IMF chief Christine Lagarde will share her insight into the global economy’s next act. Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni will talk to historian Simon Schama about Israel on the brink. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will appear in a special finale. Mexican congresswoman Rosi Orozco will recount her battle against sex trafficking. We’ll also welcome as moderators Barbara Walters, Christiane Amanpour, Andrea Mitchell, Lesley Stahl, Robin Roberts, Cynthia McFadden, Martha Raddatz, Charlie Rose and Juju Chang.

The endorsement of Megadeth guitarist Dave Mustaine hath been given.

Apparently, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is the best possible choice for Americans kicked out of Metallica who join new metal bands. At least until Jason Newsted speaks out.

Not all New Yorkers are rude, not all San Franciscans are gay, and not all Iowans are farmers. Of Iowa’s 3 million people, about 90,000 are farmers, and of those, 48,737 list farming as a principal occupation.

His Tea Party caucus kept stuffing him with rhetorical bran muffins so that every time he went to a microphone he was full of it. Then, when crunch time arrived, the Republican establishment, the White House and Democrats in Congress teamed up and beat the crap out of him.

The Republican party's internal division and public humiliation this week felt like a moment that was such a long time coming it seemed as though it would never arrive.

Many consumer and patient advocates who championed the law had hoped the administration would use its new powers more aggressively to remake the nation's healthcare system.

"We are very concerned," said Stephen Finan, senior policy director at the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network. "If this isn't done well, it will be a generation or more before we have another opportunity."

In a 41-56 vote, lawmakers thwarted Paul’s resolution to overturn the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which demands curbs in smog and particulate-forming pollution from plants in 27 states in the eastern half of the country.

... saying he was tired of banks and the private market being blamed for the economy's problems.

Another reason that [Texas Governor] "Ma" Ferguson will go down in the history books -- the funnier ones, at least -- is the apocryphal tale that when an early attempt was made to legislate the teaching of Spanish in Texas public schools, "Ma" refused, saying that if English was good enough for the Sweet Baby Jesus, it was good enough for the schoolchildren of Texas.

... This Is Herman Cain: My Journey To The White House, he's going to expect certain things from the people he hires. For example, "From the most junior clerical person to my chief of staff, White House personnel will be expected to have a copy of the Constitution of the United States nearby," he writes. It's a nice sentiment if, like me, you're charmed by CEOs of a certain generation.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who continues to toy with a possible 2012 presidential bid, believes that if she ultimately decides to pursue the GOP nomination it will come at a cost to her reputation as a political maverick.

After the debate, many moderate Republicans spoke out against the audience’s behavior including Minnesota Republican Rep. John Kriesel who called those who booed “morons.”

Pelosi, the former speaker who presides over a shrunken Democratic minority in the House, likely will come into play. Any plan that passes the Senate, be it McConnell fallback option or a more ambitious proposal like the one being crafted by the so-called Gang of Six, will only be able to pass the House if Democratic votes push it over the finish line.

So there are policies we could be pursuing to bring unemployment down. These policies would be unorthodox — but so are the economic problems we face. And those who warn about the risks of action must explain why these risks should worry us more than the certainty of continued mass suffering if we do nothing.

... in Washington, DC, Pawlenty made his first notable gaffe when he bungled a question about his foreign policy position on Iran. "I think the situation now in Iran is such that Secretary Gates is negotiating with whether the United States military will be there beyond the end of this year," Pawlenty said. "And they're looking to the Iranians to see if they invite the Americans to stay, invite us to stay."

But wait a minute. What about the US? Unemployment and underemployment here is still up around 20% overall, and it is much higher among young people. Black youth unemployment fell so far in 2011 to an official rate of 44% from 50% last year (because so many young workers just gave up trying to find work)! Among Latino youth, the official unemployment rate is stuck at around 30%. Overall, youth unemployment, according to the official Labor Department figures, is 20%, but remember, the official rate does not count those who are working part time who want full-time work, and does not count those who have given up looking for work.

By a 204-215 vote [roll call] - six switchers would have passed the amendment - the House narrowly failed to adopt a bipartisan amendment from Reps. Jim McGovern [D-MA] and Justin Amash [R-MI] that would have required the Department of Defense to develop a plan for an "accelerated transition of military operations to Afghan authorities."

"Does that hurt the current administration's efforts and what Democrats in the White House are trying to do, with President Clinton suggesting maybe they do stop the fear mongering and get to work?" Bream asked.

"I don't think that anything that's happened in the last few months is fear mongering," Rosenberg replied.

