one big cleaning day?” someone asks during a morning meeting.

Undrained Swamp Update: Things You Can't Believe are Legal Inside the Beltway, Part XXVII  —  It isn't difficult to see why so many in Washington can't or won't recognize the inherent problem with things like the Solyndra debacle — or crony capitalism in general.

The Big Easy's School Revolution  —  John White, superintendent of New Orleans' public schools: ‘In other cities, charter schools exist in spite of the system.  Here they are the system.’  —  New Orleans  —  At John McDonough High School in this city's Esplanade Ridge district …

State Dept. Assigned Keystone XL Review to Company With Ties to TransCanada  —  The State Department assigned an important environmental impact study of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to a company with financial ties to the pipeline operator, flouting the intent of a federal law meant …

After a Rating Downgrade, U.S. Treasuries Turn a Profit  —  TWO months ago, Standard & Poor's downgraded the bond rating of the United States government.  So far, at least, the move has done wonders for investors in the very bonds that the rating agency disparaged.