Bill Clinton and Journalists in Emotional Return to U.S.  —  WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton arrived in Los Angeles Wednesday morning after a dramatic 20-hour visit to North Korea, in which he won the freedom of two American journalists, opened a diplomatic channel …

Obama: ‘Left-wing groups’ should back off.  —  OBAMA WAVES OFF LIBERALS: On the same day that MoveOn.org announced a new wave of ads to pressure centrist ...  ... Democrats on health care reform, President Obama told Senate Democrats he wished “left-wing groups” would back off.

Tea Party-bashers gone wild  —  Creators Syndicate  —  The activist Left can't stand competition.  Last week in Long Island, NY, opponents of the Democrats' government health care takeover legislation outnumbered Obama supporters ten to one.  The Tea Party activists toted American flags …

CNN Poll: Americans split on Obama's health care proposals  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) - Americans appear split over President Barack Obama's health care reform proposals, according to a new national poll.  —  Fifty percent of those questioned in CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday morning …

Buffett's Betrayal  —  When I was 14, Warren Buffett wrote me a letter.  —  It was a response to one I'd sent him, pitching an investment idea.  For a kid interested in learning stocks, Buffett was a great role model.  His investing style — diligent security analysis, finding competent management …

Russian Subs Patrolling Off East Coast of U.S.  —  WASHINGTON — A pair of nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines has been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the United States in recent days, a rare mission that has raised concerns inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies …

Obama's Domestic Policies Are Having Immediate Effects on Race for Va. Governor  —  Some Voters Who Backed President Disillusioned Over Economic Pledges  —  The coffee was still brewing when Chris Ann Cleland got her first reminder of the day that voting for Barack Obama might have been a mistake.

Palin calls divorce report ‘made up’  —  Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin tells POLITICO that widespread blogosphere reports about a possible divorce from her husband, Todd, are “made up.”  —  In a brief telephone interview on Tuesday night, Palin quipped that she loves finding out “what's goin' on in my life from the news.”

Russ Carnahan rattled at Cash for Clunkers presser  —  Carnahan held a press conference at McMahon Ford in south St. Louis city.  Constituents who showed up to politely and peacefully voice their concerns were both barred from entering the lobby where Carnahan was fielding press inquiries …

Mass. bashers take note: Health reform is working  —  PUNDITS and politicians who oppose universal healthcare for the nation have a new straw man to kick around - the Massachusetts reform plan that covers more than 97 percent of the state's residents.  In the myth that these critics have manufactured …

Young GOPers Gaga Over Gingrich  —  ABC News' Devin Dwyer reports:  —  Before an energetic and enthusiastic young Republican crowd, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich weighed in today on the upcoming Senate confirmation vote for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and made predictions for health care reform legislation this fall.

Sen. George Voinovich and the GOP as a Party of the South  —  Southern writer Walker Percy liked to poke fun at Ohioans in his novels, just to even things out a bit.  —  “Usually Mississippians and Georgians are getting it from everybody, and Alabamians,” he once explained to an interviewer.

Liasson: ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program ‘is like a mini-Katrina.’  —  Last night, Fox News a clip aired of a woman at a Philadelphia town hall meeting over the weekend berating Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) about health care reform.  “What I see is a bureaucratic nightmare, senator. ...

Copyright Forever?  —  Nate Anderson has an excellent review of Mark Halperin's recent book-length brief for unlimited and very strong copyright, Digital Barbarism: A Writer's Manifesto.  I just wanted to amplify one point: … The related issue is that while re-writing Doctor Zhivago …

Hezbollah stockpiles 40,000 rockets near Israel border  —  Richard Beeston on the Israel-Lebanese border and Nicholas Blanford in Beirut  —  Three years after Israel fought a bloody war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, there are fears that hostilities could erupt again — this time with the militant group better armed than ever.

Wolffe at the Door  —  EXCLUSIVE: The radioactive book proposal from MSNBC's much-maligned pundit/publicist.  —  Richard Wolffe, the former Newsweek correspondent and author of the best-selling book Renegade: The Making of a President, who now works at Dan Bartlett's PR firm Public Strategies …

Common Scenes & Common Thoughts  —  Common Days & Nights  —  05 August 2009  —  The helicopter pilot wearing night vision goggles roared in so fast it looked as though he were crashing.  The four green Cylums (Americans call them Chemlights) mark the HLS.

California's Prison Disaster  —  A couple of weeks ago I described California as “a penal colony with a nice coastline.”  The coastline is still nice, but a three-judge panel has finally ordered the state to get off its ass and do something about our wretched and overflowing prison system:

Hey, Mister Postman  —  Art Laffer (why is he, of all people, on my TV?) asks what it will be like when the government runs Medicare and Medicaid.  —  But I'd raise a further question: he warns that when the government takes over these, um, government programs, they'll be like the Post Office and the DMV.

Preemptive dodging  —  Apparently Glenn Beck was either forced, or decided, to tell the maniacs that form a large portion of his audience NOT TO KILL OTHER PEOPLE.  So he's preemptively washed his hands.  —  But let's face the great lie of American history and the on-going threat to the nation's first black President.

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder  —  A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia.

Filibuster Nation  —  Judging by the first public meetings on health-care reform that members of Congress have begun convening in their districts, America is in Second Coming time, in the William Butler Yeats sense.  The best may or may not lack all conviction, as Yeats wrote in his classic poem …