"Dumping a woman off a cliff isn't fear mongering," Ferguson interrupted ...

It's controversial in one sense -- it unduly rewards Israel for its illegal seizures of land by suggesting they should be able to permanently keep West Bank settlements (the "land swap" aspect of the formula) -- but it does not remotely constitute a step in an anti-Israel direction. When even Israel-devoted stalwarts such as former IDF Corporal Jeffrey Goldberg and the ADL's Abe Foxman are dismissive of the condemnation of Obama's statements, it's crystal clear that they pose no challenge to the dominant pro-Israel orthodoxy that has shaped American policy (and political discourse) for decades.

Appearing before a pro-Israel audience, President Obama said Sunday the world won't stand for more delays in forging Middle East peace and reaffirmed his support for an accord based partly on boundary lines in place before Israel made territorial gains in the 1967 war.

There were scattered boos at the gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee when Obama called for borders tracking the 1967 lines, with mutually agreeable land swaps.

A race to pre-define the prospective presidential candidacy of Republican Mitch Daniels took off in haste on Thursday, as Democrats heaped praise on the Indiana governor for his implementation of the president's health care law. ~~~ It's low-hanging fruit, as far as political attacks go.

Democrats. Just think how picking a fight with the most unpopular entity in America (now that Osama bin Laden is dead) --the big banks on Wall Street -- could help them politically. The President should immediately announce he is appointing Elizabeth Warren as director of the CFPB, and when the next recess comes, immediately put her in as a recess appointment.

Chris Wallace, Juan Williams, and Bret Baier—who asked questions of a bunch of also-rans without even pretending to listen to their answers. The first clue this debate was a disaster was when the moderators began to ask the placeholders on stage about candidates who weren't even there: Mitt Rom-bot, Trump, Daniels, Huckabee, Bachmann, Gingrich, and Trump, again.

what Santorum called an "existential threat," the twin evils of "Sharia and its
violent iteration, Jihadism." This fight is no joke, Santorum said, channeling the foreign policy vision of the tea party. ~~~ "We should have no illusions about the extent of this threat," Santorum said. "Radical Islam is extending its tentacles from Africa to America."

... John pointed out that people like Pat Buchanan who was questioning his college records and using the term "affirmative action president" are doing nothing but using code words to dog whistle the racist elements of the Republican base.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday accused Republicans of using their cost-cutting proposals to push a vision of a "shrunken America" as he sought to rally supporters on a re-election fundraising drive in New York.

The influential U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to do everything in its power to block President Barack Obama's unannounced measure to make government contractors disclose their political spending. ~~~ Why?

They could either cut spending or raise taxes by as much as $738 billion just to cover the period from April 1 through Sept. 30, which is the end of the fiscal year. Or they could acknowledge that the country would be unable to pay what it owes in full and the United States could effectively default on some of its obligations. ~~~ The first option would be impossible to execute without negative economic repercussions. ~~~ And the second option could cripple the economy and send world markets into a tailspin.

Just four months into their new majority, House Republicans face a potentially defining Medicare vote this week that is sure to become a centerpiece of Democratic efforts to recapture the House in 2012 and spill into the presidential and Senate campaigns as well.

Ever since Alexander Hamilton refunded the debts of the Revolutionary War with a federal debt, the United States only went into debt to pay for its wars. But then in the 1930s the administration of President Roosevelt attempted to get the nation out of the Great Depression with federal borrowings.

After 12 months of up-and-down job creation, the significant increase in March suggested that maybe, just maybe, the economy was gaining enough strength to grow and bring unemployment down substantially this year.

And as the unemployment rate ticked down, the hopes of Mr. Obama and his party ticked up ...

At face value, congressional Republicans went into budget talks playing a strikingly weak hand. They're an unpopular party, pushing unpopular spending cuts, going up against a more popular president. Of the three main players -- the House, the Senate, and the White House -- the GOP controls about one-half of one-third of the relevant institutions.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) is planning to re-introduce the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) this week, even as he acknowledges that the bill won't be considered in the Republican-led House of Representatives. "It's an organizing tool," Frank told Geidner, explaining that introducing the bill will help build more support for the issue

The Governor's spokesman explains that the mural and the conference-room names were "not in keeping with the department's pro-business goals."

Are we still in America?

But! Breitbart then apparently went too far when he said a bunch of stupid and offensive things about Van Jones in an interview with the Daily Caller. And Arianna is actually quite close to the former White House "green jobs czar."

