Obama, the puppet master  —  President Barack Obama is a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.  —  Not for the reason that conservatives suspect: namely, that a liberal press willingly and eagerly allows itself to get manipulated.

Marco Rubio: The Electable Conservative?  —  Some commentators have expressed surprise upon learning about the very conservative voting record of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who delivered the Republican response to the State of the Union address last week.

A BIPARTISAN PATH FORWARD TO SECURING AMERICA'S FUTURE  —  Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson are co-chairs of the Moment of Truth project and formerly co-chaired the President's bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.  —  The United States faces two big risks …

Report: Hagel Said Israel Headed Toward Apartheid, Netanyahu a ‘Radical’  —  Secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel said Israel is on its way to becoming an apartheid state during an April 9, 2010, appearance at Rutgers University, according to a contemporaneous account by an attendee.

More Republican Denial  —  Conservatives keep reminding everyone that the sequester was Obama's idea.  But, says Michael Tomasky, that doesn't mean he's to blame for the current crisis.  —  Whose “idea” was the sequester, and why should it matter?  My Twitter feed these last couple of weeks …

Biden: 'You Don't Need 30 Rounds.  Buy a Shotgun'  —  Vice President Joe Biden said people don't need high-capacity weapons to protect themselves and that the Obama administration's efforts to reduce gun violence amount to gun safety, not gun control.  —  “If you want to protect yourself …

Supreme Court to Hear Campaign Finance Case  —  WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a challenge to federal campaign contribution limits and issued decisions concerning a drug-sniffing dog, an international child-custody dispute and when the police may detain people while conducting a search.

Missouri Bill Makes It A Felony For Lawmakers To Propose Gun Safety Legislation  —  Yesterday, Missouri state Rep. Mike Leara (R) proposed legislation making it a felony for lawmakers to so much as propose many bills regulating guns.  Leara's bill provides that “[a]ny member of the general assembly …

Tea party group pictures Rove in Nazi uniform  —  A top tea party group is taking its clash with Karl Rove to a new level, sending out a fundraising email Tuesday featuring a photoshopped image of the GOP operative in an SS uniform.  —  “Wipe the Smirk Off Karl Rove's Face,” …

Data, Stimulus, and Human Nature  —  David Brooks writes about the limitations of Big Data, and makes some good points.  But he goes astray, I think, when he touches on a subject near and dear to my own data-driven heart: … Actually, he's not quite right there, as I'll explain in a minute.

Exclusive: Apple, Macs hit by hackers who targeted Facebook  —  (Reuters) - Apple Inc was recently attacked by hackers who infected the Macintosh computers of some employees, the company said on Tuesday in an unprecedented disclosure that described the widest known cyber attacks against Apple-made computers to date.

Genius Alabama Rep. Says a Baby is the ‘Largest Organ in a Body’  —  The Alabama House of Representatives is set to vote on abortion legislation Tuesday that would impose a variety of uneccesary restrictions on abortion clinics: providers would need to have admitting privileges at local hospitals …

Chinese Army Unit Is Seen as Tied to Hacking Against U.S.  —  On the outskirts of Shanghai, in a run-down neighborhood dominated by a 12-story white office tower, sits a People's Liberation Army base for China's growing corps of cyberwarriors.  —  The building off Datong Road …

Prof Strips, Shows 9/11 Footage, Impales Stuffed Animal (VIDEO)  —  A science professor at Columbia University on Monday began a quantum mechanics lecture by stripping into his boxers and eating a banana while rap music played in the background.  —  Then it got weird.

Oscar Pistorius Denies Murdering Girlfriend  —  PRETORIA, South Africa — Facing a charge of premeditated murder in the death of his girlfriend, Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee track star and one of the world's best-known athletes, denied on Tuesday that he had intended to take her life …

President Karzai: Fight against Corruption Requires Earnest and Sincere Cooperation of the International Community, Particularly of the United States  —  President Hamid Karzai met with Senator Robert Bob Menendez, Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Police ID Gunman in OC Shooting Deaths  —  Four people are dead after a series of shootings and carjackings near freeways in Orange County that began after the slaying of a woman at a home in Ladera Ranch.  —  Map: Shooting Investigation Locations  —  The gunman was identified as Ali Syed …

Southern poverty pimps  —  The “original sin” of the Southern political class is cheap, powerless labor  —  Contemporary American politics cannot be understood apart from the North-South divide in the U.S., as I and others have argued.  Neither can contemporary American economic debates.