Election 2012: Barack Obama 42%, Ron Paul 41%  —  Pit maverick Republican Congressman Ron Paul against President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election match-up, and the race is - virtually dead even.  —  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters finds Obama with 42% support and Paul with 41% of the vote.

Sen. Mark Warner: Mitch McConnell 'either doesn't understand or chooses not to understand'  —  When Sen. Mitch McConnell said that the Senate financial-regulation bill meant “endless taxpayer-funded bailouts for big Wall Street banks,” he was, knowingly or not, taking aim at a policy …

Yes, 47% of Households Owe No Taxes.  Look Closer.  —  Forty-seven percent.  —  That's the portion of American households that owe no income tax for 2009.  The number is up from 38 percent in 2007, and it has become a popular talking point on cable television and talk radio.

Source: State Dems scrambling to deploy tea party ‘crashers’ UPDATE: Sullivan denies  —  New Hampshire Democrats are engaged in a statewide search for liberal activists willing to attend so-called tea parties on Thursday and carry signs expressing racist or fringe sentiments …

Palin Spends More De-Icing Planes Than For Candidates  —  Ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) spent more money to de-ice her private jets than she did donating money to candidates during the first 3 months of the year, according to new filings made with the FEC.  —  The filings show Palin's political wing …

Anthony Weiner Goes Viral  —  Congressman Anthony Weiner bounded into a DJ booth at a fashionable Lower East Side bar one recent Wednesday night, grabbed the microphone with his left hand and unleashed his inner Borscht Belt.  —  “Every single moment that we are stroking our beards and gazing …

Arianna huffs about overbooked celebs at WHCD  —  Like a Real Housewife of New Jersey, Arianna Huffington was flipping tables, well, at least metaphorically.  —  Because like most media organizations that placed a bid for White House Correspondents dinner tables, the Huffington Post founder didn't get her way.

Our Fill-in-the-Blank Constitution  —  AS the Senate awaits the nomination of a new Supreme Court justice, a frank discussion is needed on the proper role of judges in our constitutional system.  For 30 years, conservative commentators have persuaded the public that conservative judges apply the law …

Bernanke to Unemployed: Drop Dead  —  Ben Bernanke's economic forecast indicates a dire future for the currently unemployed and also for young Americans who'll be graduating from school this spring and next: … That sounds right to me.  And if Congress asked me to give my forecast, that's what I would give.

Terry Gross: What I Read  —  How do other people deal with the torrent of information that pours down on us all?  Do they have some secret?  Perhaps.  We are asking various journalists who seem well-informed to describe their media diets.  This is from an exchange with Terry Gross …

Corrupt K Street Lobbyists Set Up A New Blue Dog Think Tank To Undermine Working Families  —  Blue Dogs are often most reviled for crossing the aisle and voting with Republicans on key issues like healthcare reform and financial reform.  Last November, when 39 Democrats voted against healthcare reform, for example, 25 were Blue Dogs.

The Curious Cook: Why Cilantro Tastes Like Soap, for Some  —  FOOD partisanship doesn't usually reach the same heights of animosity as the political variety, except in the case of the anti-cilantro party.  The green parts of the plant that gives us coriander seeds seem to inspire …

Mike Huckabee Blasts Student Newspaper for ‘Sensationalizing’ Comments on Gay Marriage  —  ABC News' Huma Khan reports: In an unusual battlefront, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is embroiled in a heated war of words with a college newspaper after telling a student reporter that it is …

Jane Mayer's Disaster  —  With her recent review of my book, Courting Disaster, Jane Mayer may have done a service to future generations of public servants.  The week her article appeared in The New Yorker, former CIA director Mike Hayden handed it out in his class at George Mason University's School …

Arizona Clears Strict Immigration Bill  —  Arizona lawmakers on Tuesday passed one of the toughest pieces of immigration-enforcement legislation in the country, which would make it a violation of state law to be in the U.S. without proper documentation.  —  It would also grant police the power …

The single mother's manifesto  —  David Cameron says the ‘nasty party’ that castigated people like me has changed.  I'm not buying it  —  J.K. Rowling  —  I've never voted Tory before, but . . ." Those much parodied posters, with their photogenic subjects and their trite captions, remind me irresistibly of glossy greetings cards.

Andy Stern: The exit interview  —  Andy Stern is the president of SEIU, a service employees union with 2.2 million members.  He led the breakaway unions that split from the AFL-CIO and formed Change to Win, and he's been a key political player during the Obama era, visiting the White House more than any other individual.

Why FL-19 isn't a health care referendum  —  In the immediate wake of soon-to-be Rep. Ted Deutch's (D) victory in a special election in Florida's 19th district on Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee released a statement casting it as a rejection of Republican claims that health care …

Crist: A Path to Running as an Independent?  —  Florida Gov. Charlie Crist dodged another question Wednesday about whether he would run for the U.S. Senate as an independent, the Associated Press reports.  The question referenced this story in today's Wall Street Journal on how some of his advisers …

SOS - RED ALERT - New York Times About to Put American Troops in Deadly Peril  —  I have just received word that the New York Times is preparing to go public with a list of names of Americans covertly working in Afghanistan providing force protection for our troops, as well as the rest of our Coalition Forces.