So: That got Breitbart kicked off the front page, finally.

There is a lot this bill didn't get done, but one year ago today the United States finally enacted a law that established health care coverage of the entire population as a goal and value of our government. We stated as a country that it should be the right of every American to have health insurance. We declared that insurance companies should be subject to certain humane and commonsense restrictions when it came to denying people coverage — like an insurer had to keep covering people even if they got sick, and they had to keep covering people even when it cost a lot of money.

Was President Obama "henpecked" into waging war on Libya by his "Amazon warrior" female advisors? Only if you're shocked by the thought of women in positions of power actually asserting their power. It also helps if you consider skepticism of military engagement to be inherently "feminine" and think that getting convinced of something by a woman is in and of itself emasculating.

President Obama may not be willing to endure the ideological battle that would result from nominating Elizabeth Warren to head the new consumer protection agency, a top Democrat said Monday.

Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.), who co-authored the law creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said that if she were nominated, Warren might not be confirmed to head the agency. While Frank argued that's a fight worth having, he cautioned that the president might disagree.

"I have to say, with big ears and the name that I have, I wasn't immune. I didn't emerge unscathed," he told teachers, parents and government officials assembled for the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention.

Happy days are back for the sofa strategists and beltway bombardiers. After the miseries of Iraq and Afghanistan, a Libyan no-fly zone is just the tonic they need. If you zero in from carrier A, you can take out the Tripoli air defences while carrier B zaps the mercenary bases and carrier C zooms with special forces to secure the oilfields. You might tell the Americans to go easy on Leptis Magna after what they did to Babylon

If enacted into law, the plan would likely force Congress to boost revenue through new tax rules, cut spending and bring down the growth rate of Medicare and Social Security over time.

The resolution adopted Saturday states that "the Democratic Party supports prioritizing job creation and a swift withdrawal of U.S. armed forces and military contractors in Afghanistan which must include a significant and sizable reduction no later than July 2011."

The Washington establishment believes that the government shutdown of 1995 was a disastrous mistake that accomplished little and cost House Republicans politically. The facts are exactly the opposite.

Members of an army unit known as the "Thunderbolt" squad had brought wounded comrades to the hospital, he said.

The soldiers said they had defected to the cause of the protesters and had fought and defeated Gaddafi's elite guards.

"They are now saying that they have overpowered the Praetorian Guard and that they have joined the people's revolt," another man at the hospital, lawyer Mohamed al-Mana, told Reuters by telephone.

In John Boehner's House of Representatives, sleep isn't really something anyone needs, evidently. They're only working 3 days a week, but for the last two nights the House has stayed in session until the wee hours, as it did today. As you might imagine, a 17-hour day full of debates about "Obamacare" and abortion can set tempers on edge.

House Republicans are on a roll, doing everything in their power to mar job creation and to pull out the rug from underneath millions of American workers already struggling to make ends meet in these tough economic times.

Out of nowhere, legislators began debating the merits of "investment," some reversed course on infrastructure spending, and Republicans pre-emptively nixed Obama's expected call to cap domestic discretionary spending.

In at least a temporary victory for liberal groups, the president won't endorse the catfood commission recommendation to raise the full retirement age for Social Security in tomorrow's State of the Union address -- but administration officials caution he won't rule them out for good:

President Obama ... Social Security is something that can be fixed with some modest modifications that don't impose hardships on beneficiaries who are counting on it.

Authorities discovered Ashley Turton, former chief of staff to Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), dead in a burnt-out car Monday. Turton's husband was Dan Turton, the White House liaison to the House of Representatives.

Tea Party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said he is against the deal because it includes a provision to extend unemployment benefits for 13 months. "We can't just keep paying people to stay at home," he said.

Last night on Fox News, DeMint expounded on his concerns about the deal. "This is a perfect example of how we got 14 trillion in debt as a nation," he said

Bush cuts for the rich [but]... there has been less discussion about a feature of the deal that could have enormous long-term consequences: the payroll tax holiday. Under the plan, which still must be approved by the House and Senate, the payroll tax would be cut by 2 percentage points for all wage-earners

Not even 24 hours after President Obama met with senior Republican Congressional leaders and expressed hopes for a "new dialogue," renewed partisan fury engulfed the Senate on Wednesday, as Republicans threatened to block any legislation until a deal is reached to extend the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, potentially derailing the Democrats' busy end-of-year agenda.

