Democrats Resisting Obama on Social Security  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama is eager to seek a bipartisan solution to ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security, people who have spoken with him say, but he is running into opposition from his party's left and from Democratic Congressional leaders …

Assessing Obama's Job Approval at the One-Month Mark  —  Receives solid approval, but not extraordinary in historical terms  — USA - Government and Politics - Presidential Job Approval - The Presidency - Americas - Northern America  —  PRINCETON, NJ — President Barack Obama remains …

Banking on the Brink  —  Comrade Greenspan wants us to seize the economy's commanding heights.  —  O.K., not exactly.  What Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman — and a staunch defender of free markets — actually said was, “It may be necessary to temporarily nationalize …

Auto team drives imports  —  Fed task force has few new U.S. cars  —  WASHINGTON — The vehicles owned by the Obama administration's auto team could reflect one reason why Detroit's Big Three automakers are in trouble: The list includes few new American cars.

Harry Reid: Economy starting to turn around  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Monday that the banking industry is “very close” to being stabilized and the nation's economy is starting to rebound.  —  “We tend to talk about the negative. ...

Forget change: GOP eyes retro strategy  —  Republicans are hatching a political comeback by dusting off a strategic playbook written nearly two decades ago.  —  Its themes: Unite against Democrats' economic policy, block and counter health care reform and tar them with spending scandals.

How Burris blew it  —  CHICAGO — The crisis now threatening Sen. Roland Burris' political career started with revelations about his entanglements with disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.  —  But it was the way the situation was handled by Burris and his advisers …

Legal Experts Propose Limiting Justices' Powers, Terms  —  If we had it to do all over again, would we appoint Supreme Court justices for life?  Allow the chief justice to keep the job forever?  Let the court have the final word on which cases it hears and those it declines?

Rant raises profile of CNBC on-air personality Rick Santelli  —  CNBC's Rick Santelli's self-described rant on TV last week, bemoaning that “the government is promoting bad behavior” with President Barack Obama's mortgage bailout plan, clearly resonated with many Americans, made him a viral video star and drew a White House rebuke.

REMOVING ALL DOUBT.... Five years ago, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ken.) won re-election despite odd and erratic personal behavior.  Now, in advance of another re-election fight, Bunning is acting strangely again.  —  Last month, Bunning decided not to show up for work for a while, and refused to say publicly where he was.

Dispatches: Greenberg vs. Penn  —  Of the many stories in Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg's new book, Dispatches from the War Room, the most newsworthy may be his slashing condemnation of Mark Penn, the pollster that displaced him within the inner circles of both President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Myth Of The Filibuster: Dems Can't Make Republicans Talk All Night  —  Hoping for a C-SPAN spectacle of GOP obstruction, some impatient Democrats are urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to call Republicans on their filibuster bluff.  —  House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer …

The Obama Administration Sacrifices Israel  —  The cover-up on Durban II's anti-Semitic agenda.  —  The Obama administration's decision to join the planning of the U.N.'s Durban II “anti-racism” conference has just taken a new twist: cover-up.  On Friday, State Department officials …

Rename Law?  No Wisecrack Is Left Behind  —  WASHINGTON — Two years ago, an effort to fix No Child Left Behind, the main federal law on public schools, provoked a grueling slugfest in Congress, leading Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, to say the law had become “the most negative brand in America.”

Hey, lady, your $800,000 house is NOT my problem  —  Repeat after me: Property value-preservation is not a civil right.  —  Craig Meister at the Examiner.com points me to this typical CNN sob story clip of a bus driver named Minta Garcia who is demanding that President Obama halt all foreclosures.

VOTER, BEWARE  —  The Voting Rights Act, which passed in 1965, stands as one of the great monuments to civil rights in American history.  The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, purported to give Americans the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude …

Obama's Stimulus: A Colossal Waste?  —  WASHINGTON — Judged by his own standards, President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus program is deeply disappointing.  For weeks, Obama has described the economy in grim terms.  “This is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill recession,” he said at his Feb. 9 news conference.

You, Me, and David Gregory  —  I think everyone understands the human phenomenon whereby we mistaken deem our own personal experiences to be more typical than they are.  People who attended selective colleges tend to talk as if they don't realize that the majority of the minority of Americans …

Woodhouse Replacing Finney As DNC Comms Director  —  The Democratic National Committee will soon announce that Democratic coalitions guru Brad Woodhouse will become communications director, an official said today.  Woodhouse, a senior campaign adviser to Obama, has served as executive director …

Let's Grow Up And Raise Taxes (Guest Voice)  —  LET'S GROW UP AND RAISE TAXES  —  by Marc Pascal  —  The first of several stimulus packages has just passed but it is just the beginning of our efforts to address our immediate and long-term economic problems.

The 10 most influential D.C. Twitterers  —  When you talk about Twitter, you might as well be talking about the Snuggie: People around you swear that it's actually useful, but you can't help thinking it silly and declaring, “I just don't get what all the buzz is about.”

What Iran's Jews Say  —  At Palestine Square, opposite a mosque called Al-Aqsa, is a synagogue where Jews of this ancient city gather at dawn.  Over the entrance is a banner saying: “Congratulations on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution from the Jewish community of Esfahan.”

Obama Taps Biden to Oversee Stimulus Package Implementation  —  With Vice President Joe Biden at the helm, $15 billion from the recovery package will be freed up Wednesday for state Medicaid programs, President Obama says.  —  FOXNews.com  —  President Obama has turned to his own vice president …

Parsing Treasury  —  I just ran this morning's joint statement from Treasury, the Fed, and just about every other regulatory institution in the US through a readability calculator.  It scored 15 out of 100 on reading ease; apparently you need a grade level of 16 to understand it.

A ‘Ticking Time Bomb’ Goes Off  —  When Abdallah Al-Ajmi Returned to Kuwait After Nearly Four Years at Guantanamo, His Family Tried to Get Him to Move On.  But He Didn't Want to Let Go.  —  KUWAIT CITY — After arriving here from Guantanamo Bay in November 2005, Abdallah Saleh al-Ajmi …