How nervous should those Blue Dogs be?  —  OK, as promised the other day, I've run some numbers about the Democratic Blue Dogs in the House of Representatives, and they're quite interesting.  Here's the deal.  This is a long post, but it's got lots of actual new information, and no difficult-to-discern irony.

Officer suspended for Gates slur in e-mail  —  An officer in the Boston Police Department was suspended yesterday for allegedly writing a racially charged e-mail about Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to colleagues at the National Guard, a law enforcement official said.

Poll: Obama loses ground on health care  —  NBC/WSJ survey also shows a drop in his overall job-approval rating  —  President Barack Obama discusses health care reform during a town hall meeting at Broughton High School on Wednesday in Raleigh, N.C.  —  Deputy political director

Dems warn Baucus with gavel threat  —  In an apparent warning to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), some liberal Democrats have suggested a secret-ballot vote every two years on whether or not to strip committee chairmen of their gavels.

Debra Burlingame: Revenge of the ‘Shoe Bomber’  —  The terrorist sues to resume his jihad from prison.  The Obama administration caves in.  —  Multimedia  — previous  — next  —  Health Care Reform  —  President Obama's effort to overhaul the health-care system may have momentum.

EXCLUSIVE: No. 3 at Justice OK'd Panther reversal  —  Case involved polling place in Philadelphia  —  Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the No. 3 official in the Obama Justice Department, was consulted and ultimately approved a decision in May to reverse course and drop …

Jihadi's Facebook Account: I will kill you (Updated: Pics Added)  —  ****STICKY OVERNIGHT****NEW POSTS BELOW***  —  More on the banality of terror.  You should read it for the context in understanding the federal indictments against Ziyad Yaghi, Mohammad Omar Aly Hussain, and six others.

Exclusive: Earmark critic steered cash to blimp, former aide  —  Rep. Pete Sessions — the chief of the Republicans' campaign arm in the House — says on his website that earmarks have become “a symbol of a broken Washington to the American people.”  —  Yet in 2008, Sessions himself steered …

50 Most Beautiful 2009 - Top 10 (HTML)  —  1. Rep. Martin Heinrich … Rep. Martin Heinrich has gone from climbing mountains to climbing stairs.  —  The avid outdoorsman, who once ran a wilderness adventure program for children and teens, now has to rely on his trips from his fifth-floor Longworth office …

British Foreign Secretary: Clinton threatened to cut-off intelligence-sharing if torture evidence is disclosed  —  I've written several times before about the amazing quest of Binyam Mohamed — a British resident released from Guantanamo in February, 2009 after seven years in captivity …

Iran police halt mourning protest  —  Iranian police have arrested mourners who had gathered at a cemetery in Tehran for a memorial to those killed in post-election violence, reports say.  —  Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi tried to join mourners at the graveside of Neda Agha Soltan …

America's Moral Panic Over Obesity  —  With health care in the news, everyone's looking for magic bullets to save money.  Obesity seems to be a growing favorite: wouldn't it be great if we could make everyone look like Jennifer Anniston, and be cheaper to treat?

Dan Rather wants Obama to help save the news  —  Login or register to post comments  —  Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute.

Obama's Doctor: President's Vision For Health Care Bound To Fail  —  The man Barack Obama consulted on medical matters for over two decades said on Tuesday that the president's vision for health care reform is bound for failure.  —  Dr. David Scheiner, a 70-year Chicago-based physician …

REPORT: A Statistical Analysis Of Policy Trends And Abnormalities In Sarah Palin's Tweets  —  After stepping down on Sunday morning, Sarah Palin posted her final Twitter update to her @AKGovSarahPalin account, which had close to 125k followers.  With Palin's refusal to specifically address …

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison Clarifies Resignation Talk, Kinda Sorta  —  Here are two things we have long assumed about Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.  —  One, she will challenge Gov. Rick Perry in next year's Texas gubernatorial primary.  Yes, I know, it should be more than just “assumed,” …

New Poll: Bring Down Debt, Don't Spend More  —  Most Americans continue to want the federal government to focus on reducing the budget deficit rather than spending money to stimulate the national economy, a new New York Times/CBS News poll finds.  Yet at the same time, most oppose some proposed solution for decreasing it.

Debts paid, Hillary Clinton builds $3+ million campaign fund for ...?  —  With all of the immense numbers coming out of Washington these days, former senator, ex-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign debt is chump change.  Make that, “was.”  —  Here's the news: There is no more Hillary Clinton campaign debt.

Now Kurtz blames Matthews, rather than Dobbs, for birther nonsense  —  Howard Kurtz seems to be committed to making his conflict of interest as obvious as possible.  Here's Kurtz during an appearance on the conservative Hugh Hewitt radio show: … No mention of CNN.  No mention of Lou Dobbs.