"What happens if the SGR reform gets kicked to the middle of January or the next extension is short term?" Rep. Michael Burgess, chair of the Congressional Health Care Caucus, asked reporters Tuesday, on his way out from the American Action Forum's health reform conference. "What if the next doc fix has with it a repeal of the individual mandate?"

... embraces the bigotry of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who's race-baiting on the air on a daily basis -- why, that party couldn't possibly be racist because they elected Michael Steele as RNC chairman.

Gingrich also fails to note that Steele's fund-raising efforts were severely undermined by the likes of Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove and similar outside groups.

This business of speculating about what the President or Congress or the Democrats or Progressives must do to regain lost ground seems to be spinning wheels. There are a lot of reasons why Democrats lost the House in the midterms. Some of them have to do with the never-ending spin machine; others with disappointment at how some of the major policy sausage was made; still others with disillusionment and disconnection in general.

The roots of the partisan standoff that led to the postponement of the bipartisan White House summit scheduled for Thursday date back to January, when President Barack Obama crashed a GOP meeting in Baltimore to deliver a humiliating rebuke of House Republicans.

Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, has stepped down from Liberty Central, the group dedicated to training Tea Party activists. Too little, too late.

This doesn't surprise me, nor do I think it has much to do with her inappropriate telephone call to Anita Hill.

There's a certain rational philosophical argument to be found in opposition to the Affordable Care Act if you really believe in a smaller federal government.

It's that if people increasingly see healthcare as a fundamental government function, then government's involvement will never go away.

... Obama - with great reluctance - might have to accept an extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans after all. Otherwise, Republicans would continue to block the Democrats' preferred course of action, which is to extend the full tax cuts only for those making less than $250,000 a year.

"It is no surprise that these two favor draconian cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the needs of our veterans, and education while proposing tax reductions for the wealthy and large profitable corporations," Sanders said. Simpson is a darling of the Republican right wing and Bowles is a former investment banker who made a fortune on Wall Street.

... But that is not how Netanyahu sees it. Like his friends in the GOP, he does not view Obama as a legitimate President. On top of that, he is certain that Obama is finished and he can roll him.

Reaction to the report has been swift and in some cases furious. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the chairmen had told "working Americans to Drop Dead." He faulted the mark's calls for changes to Social Security and Medicare.

Medicare, the cost of Medicare, Medicaid and, you know medical care for veterans. Medical care in the Defense Department. Medical care across the board. That is the single thing that is gonna be driving the expansion of the federal government over the next several years. And so one of the things that we've said is — we've got to start getting a better bang for our buck on that front. If we don't, it is gonna be very difficult for future generations to deal with it.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a president in the White House who referred to Americans who disagree with him as 'our enemies.' Think about that. He actually used that word. When Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush used the word 'enemy,' they reserved it for global terrorists and foreign dictators — enemies of the United States. Enemies of freedom.

... even the White House might be surprised to find out that more than 30 network personalities have supported GOP candidates this year.

A new report by the liberal group Media Matters claims that in more than 600 instances Fox News personalities have "endorsed, raised money, or campaigned for Republican candidates or organizations."

"Our contracts started 22 years ago. We're one of the first franchisees for Gold's Gym. We can't get out over night, but we will be out of it," Don Dickerson, director of operations for Gold's in the Bay Area, told Salon, adding that the bulk of the gyms' business comes from the LGBT community.

"It took us by as much surprise as it did everyone else, ..."

It appears that as the White House rams its radical homosexual agenda through the military, too many generals and admirals are willing to sell their brothers in arms down the river if it means they can keep a shiny set of stars on their epaulets.

Following an investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, which found that some college plans offer porous coverage that skirts state laws and regulations, youth organizations like Rock the Vote and Young Invincibles sent a letter to White House and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) asking regulators to ensure that SHPs abide by the regulatory baseline created in the Affordable Care Act.

It appears that as the White House rams its radical homosexual agenda through the military, too many generals and admirals are willing to sell their brothers in arms down the river if it means they can keep a shiny set of stars on their epaulets.

It's past time for the politicians to do what they should have done in the first place. That is, protect the nation's priceless assets: the rule of law and free markets. Instead, the pols are protecting the worthless assets of zombie banks that do not know how to be banks.

Adding indifference to injury, the Supreme Court this week refused to hear the appeal of a woman who was ejected from a speech by President George W. Bush because she had an antiwar bumper sticker on her car.

The Associated Press and the Advocate are reporting that the Justice Department will ask a federal judge allow the military to continue enforcing Don't Ask, Don't Tell pending appeal.

