Wisconsin recall: Democrats prepare for recall recount  —  Brace yourself: Wisconsin Democrats say they are preparing for the event that the hotly contested recall race could drag on for weeks, or even longer.  —  Floating the prospect of a recount is, of course, a message that bolsters …

Fear factors: What worries Romney backers  —  Mitt Romney has done the unthinkable: silenced the legions of conservatives who saw him as too starched, too ideologically wobbly and too Richie Rich to win a few months ago.  —  Now comes the hard part: getting those same conservatives …

The 2012 Long-Term Budget Outlook  —  Over the past few years, the federal government has been recording budget deficits that are the largest as a share of the economy since 1945.  Consequently, the amount of federal debt held by the public has surged.  By the end of this year …

Proposition 8 ruling opens door to Supreme Court test  —  A federal appeals court Tuesday rejected an appeal of February's ruling that overturned Proposition 8, a move that is likely to send the debate over same-sex marriage to the U.S. Supreme Court.  —  The decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court …

How Romney Pushed State Health Bill  —  Emails Show Governor Defending Insurance Mandate for Massachusetts Residents  —  When Mitt Romney left office as Massachusetts governor, his aides removed all emails from a server computer in the governor's office, and purchased and carted off hard drives …

Obama's awkward embrace of the devil... who wears Prada  —  As Americans grapple with disastrous unemployment numbers, the Obama campaign releases a video starring blatantly elitist Vogue editor Anna Wintour  —  In last week's column, I wrote that the Obama campaign woes in May were mainly the result of circumstance.

Newsweek hires Atlantic's Megan McArdle  —  Megan McArdle, the Atlantic's libertarian economics blogger, is joining Newsweek & The Daily Beast, POLITICO has learned.  —  McArdle, who is currently on book leave, has blogged about business and economics for the Atlantic since 2007.

NASA Gets Two New Hubble Telescopes — Absolutely Free  —  It hardly bears mentioning that the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most extraordinarily successful scientific instruments of all time.  Since 1993, when the telescope's flawed mirror was set right by a set …

Bill Clinton is out of control  —  Bill Clinton has to be the smartest guy in the room even when he's not in the room.  —  Clinton is not on Barack Obama's campaign staff, is not a trusted adviser, does not set Obama's strategy.  —  But Bill Clinton is pretty good at sabotaging Obama's strategy.

Therapy Survivor Calls Out Ex-Gay Advocate's Bullying On Dr. Drew  —  Last night on his HLN show, Dr. Drew interviewed Janet Boynes, friend of Marcus and Michele Bachmann, about her ex-gay identity and advocacy.  She unsurprisingly reiterated her belief that “change is possible through …

Please Excuse My President  —  Few things are more difficult in politics than confronting failure and learning from it.  It is especially difficult when a leader you have championed, and in whom you have placed your highest hopes, turns out to be less than he seemed.

National Day of Blogger Silence — This Friday  —  I'm writing a post about what's happened to Ali Akbar.  It's taking some time.  —  Warning: DO NOT CLICK ON ANY SITE YOU DON'T TRUST ABOUT THIS STORY.  I think there is reasonable grounds for suspicion that your IP will be captured …

Robert Barro: Why This Slow Recovery Is Like No Recovery  —  The U.S. economy lost about 10% relative to trendline growth.  To make up the shortfall, we need to average more than 3% growth a year for several years.  —  Last week's dismal jobs report showed little change in payroll employment …

Boastful babbling a gift to our foes  —  Last week's media bombshell that we'd infiltrated the Iranian nuclear program with a super-secret computer virus made it undeniable: There's been way too much aired about sensitive US operations over the last year or so.  —  Someone ought to tell Team Obama.

TPMDC  —  CHART: The Gobsmacking Drop In Government Spending Under Obama  —  The conventional wisdom that President Obama has overseen a dramatic surge in government spending has always been shaky.  But it faces perhaps its starkest rebuttal in new figures that reveal the sharpest decline …

Giffords's potential successor runs from Obama  —  When it comes to President Barack Obama and the special House election to succeed Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, there's the personal and then there's the political.  —  The personal: Days after bullets pierced his thigh and cheek in the shooting rampage …