U.S. Open to Deal on Health Plan  —  WASHINGTON — The White House signaled a willingness Monday to compromise on details of a public plan to compete with private insurance companies as negotiators sought ways to advance health-care legislation.  —  A senior administration official …

Did the Toppling of Saddam Hussein Lead to Recent Events in Iran?  —  Given the connections between Iraq and Iran, it's not as unlikely as it sounds.  —  The most exciting and underreported news of the past few weeks in Iran has been that the emerging challenger to the increasingly frantic and isolated …

South Carolina GOP votes to censure Sanford  —  COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) — After nearly four hours of deliberation and multiple rounds of balloting, the South Carolina Republican Party voted Monday night to censure Mark Sanford for traveling overseas to visit his mistress — but stopped short of calling on the governor to resign.

The Establishment's Palin Panic  —  I like Sarah Palin (though I don't know her well).  I respect her (though I'm aware of some of her limitations).  I wish her well (though I'm not convinced she should be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee).  —  I am convinced, though …

Palin Hit With Another Ethics Complaint  —  In the wake of Governor Palin stepping down from her job, new allegations have surfaced today in Alaska charging Palin with additional violations of the Alaska Executive Ethics Act.  —  Zane Henning — a conservative government watchdog …

New climate strategy: track the world's wealthiest  —  Source: Reuters  —  * World's richest emit about half of Earth's carbon  —  * Tracking the wealthy could break climate impasse  —  * New method would follow individual greenhouse emissions  —  To fairly divide the climate change …

Having It Both Ways  —  This Radley Balko's post is being used to defend Ross:  —  It is possible that Sarah Palin was both unfairly mistreated and personally attacked by the media and many on the left, and that her family was rather ruthlessly and mercilessly run through the [ringer] …

Michael Jackson Fans Raise Money To Defeat Peter King  —  There is, it turns out, a political price to pay when you make bold statements calling out Michael Jackson for some of the nefarious moments of his personal history.  —  Fans of Jackson are mobilizing to raise money for an opponent …

Big Banks Don't Want California's IOUs  —  A group of the biggest U.S. banks said they would stop accepting California's IOUs on Friday, adding pressure on the state to close its $26.3 billion annual budget gap.  —  The development is the latest twist in California's struggle to deal with the effects of the recession.

Joe The Plumber Says Immigrants Should Get ‘The Hell Out Of Our Damn Country’  —  While protesting government spending at Houston's Independence Day Tea Party, Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher stated that American taxpayer dollars would be best spent on the mass deportation of 12 million undocumented immigrants:

We The Common Trash  —  Michael Shaw, publisher of the visual politics blog, BAGnewsNotes, posted an article at The Huffington Post entitled, “Reading The Pictures: Palin Proud To Be Trash”.  —  Mr. Shaw's bio indicates he is a clinical psychologist—an analyst of visual journalism—an interpreter of political images.

‘Obama Is Like a Chess Player’  —  Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, 86, discusses the painful lessons of the Treaty of Versailles, idealism in politics and Obama's opportunity to forge a peaceful American foreign policy.  —  SPIEGEL: Dr. Kissinger, 90 years ago …

Healthy examples  —  Plenty of countries get healthcare right.  —  The emergency room waiting area at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn.  The hospital's emergency room receives about 60,000 patients a year.  —  “I DON'T WANT America to begin rationing care to their citizens in the way these other countries do.”

Centrists threaten Obama's agenda  —  Half a dozen members of the Senate Democratic Conference pose the biggest threat to President Obama's agenda, giving Senate Republicans a fighting chance to block the administration's major expansions of government.  —  GOP leaders have begun reaching …

College Football Goes Down the Hatch  —  You can't blame Nancy Pelosi for this one.  —  Today the Senate antitrust subcommittee will hold hearings on perhaps the only American institution less popular than Congress itself: the Bowl Championship Series (BCS).

House to DHS: We'll tell you what to do  —  Try as it might, the Department of Homeland Security can't get no respect on the floor of the House.  In the parlance of Vietnam, it's a “kill zone” for management.  —  Impatient with the agency's decision process, lawmakers have grabbed power …

More female veterans are winding up homeless  —  VA resources strained; many are single parents  —  Angela Peacock spent years with no home after serving in Iraq.  —  WASHINGTON - The number of female service members who have become homeless after leaving the military has jumped dramatically …

A Nobel Peace Prize for Twitter?  —  The free social-messaging utility uniquely documented and personalized the story of hope, heroism, and horror in Iran.  —  WASHINGTON -  —  The video gave substance to what seemed so far away.  We saw the look in her eyes as they went lifeless.

Democrats Admit That Their Cap and Trade Bill Is a Job Killer  —  By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog  —  In her remarks bringing the debate over the climate bill to a close, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California urged her colleagues to vote in favor of the cap and trade bill …

US not giving Israel ‘green light’ to attack Iran  —  The Obama administration poured cold water Monday on any notion it is giving Israel the green light to attack Iran or that it is reconsidering plans to engage diplomatically with the Islamic republic.  —  Vice President Joe Biden …

In Search of Dignity  —  When George Washington was a young man, he copied out a list of 110 “Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.”  Some of the rules in his list dealt with the niceties of going to a dinner party or meeting somebody on the street.