According to the reports, the federal government will ask Judge Virginia Philips, who earlier this week ordered the military to stop enforcing DADT, to stay her injunction pending appeal.

"President Obama based his attack on a blog posting by ThinkProgress, which is associated with the Center for American Progress. A group headed by John Podesta, who headed the president's transition," said Rove. "It is a political group and doesn't reveal its donors ...

Kenneth Feinberg and his law firm, which oversees the doling out of compensation to oil spill victims, have been paid $850,000 a month by BP since the compensation fund was created in mid-June.

BP agreed to pay Feinberg Rozen LLP $850,000 a month from mid-June through Oct. 1, according to Bloomberg -- a grand total of $2.5 million.

On Saturday night, the NRSC was running a fund-raising appeal pegged to the Sunday debate, with the time travel headline and opening paragraph:

Giannoulias Fails In Debate

"It was plain to see on Meet the Press. Alexi Giannoulias is wrong for Illinois and should not be elected to the United States Senate. For too long America has been on a similar course of more spending, more debt, and a weakened economic recovery. We are on an unsustainable path and the American people don't like what they see."

"Christine O'Donnell released a commercial in which she says, 'I'm not a witch.' That's pretty good, though not as effective as her opponent's slogan, 'I'm not Christine O'Donnell.'" —Jimmy Fallon

Jerrold Post and company who composed the study on which the amendment is based, all the conditions are there: This guy is cracking up, he's gone. He's not qualified to be President. He must be removed for the sake of the nation, and we have the Constitutional Amendment, which prepares, exactly this. And he is exactly the mental type, described in detail, the narcissist syndrome, and there's no question about it. I diagnosed this, of course, on April 11th, of last year, and I was right then, and I'm more right than ever today. So, this man has to go.

ILet nobody accuse the tea party enthusiasts of lacking intellectual sophistication, no matter what their favorite candidates might say about evolution, civil rights, masturbation or alcohol prohibition.
According to The New York Times, the movement's reading list includes works of political economy by such right-wing thinkers as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek and Frederic Bastiat

"I'm serious about this," the thatch-roofed reality-TV star, beauty-pageant impresario and real-estate developer insisted to me Thursday, a couple of days after he phoned in to MSNBC's Morning Joe program and floated the idea of a 2012 presidential campaign. "Many people have asked me to run. I have never seen the country in the state that it's in, and now I am considering it," he told me

By now, Republicans had hoped to put away a first layer of Democrats and set their sights on a second tier of incumbents. But the fight for control of Congress is more fluid than it seemed at Labor Day, with Democrats mounting strong resistance in some parts of the country as they try to hold off a potential Republican wave in November.

The national program is a response to frustrations from both workers and employers who complain that public retraining programs frequently do not provide students with employable skills. This new initiative is intended to help better align community college curriculums with the demands of local companies.

Asked by a reporter whether she's spoken with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) about the Senate taking another shot at "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Pelosi replied, "That will be gone by executive — that will happen with or without Congress." "I don't think it has to depend on whether it passes the Senate," she continued. "The process will work its way through and the president will make his pronouncement."

If on the eighth day of the administration, if the president knew the GOP has been anti-everything, why has he been negotiating with them as if he could get a yes from them?" MSNBC's Keith Olbermann asked Corn Tuesday.

"Because the president doesn't watch zombie movies," answered Corn. "And you can't negotiate with zombies, you can't trust zombies."

"After getting that big no from them on stimulus spending, he ran into it again and again on the energy front, on health care, on Wall Street reform, and each time he was, you know, he spent a lot of effort and a lot of political capital trying to work with the zombie party," said Corn.

The President was too hard to reach, in Von Brunn's view, but that was of no consequence. "Obama was created by Jews," he wrote. "Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do."

The report from the Congressional Research Service, sent to Congress with little fanfare on September 20, contends that soon after 9-11, American Muslims "recognized the need to define themselves as distinctly American communities who, like all Americans, desire to help prevent another terrorist attack" and explores how federal, state and local law enforcement organizations responded by tapping into American Muslims' language skills, contacts, information and cultural insights.

The strategy the Republicans were going to pursue was one of sitting on the sidelines, trying to gum up the works, based on the assumption that given the scope and size of the recovery, the economy probably wouldn't be very good, even in 2010, and that they were better off being able to assign the blame to us than work with us to try to solve the problem.
But the White House continued to try to make compromises with their opponents.

