Paul Ryan's budget: Social engineering with a side of deficit reduction  —  Here is Paul Ryan's path to a balanced budget in three sentences: He cuts deep into spending on health care for the poor and some combination of education, infrastructure, research, public-safety, and low-income programs.

Humility or Cynicism?  Whatever is Driving Obama is Better Than Nothing  —  Tumbling polls have turned the president into the schmoozer-in-chief  —  President Obama's burst of congressional and public outreach coincides with declining poll numbers.  (AP Photo)

The troubling things I learned when I re-reported Bob Woodward's book on John Belushi.  —  John Belushi in Animal House, 1978 Courtesy of Universal Pictures  —  A little more than a week ago, during an interview with Politico, Bob Woodward came forward to claim he'd been threatened in an email by a …

Are the Koch Brothers Trying to Buy the Los Angeles Times?  —  The latest rumor about the next owner of the L.A. Times, which is for sale, is a doozy.  A bombshell.  It's a doozy wrapped in a bombshell exploding inside a Drudge siren.  —  Multiple sources tell L.A. Weekly that Charles and David Koch …

Mitch McConnell to air reelection ads  —  Mitch McConnell plans to begin running television commercials in Kentucky on Thursday, 20 months before the election.  —  The Senate Minority Leader, who polls suggest is perhaps the most vulnerable Republican incumbent up in 2014 …

Cleanup in aisle 1: Teen's ‘mourners’ trash Brooklyn shops  —  A vigil for a teenager fatally shot by cops turned into a riot in Brooklyn last night, as a mob of outraged thugs ransacked stores, broke car windows and assaulted residents in East Flatbush.  —  The chaos erupted …

Feds Spend $1.5 Million to Study Why Lesbians Are Fat  —  (CNSNews.com) - The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $1.5 million to study biological and social factors for why “three-quarters” of lesbians are obese and why gay males are not, calling it an issue of “high public-health significance.”

Sarah Palin tackles ‘War on Christmas’ in new book  —  ‘Amidst the fragility of this politically correct era, it is imperative that we stand up for our beliefs before the element of faith in a glorious and traditional holiday like Christmas is marginalized and ignored,’ Palin says.

Soda Wars Backlash: Mississippi Passes ‘Anti-Bloomberg’ Bill … Mayor Mike and his public health edicts are having a rough ride.  —  On Monday, a state judge in Manhattan struck down New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's rule capping soda sizes.  And lawmakers in Mississippi are taking …

NLRB To Seek Supreme Court Review in Noel Canning v. NLRB  —  The National Labor Relations Board has determined not to seek en banc rehearing in Noel Canning v. NLRB, in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit held that the January 4, 2012 recess appointments of three members to the Board were invalid.

Erin Burnett to Laura Bush: Should America Accept Anti-Semitism To Affect Change In Middle East?  —  CNN's Erin Burnett on Monday asked former first lady Laura Bush a truly disgusting question.  —  In a segment about the George W. Bush Institute's Women's Initiative Fellowship Program …

‘Killing Jews Is Worship’ Ad Campaign Rolled Out On SF Muni Buses  —  SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) - A controversy has been re-ignited this week as ten new ads go up on San Francisco Muni buses containing quotes used by terrorists.  —  “Killing Jews is worship that draws us closer to Allah,” …

Hamas: ‘Declaration Of War’ If Obama Visits Temple Mount  —  WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — Hamas is warning that if President Obama visits the Temple Mount it would be a “declaration of war” against the Islamic world.  —  Israel National News reports the terror group made the threat during …

Doubts about Johns Hopkins research have gone unanswered, scientist says  —  Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post - Daniel Yuan, pictured at his home in Laurel, raised doubts for years about the work of his colleagues in a Johns Hopkins medical research lab.  “The denial that I am hearing …

NARTH Loses Tax Exempt Status  —  In September 2012, the tax exempt status of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) was revoked due to failure to file Form 990 for three consecutive years.  The notice of revocation was yesterday according to the IRS website.

Rush Limbaugh Sides With Rand Paul: ‘The Neocons Are Paranoid’  —  The most popular conservative demagogue in America signals that hawkish foreign policy dogma may be losing its hold on the GOP.  —  In the Spring of 2011, I wrote a widely ignored article arguing that the Republican Party's …

An Energy Coup for Japan: ‘Flammable Ice’  —  TOKYO — Japan said Tuesday that it had extracted gas from offshore deposits of methane hydrate — sometimes called “flammable ice” — a breakthrough that officials and experts said could be a step toward tapping a promising but still little-understood energy source.

For Detroit, a Crisis Born of Bad Decisions and Crossed Fingers  —  DETROIT — This city was already sinking under hundreds of millions of dollars in bills that it could not pay when a municipal auditor brought in a veteran financial consultant to dig through the books.

Lawmakers to TSA: No knives on planes  —  A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is pressing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to reverse its decision to allow knives on airplanes for the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.  —  TSA announced last week …

With Woeful Approval Rating, Pa. Gov. Corbett's Re-Election Hopes Look Dim  —  His constituents down on his job performance, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) approaches his 2014 re-election campaign in a politically precarious position, according to a poll released Tuesday.

Conclave Smoke's Recipe Is a Mystery  —  During the papal conclave in the Sistine Chapel, progress will be measured in black and white — the colors of the smoke that will emerge after the voting, coming from a copper flue jutting from the chapel roof.  But just how those colors are created remains a bit of a mystery.