Pols eye once-in-a-generation opening  —  The death of Democratic titan Sen. Ted Kennedy, which creates the first Senate opening in Massachusetts in 25 years, is likely to release the pent-up ambitions of a long line of Democrats who will find the upcoming special election hard to pass up.

NM Gov. Richardson said to be clear of fed probe  —  SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former high-ranking members of his administration won't be criminally charged in a yearlong federal investigation into pay-to-play allegations involving one of the Democratic governor's …

Court's Steroid Ruling Pumps Up Computer Privacy  —  A divided 11-judge federal appeals court panel has dramatically narrowed the government's search-and-seizure powers in the digital age, ruling Wednesday that federal prosecutors went too far when seizing 104 professional baseball players' drug results …

Big winners in Cash for Clunkers: Toyota, Honda, and Nissan; Update: Parts business big losers?  —  The Obama administration spent three billion dollars subsidizing the destruction of 700,000 vehicles in order to boost car sales.  Which auto makers actually benefited from these American tax subsidies?

Files prove Pentagon is profiling reporters … WASHINGTON — Contrary to the insistence of Pentagon officials this week that they are not rating the work of reporters covering U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Stars and Stripes has obtained documents that prove that reporters' coverage is being graded as “positive,” “neutral” or “negative.”

The Real CIA News  —  Interrogations were carefully limited, briefed on Capitol Hill, and yielded information that saved innocent lives.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  Whoever advised people to be skeptical of what they read in the papers must have had in mind this week's coverage of the documents about CIA interrogations.

Elle Macpherson Can't Counter London Gloom as Americans Flee  —  Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) — Andrew Wesbecher moved to London from New York in 2006 to sell software to banks and hedge funds.  This month he joined the exodus of American expatriates fleeing high taxes and the city's shrinking financial industry.

‘Cruel and neglectful’ care of one million NHS patients exposed  —  One million NHS patients have been the victims of appalling care in hospitals across Britain, according to a major report released today.  —  In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands …

The Spend-And-Borrow Economy  —  What's the exit strategy from the monetary and fiscal easing?  —  In the last few months the world economy has been saved from a near-depression.  That feat has been achieved by a range of extraordinary government stimulus measures: In the U.S. and in China …

Health care industry contributes heavily to Blue Dogs  —  WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration and Democrats wrangled over the timing, shape and cost of health care overhaul efforts during the first half of the year, more than half the $1.1 million in campaign contributions …

Palin billed as event speaker but she's not showing up  —  TONIGHT: Spokeswoman says ex-governor was never asked.  —  Organizers of an Anchorage event that has been billing Sarah Palin for weeks as a star speaker were left scrambling Wednesday after learning that the former governor …

Landrieu says she would likely oppose government insurance option  —  U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu told a relatively friendly overflow Monroe Chamber of Commerce crowd that she would likely oppose any government insurance option in health care reform and lobby against a proposed energy tax known as Cap and Trade.

Federal Reserve Says Disclosing Loans Will Hurt Banks  —  Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve argued yesterday that identifying the financial institutions that benefited from its emergency loans would harm the companies and render the central bank's planned appeal of a court ruling moot.

Ted Kennedy death gets expected coverage from cable news networks  —  To the casual viewer, cable news coverage of Sen. Edward Kennedy's death Wednesday lined up as neatly as the punch line in a joke about the alleged political agendas of those channels.  —  Starting from the safe premise …

Palin comes out in support of Fox's Beck over boycott  —  WASHINGTON — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is jumping into the fray over Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck, whose assertion last month that President Barack Obama is “a racist” led to a boycott of the companies advertising on his show …

Congress Should Reform Immigration to Honor Kennedy  —  Along with a health care reform bill, it would be a fitting tribute to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) if Congress could act on his other great unfinished cause: immigration reform.  —  For all his liberal Democratic passion …

Gov. Rick Perry's Anti-Washington Rhetoric is Political Double Talk  —  If you conduct a Google search for “Rick Perry” and “Washington,” it turns out that you get 793,000 results.  In the past 30 days alone there have been 1,116 news stories with the same search terms.

Obama's Health Rationer-in-Chief  —  White House health-care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the ‘overuse’ of medical care.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under scrutiny.

The Coming Air Force Crisis  —  David Petraeus makes a joke: … As Robert Farley says, this kind of thing is a pretty typical ground forces joke but “the AFA whining reveals a certain insecurity.”  —  It's worth observing that this issue is going to become much more severe in the years to come.

Stung by the Perfect Sting  —  If I read all the vile stuff about me on the Internet, I'd never come to work.  I'd scamper off and live my dream of being a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming.  —  If you're written about in a nasty way, it looms much larger for you than for anyone else.