In an online video promoting the "Power of 10" campaign by his American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF) 527 group, Gingrich rails against the "genuinely radical, secular socialist machine" of the "Obama-Pelosi-Reid team" who "simply run over the beliefs and values of the American people." Images of Tea Party rallies and the right-wing enemies list — Michael Moore, Sean Penn, and Katie Couric — scroll by as Gingrich pleads for "we the American people" to "go all out

Re: DADT
We acknowledge and appreciate your support and hope that together we can end this dishonorable policy once and for all. We hope that you, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Services, will take this opportunity to restore integrity to our military and decline to appeal Judge Phillip's ruling.

By all accounts, the PACE program is remarkably successful: It's been adopted by 23 states and the District of Columbia. It creates jobs, lowers utility bills for homeowners, cuts pollution and easily transfers to new homeowners when homes change hands.
~~~
It's been adopted by 23 states and the District of Columbia. It creates jobs, lowers utility bills for homeowners, cuts pollution and easily transfers to new homeowners when homes change hands.

Congress's three openly gay members, Reps. Barney Frank (D-NY), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Jared Polis (D-CO), are already drafting a letter to President Barack Obama, urging him not to appeal the decision and today, the Palm Center released a new analysis arguing that "the White House has a strong foundation for not filing an appeal to the recent case which declared 'don't ask, don't tell' unconstitutional."

... insurers across the country are preparing to suspend child-only insurance plans "rather than comply with a new federal healthcare law that bars them from rejecting youngsters with preexisting medical conditions." Insurers had first challenged the law's pre-existing requirements in March, insisting that the provision would increase premiums and was not required by the law. Pressed by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, however, AHIP, the industry's lobby, eventually relented. Karen Ignagni issued a letter promising to "fully comply with [the] regulations."

If the leaders of the religious right aspire to join forces with the Tea Party movement, their hopes were surely encouraged by the Values Voters Summit in Washington -- where such Tea Party celebrities Michele Bachmann and Jim DeMint shared the podium with Delaware sensation Christine O'Donnell -- all of whom enthusiastically blessed the proposed marriage. Certainly they have much to share in their seething fury at the President and the congressional Democrats.

Bringing together the disparate elements of the right without a charismatic and credible leader like Ronald Reagan remains a challenge

"People are evaluating this a little bit differently from three months ago," said Jon Youngdahl, political director of the Service Employees International Union. "Our goal obviously is to have a majority for Speaker Pelosi next year. That's driving a lot of decisions."

The article depicts President Obama as a deranged anti-colonialist whose ideology of business-hatred was somehow implanted, "Manchurian Candidate"-style, by the estranged father who abandoned him when he was 2. (Imagine, if you will, a leftist critique of George W. Bush that attributed his torture policies to secret indoctrination in his father's CIA dungeons. I know, I remember reading that cover story too…)

President Barack Obama's chief spokesman on Tuesday evening lashed out at Forbes magazine for publishing a highly controversial cover story asserting that the president's political views stem from a belief in Kenyan "anticolonialism."

"Why didn't Forbes hire a fact checker for their cover 'story'?" wrote White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Twitter. "Or did they simply not care about the facts?"

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal is out this weekend with a glowing profile of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, just about two months after the Justice Department dropped its investigation into whether Gonzales politicized the DOJ during his tenure.

As you might expect, Gonzales denied that his 2006 firing of U.S. attorneys was politically motivated.

As we've been writing about today, Democrats are gleeful over a window of opportunity they see just in time for the midterm elections over Minority Leader John Boehner's positions on whether to make the George W. Bush tax cuts permanent for everyone but the wealthy.

"Though politicians think they are selectively targeting 'Big Oil' with these energy tax proposals, they would actually devastate thousands of small American businesses nationwide as well as the workers who depend on them," Mason said in a prepared statement.

The ad, which TPM obtained for an early preview, features pictures of Boehner and highlights his opposition to a Democratic bill raising taxes on companies that ship jobs overseas.

As we've been reporting, Democrats are planning to use outsourcing against the GOP more on the campaign trail this fall.

"He wants you to come down," I say. "I can't."

"Why not?" he asks.

"For one thing, I'm a Democrat."

"So?" Lee's son died near my husband in the towers. Our politics are so far apart I am amazed we've managed to put our opinions aside for the sake of the organization and all the family members we advocate for. "C'mon, kiddo. Do it for Vig," Lee insists. "Vig" is Lee's good friend John Viggiano who lost two sons on September 11, one a police officer, the other a firefighter. I remember meeting his wife at one of the many funerals. Her expression was limp with grief, a shade pulled down.