GOP Know-Nothings Fought Pandemic Preparedness  —  When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year's emergency stimulus bill …

Air Force One Backup Rattles New York Nerves  —  A reader, Jim Brown, took this photograph from 10 Exchange Place in Jersey City, looking toward 77 Hudson Street and the Statue of Liberty.  In the photo, the plane appears closer than it actually was.  —  An Air Force One lookalike …

Pakistani Intelligence: Osama Is Dead  —  As Pakistan wrestles with the Taliban takeover of large swaths of its territory and the encroachment on Islamabad, its Inter-Services Intelligence agency tells us that Osama bin Laden is dead. … If you can't trust the ISI to give you accurate information …

Just Imagine: The First 100 Days of John McCain  —  If things had gone differently.....  John McCain, the oldest first-term president in history, is proving as rambunctious and pugnacious as the youngest one, Teddy Roosevelt.  Of course, Teddy probably would have sent the Marines to Venezuela …

The Media Elite's Secret Dinners  —  Last Tuesday evening, Rahm Emanuel quietly slipped into an eighth-floor office at the Watergate.  —  As white-jacketed waiters poured red and white wine and served a three-course salmon and risotto dinner, the White House chief of staff spent two hours chatting …

New FAS-FAX Shows (More) Steep Circulation Losses  —  NEW YORK The Audit Bureau of Circulations released this morning the spring figures for the six months ending March 31, 2009, showing that country's largest metros continue to shed daily and Sunday circulation, now at a record rate.

Cantor, Obama let sparks fly  —  House Republican Whip Eric Cantor returned from spring break determined to shed the “Dr. No” tag Democrats have hung around his neck — only to find himself in a face-to-face argument with the president over who started this year's rift with the House GOP.

Gallup: Majority Thinks Torture Justified, But Wants Probe Anyway!  —  That Gallup poll we've been waiting for has just been released, and it finds a slim majority favor a probe into Bush-era torture (click to enlarge):  —  So 51% favor a government investigation of the use of “harsh interrogation techniques,” and only 42% oppose one.

Obama gets ahead of prompter  —  President Obama's speech at the National Academy of Sciences Monday morning hit a brief snag when Obama got ahead of his script.  —  Laying his plan for a President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Obama began to name the members of PCAST listed …

Swine Flu: Is Matt Drudge a National Hero?  —  Over the weekend, you probably read something about Swine Flu, the new deadly porcine super-epidemic that's going to kill us all.  But, depending on where you get your news, you saw very different types of coverage.

Pelosi playing defense on torture  —  Nancy Pelosi didn't cry foul when the Bush administration briefed her on “enhanced interrogation” of terror suspects in 2002, but her team was locked and loaded to counter hypocrisy charges when the “torture” memos were released last week.

Conde Nast Closing ‘Portfolio’  —  For nearly two years I've been covering the media industry's bad news on this blog, including some that's hit very close to home.  Now it hits closer still: Condé Nast Portfolio is closing.  —  Our editor in chief, Joanne Lipman, just broke the news to staff …

More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops  —  CHARLESTON, S.C. — Two months after the local atheist organization here put up a billboard saying “Don't Believe in God?  You Are Not Alone,” the group's 13 board members met in Laura and Alex Kasman's living room to grapple with the fallout.

GM to Cut 21,000 Jobs, Eliminate Pontiac  —  The U.S. Treasury would own at least a 50 percent stake in General Motors under a plan the company released today to avoid bankruptcy.  —  The strategy would essentially formalize the government's control over one of the icons of corporate America.

The Kill Ratio  —  I was aware that declining rates of “intimate” homicide have been a significant, though oft-overlooked, component of the declining murder rate in the United States.  Now I see at sociological images that there's an interesting gender twist to this:

Money for Nothing  —  On July 15, 2007, The New York Times published an article with the headline “The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age.”  The most prominently featured of the “new titans” was Sanford Weill, the former chairman of Citigroup, who insisted that he and his peers …

Interview with Miss California, Carrie Prejean  —  Sanctuary of the Rock Church - San Diego - April 26, 2009  —  Rex Wockner: Clearly, nobody would ever get up there (at the Miss USA pageant) and say, “I don't think black people should be able to marry white people” or something like that.

Defending the Bush lawyers  —  As the sides take form on coming interrogation investigations, the Federalist Society appears to be stepping into the vacuum to defend former Bush administration officials.  —  The lawyers' group, which was a pipeline for judges in the Bush White House …

Justices Could Weigh Free Speech vs. License Plates  —  The last time the Supreme Court considered what the First Amendment has to say about license plates was in 1977, when it ruled that New Hampshire could not force George Maynard to drive around with plates bearing the state's motto, which is “Live Free or Die.”

Fox News' ‘Tea Party’ hysteria really did whip up the far-right nutcases  —  In spite of all that voluminous airspace on Fox News that was devoted to promoting and then reporting on the ‘Tea Parties’ on April 15, I'll be willing to wager that they won't ever include this in their reports:

Busting Bank of America  —  A case study in how to spread systemic financial risk.  —  The cavalier use of brute government force has become routine, but the emerging story of how Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke forced CEO Ken Lewis to blow up Bank of America is still shocking.

Bush's Promise On Torture  —  From al Arabiya, after Abu Ghraib:  —  It's important for people to understand that in a democracy, there will be a full investigation.  In other words, we want to know the truth.  In our country, when there's an allegation of abuse ... there will be a full investigation …

With Rivals Ahead, Doubts for CNN's Middle Road  —  The election of Barack Obama does not seem to have ushered in a kinder, less-polarized environment in politics — or television.  —  And that's not a good break for CNN, a network whose strategy is to steer the middle course in its news coverage.