History Professor Gingrich Falsely Claims U.S. Presidents Don't ‘Smile And Greet’ Russian Leaders  —  Yesterday, President Obama shook hands and briefly chatted with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, explaining in a press conference afterwards that he was trying to move towards a “more constructive” …

CHENEY:  —  “One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort.

Second Amendment extended  —  The Constitution's protection of an individual right to have guns for personal use restricts the powers of state and local government as much as it does those of the federal government, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled Monday.  The opinion by the three-judge panel can be found here.

Delegates walk out on Ahmadinejad at Geneva  —  Article's topics: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Durban 2  —  As Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the eradication of Israel in his address to the United Nations anti-racism conference which  —  opened its week long event in Geneva on Monday …

Miss California: My Sister Is A Gay Rights Activist  —  Pageants,LGBT,Billy Bush,Celebrities  —  Her opinions on same-sex marriage may have cost Miss California the Miss USA crown on Sunday night - but in an interview with Billy Bush for “The Billy Bush Show” and Access Hollywood on Monday morning …

Karl Rove, Twitter Creep  —  Blogs and Stories  —  Meghan McCain says we need to take back Twitter from the creepy people—like Karl Rove, “America's Toughest Sheriff,” and the other undesirables who now follow her every Tweet.  —  Karl Rove follows me on Twitter.  That's creepy.

Gibbs confirms that torture memo authors are ‘not being held accountable.’  —  Yesterday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said that when it came to the Bush administration's illegal torture program, “those who devised the policies...should not be prosecuted.”

Sources: Chrysler Financial Refused Government Loan Over Limits on Executive Pay  —  Top officials at Chrysler Financial turned away a $750 million government loan because executives didn't want to abide by new federal limits on pay, sources familiar with the matter say.

51% View Tea Parties Favorably, Political Class Strongly Disagrees  —  Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans have a favorable view of the “tea parties” held nationwide last week, including 32% who say their view of the events is Very favorable.  —  Thirty-three percent (33%) …

Obama Convenes First Cabinet Meeting  —  President Challenges Department Heads To Cut $100M From Federal Budget  —  (AP) President Barack Obama convened his first formal Cabinet meeting, and the White House said he would challenge department and agency chiefs to look for ways to cut $100 million out of the federal budget.

Big Gov't.  Still Viewed as Greater Threat Than Big Business  —  Democrats' views have changed, now view big business as greater threat  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Gallup's recent update of its long-standing trend question on whether big business, big labor, or big government will be the biggest threat …

Axelrod: Anti-Americanism now ‘not cool’  —  Top White House adviser David Axelrod on Monday said that President Obama's trips to Europe, Turkey and Latin America in the last three weeks have made anti-American sentiment uncool and “created a new receptivity” to U.S. interests.

Why the Harman leaks smell to high heaven  —  I just posted a brief picking up this CQ Politics story by Jeff Stein, re-raising allegations that U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) attempted to intervene on behalf of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, the two former AIPAC staffers charged …

Has gay marriage reached a tipping point in New York?  Poll shows majority approve of it  —  ALBANY - A majority of New Yorkers support gay marriage and Gov. Paterson's attempt to legalize it, a new poll shows.  —  A Siena College poll released Monday found that by 53% to 39% margin …

Treasury Says ‘No Basis’ to Report on Bank Testing  —  A U.S. Treasury spokesman said there's no basis to a blog posting that buffeted financial stocks by saying that most of the nation's largest banks are insolvent.  —  Andrew Williams, a Treasury spokesman, dismissed the report from Hal Turner …

Napolitano: Returning vets too stupid to avoid extremists  —  Janet Napolitano continues to thrash around for any rationalization she can find for the DHS report that painted political organizing on abortion, federalism, and immigration as potential national-security threats …

Where Government Spending Should be Trimmed — And Why It's Necessary to Fast-Track Universal Health Care  —  It's no accident that as Congress returns this week from its two-week recess and begins debate on the $3.5 trillion budget plans for the fiscal year starting in October …

The Wail of the 1%  —  As the privileged class loses its privileges, a collective moan rises from the canyons of Wall Street.  —  Shortly after 1:30 on the afternoon of March 18, two dozen traders in AIG's financial-products division stepped away from their Bloomberg terminals …

The Times Wins 5 Pulitzer Prizes  —  The New York Times won five Pulitzer Prizes in journalism on Monday, the second-most in its history, for work on subjects as varied as America's wars in Asia, the sudden downfall of a political titan, art from ancient to modern, and a history-making presidential campaign.

Angels & Demons: It's A Thriller, Not A Crusade  —  William Donohue of the Catholic League is on a mission.  Whether it is a “mission from God,” as the Blues Brothers would say, only God knows, but the goal of his mission is clear: to paint me and the movie I directed, Angels & Demons, as anti-Catholic.

NU's Katz reminds Emanuel he's Jewish  —  Article's topics: Ya'acov Katz, Rahm Emanuel, King Ahashverosh  —  National Union chairman Ya'acov “Ketzele” Katz sent a letter to White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel last week admonishing him not to forget his Jewish and Israeli origins.