Obama plans to send 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan  —  WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama met Monday evening with his national security team to finalize a plan to dispatch some 34,000 additional U.S. troops over the next year to what he's called “a war of necessity” in Afghanistan, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist  —  Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004.

NEWS ALERT: Kentucky State Police Will Announce Sparkman Investigation Result UPDATE: Official: It Was Suicide  —  UPDATE 2:15 p.m.: It's now official: Bill Sparkman committed suicide.  So much for “Southern populist terrorism” — and the credibility of Andrew Sullivan.

Obama State Dinner Official Food and Wine Menu  —  Place card at the Obama first state dinner (photo by Lynn Sweet)  —  Desert plate, Obama first state dinner (photo by Lynn Sweet)  —  Potato and Eggplant Salad  —  White House Argula with onion seed vinaigrette

Professor rubbishes leaked email row  —  Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia denies emails provide evidence of collusion by climatologists to fix data  —  The climatologist at the centre of the leaked emails row said today that he “absolutely” stands by his research and that any suggestion …

Hoffman concedes, again  —  For the second time this month, Doug Hoffman conceded the New York special election to Rep. Bill Owens (D-N.Y.), and said he will not legally challenge the results of the race.  —  “Yesterday, the remaining ballots were counted in the 23rd Congressional District special election.

The Values Question  —  It's easy to get lost in the weeds when talking about health care reform.  But, like all great public issues, the health care debate is fundamentally a debate about values.  It's a debate about what kind of country we want America to be.

Alex Castellanos To Continue CNN Gig, Downplays New Post At RNC  —  WHAT'S YOUR REACTION?  —  Longtime Republican media strategist Alex Castellanos will continue to serve as an on-air personality for CNN despite recently taking on a consulting role for the Republican National Committee, the network confirms.

Yes, she can: Palin has a shot at the presidency  —  How Sarah Palin might win the White House  —  President Sarah Palin.  To many pundits and late-night comedians, this sounds like a punch line, and to many die-hard Democrats it sounds like a reason to leave the country.

Three Things You Absolutely Must Know About Climategate  —  This could prove to be climate science's Vietnam.  —  They're calling it “Climategate.”  The scandal that the suffix -gate implies is the state of climate science over the past decade or so revealed by a thousand or so emails …

1 in 4 Borrowers Under Water  —  The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%, threatening prospects for a sustained housing recovery.  —  Nearly 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes in the third quarter …

Palin to Obama: Acknowledge troops  —  Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday accused President Barack Obama of not acknowledging the sacrifices made by the men and women in the U.S. military.  —  “There's been a lack of acknowledgement by our president in understanding …

Dobbs mulls White House bid  —  Former CNN host Lou Dobbs fueled already rampant speculation about his political future Monday, sending the clearest signals yet that he's mulling a bid for president—and leaving third-party political operatives salivating over the possibility of a celebrity recruit for the 2012 campaign.

True Lies  —  The best recent memoir from Republican Washington is a hoax.  That should tell you something.  —  I Am Martin Eisenstadt: One Man's (Wildly  —  Inappropriate) Adventures with the Last Republicans  —  by Martin Eisenstadt Faber & Faber, 366 pp.

Quietly, the President Finds That Golf Is No Slam Dunk  —  A Star on the Court, He's Called a Hacker On the Course; Fans Miss the ‘Original Guy’  —  One day last summer, Gene Mulak, observing carnage in the sand trap, decided it was time to rescue the Leader of the Free World.

The Failure Option  —  Josh Marshall puzzles over what's changed in American politics to make the 60 vote threshold so difficult to overcome, and argues that “we're also deluding ourselves if we do not figure in a large role for larger structural changes in our politics.

The small-d democratic case against the filibuster  —  “Are progressives really willing to take their chances with a future GOP-controlled Senate empowered to pass whatever they have 51 votes for?” asks Scott Winship.  “With the Supreme Court nominees who could be seated (to say nothing of other judgeships)?

Gee, that's De Pressing  —  Second estimate of third-quarter GDP out; growth rate marked down to 2.8%.  —  This is really quite grim.  At this growth rate it's far from clear that we're doing anything to reduce the output gap — the gap between what the economy could produce and what it's actually producing.