Exclusive: Obama authorizes secret support for Libya rebels  —  (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday.

Budget deal close with $33B in cuts  —  Budget talks came to life Wednesday but not without new tension between the White House and Senate Democrats, worried that the administration is too quick to agree to $33 billion in cuts to move Speaker John Boehner toward what remains a very uncertain deal.

VIDEO: Indiana GOP Rep Says Women Will Pretend To Be Raped To Get Free Abortions  —  Yesterday morning, the Indiana House considered an anti-abortion bill that “would put some of the tightest abortion restrictions in the nation into Indiana law.”  Introduced by state Rep. Eric Turner (R) …

Adding our Voice to Concerns about Search in Europe  —  Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Microsoft Corporation  —  Microsoft is filing a formal complaint with the European Commission as part of the Commission's ongoing investigation into whether Google has violated European competition law.

GOPers Demand Sean Duffy Salary Tape Be Pulled From The Internet (VIDEO)  —  First the Republican Party in Polk County, Wisconsin, pulled the tape of Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) fretting about making ends meet on his $174,000 a year salary from its own website.  Now they want it gone from the whole Internet.

GOP report: AARP stands to make $1 billion from ObamaCare, IRS should investigate  —  Good stuff.  AARP is the Death Star of American entitlements, so if the GOP wants to reform Social Security and Medicare, they're going to have to fire some photon torpedoes.

Obama's jaw-dropping hypocrisy on energy  —  The Post reports: … It's nice that he's discovered the importance of domestic energy development, but his rhetoric overlooks his own policies over the past two years.  Yesterday on the Senate floor Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) …

Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates win no love on Capitol Hill  —  President Barack Obama's foreign policy “A” team — led by Cabinet secretaries Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates — failed to quiet criticism of U.S. military action in Libya Wednesday during a pair of classified briefings on Capitol Hill.

With New ‘Monkey Bill,’ Tennessee Takes Evolution Education Back To Scopes  —  Eighty six years after the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial opened Tennessee classrooms to the teaching of evolution, the state House is trying to slam the door shut again.  Tennessee's House Education Committee approved …

An Arizona Senate Race Waits to See if Giffords Emerges to Run  —  TUCSON — Representative Gabrielle Giffords is still in the hospital, but some of her most ardent backers are so enamored of the idea of her running for the Senate that they describe the inevitable campaign commercials …

Democrats consider proposing tax hikes  —  Senate Democrats are discussing plans to introduce tax policy changes that they say would raise federal revenues and broaden the budget debate beyond discretionary spending cuts.  —  Democrats feel they have been boxed by Republicans into a debate …

Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as ‘The Governator’ — EXCLUSIVE  —  He's been a famous body builder.  He's been a killer cyborg from the future.  He's been Governor of California.  And now, in this week's exclusive cover scoop, Arnold Schwarzenegger reveals his plans for the next phase …

Israel, The Third Nation on the Moon?  —  If all goes according to plan, by December 2012 a team of three young Israeli scientists will have landed a tiny spacecraft on the moon, explored the lunar surface, and transmitted live video back to earth, thereby scooping up a $20 million prize …

Obama issues veto threat over union measure in FAA bill  —  President Obama has threatened to veto the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill unless a provision on union organizing is removed.  —  In a statement of administration policy Wednesday, the White House said the president's …

A Well-Intentioned Bad Idea  —  International Vice President, United Steelworkers  —  By now anyone who had not yet heard of the Koch brothers has been introduced to them.  Every major newspaper and magazine has run an article about the brothers who until recently lived largely under …

CIA officers working with Libya rebels  —  CIA officers are coordinating with antigovernment fighters and sharing intelligence, but the Obama administration is undecided whether to supply weapons.  Leading lawmakers from both parties are against the idea.  —  Reporting from Washington …

Supreme Court rejects damages for innocent man who spent 14 years on death row  —  In a 5-4 ruling, justices overturn a jury verdict awarding $14 million to John Thompson, who had sued then-New Orleans Dist.  Atty. Harry Connick Sr. because prosecutors hid a blood test that would have proved his innocence in a murder case.

Protests spread through Capitol  —  ALBANY — The State Senate has taken the rare step of shutting down its lobby to the public as budget protestors start arriving at the Capitol for a series of demonstrations in the hallways against the budget being adopted today.

Ohio Lawmakers Pass Anti-Union Bill  —  The two houses of the Ohio Legislature approved a far-reaching bill on Wednesday that would hobble the ability of public-employee unions to bargain collectively and undercut their political clout.  —  They sent the bill to Gov. John R. Kasich …

Odd Alliance: Business Lobby and Tea Party  —  The Tea Party does not have a presence in Indonesia, where the term evokes cups of orange pekoe and sweet cakes rather than angry citizens in “Don't Tread on Me” T-shirts.  —  But a Tea Party group in the United States, the Institute for Liberty …

Tapper offers Carney ‘straw men’  —  The temperature in the White House briefing jumped up Wednesday afternoon as Jake Tapper and Jay Carney vented some of their frustrations with each other publicly.  —  At one point, Tapper dissed Carney by saying he could provide a “room full of straw men” for the White House press secretary.