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"That’s the kind of balance you need," said Geithner. "Why is that the case? Because if you don't try to generate more revenues through tax reform, if you don't ask, you know, the most fortunate Americans to bear a slightly larger burden of the privilege of being an American, then you have to -- the only way to achieve fiscal sustainability is through unacceptably deep cuts in benefits for middle class seniors, or unacceptably deep cuts in national security."

Romney wins CPAC with 38%.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, former National Restaurant Association board chairman Joseph Fassler offered a firm defense of GOP presidential front-runner Herman Cain, along with an explanation for how Washington’s best-kept secret — the identities of Cain’s sexual-harassment accusers — was also kept from the association’s board. “The accusations? It’s a hatchet job, in my opinion,” Fassler told TheDC from his Phoenix, Ariz. office. “My gut tells me it’s a hatchet job. He gets a lead, he gets some traction, and the next thing you know, here come these allegations. It’s sad.”

Freepers, not long ago I almost threw my TV at BOR for his glib dismissal of CAIN's candidacy. I steamed for over a week (and I still smoke abit). Citing no data or reasons other than BOR's superior intellect and mysterious 'sense' of universal truth, tonight BOR shocked me...he slathered all over this in his opening: 'Talking Points, wherein he defended Cain's 9-9-9, and said Cain deserves serious consideration.

In an interview with conservative radio icon Sean Hannity, former President Clinton adviser and campaign manager Dick Morris stated that, after speaking with a Democratic strategist, he thinks it is “very possible” that President Obama might acquiesce to requests from the Democratic leadership in Congress and bow out of the 2012 race, leaving the door open for him to return sometime in the future. “I asked a top Democratic strategist the other day and he thought that it was possible that, in January, Harry Reid comes to Obama and says, ‘Look you cost us control of the House last year,...

Janeane Garofalo: "Herman Cain is probably well liked by some of the Republicans because it hides the racist elements of the Republican party. Conservative movement and tea party movement, one in the same. "People like Karl Rove liked to keep the racism very covert. And so Herman Cain provides this great opportunity say you can say 'Look, this is not a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-female, anti-gay movement. Look we have a black man.'"

Rick Perry said Wednesday that he was sorry for saying at last week's Republican debate that those opposed to providing an in-state tuition break to the children of illegal immigrants "did not have a heart." “I was probably a bit over-passionate by using that word and it was inappropriate,” Perry said in a interview with Newsmax. “In Texas in 2001 we had 181 members of the legislature — only four voted against this piece of legislation — because it wasn’t about immigration it was about education.” But Perry stood by his argument that building a fence along the entire Mexican...

The emails from the Barack Obama reelect about winning a dinner with the president as a randomized reward for contributing to the campaign have gotten a bit more intense as time goes on, and the latest one, from the first lady, emphasizes that the winner of such a prize shouldn't freak out about it. Continue Reading "Just relax," she advises. The email is below. From: Michelle Obama [mailto:info@barackobama.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 2:34 PM To: Subject: These dinners XXXX — Not everyone knows how to prepare for a dinner like this. As someone who's eaten countless meals with my...

Herman Cain did well in last week’s GOP debate and won a decisive straw poll victory in Florida, but his numbers in a general election match-up against President Obama are little changed. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds that Obama earns 39% support while Cain attracts 34%. In that match-up, 14% prefer some other candidate, and 14% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) A month ago, the president led Cain by seven percentage points. In March Obama held an 18 point advantage over the businessman and talk show host. Data released...

A new Zogby poll puts Herman Cain​ at the top of the Republican field, as the top choice of 28% of poll respondents. (IBOPE Zogby International says the polling sample consists of “all likely voters and of likely Republican primary voters.”) Rounding out the top three are Rick Perry at 18%, and Mitt Romney at 17%. Fourth place goes to Ron Paul at 11%. Paul’s the most solid performer in Zogby’s polling history for the 2012 GOP race – his 11% might as well be chiseled in stone. Interestingly, this poll was conducted after the Orlando GOP debate, but before...

Just announced on TV: Congress has voted to stop NLRB in Boeing-like cases.

Last Thursday, the president urged Congress to pony up roughly $200 billion in taxpayer money to "provide more jobs for teachers [and] more jobs for construction workers" and more money to carry out other state and local activities. He urges Congress to spend this money even after handing out hundreds of billions of dollars for similar purposes as part of the 2009 stimulus package, as well as a score and more billion dollars again in 2010. These vast contributions to the coffers of state and local governments, though pitched as a jobs bill, are in reality the latest in a...

In everyday life, when you don't have something to say, you avoid the stage. In our nation's capital, by contrast, the world operates like the one Alice found behind the Looking Glass. That's a world where you have to run as hard as you can just to stay still. Which helps explain why President Obama will this week be addressing a joint session of Congress that doesn't really want to hear from him about a jobs plan that he doesn't really have. Expectations are high, the byproduct of a highly publicized back and forth with Republican Speaker John Boehner over...

President Obama told supporters at a fundraiser in Miami on Monday night that he deserves credit for cleaning up the mess he inherited. “My job over these first two years has frankly been to clean up a big mess,” Mr. Obama said at a $10,000-per-ticket event at a gated mansion in Miami Beach. “We were able to make sure we yanked an economy out of what could have been a second Great Depression.” “We stabilized the financial system,” the president said. “We made sure that we ended one war and started putting another war on a path where we could...

Google wouldn't be human if it weren't relieved that the latest Chinese hacking incident targeted not a hole in Google's defenses but a gullibility of its customers. The proper term is "spear phishing" for the use of email cons to scam a specific, chosen individual into revealing his or her password, allowing unauthorized access to inboxes and online accounts. In a blog post this week, Google announced that the latest attacks seem to come from Jinan, China. The targets were the Gmail accounts of "senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military...

The cameras and national press will be treated to a - still tieless! - Mitt Romney spooning up chili and kicking back with the folks on Thursday in Stratham, New Hampshire, site of the presumed Republican frontrunner's official campaign announcement. Romney's real action, though, is unfolding far from the Scammans' lovely farm. Looking to lock in his status as the field's most able fundraiser, Romney has a coast-to-coast schedule of fundraisers slated for the remainder of June. According to a schedule obtained by National Journal - which includes a preview of a July event in London, England - the former...

<p>DHAKA, Bangladesh - A 40-year-old Bangladeshi woman cut off a man's penis during an alleged attempted rape and took it to a police station as evidence, police in a remote part of the country said Monday.</p> <p>"As he tried to rape her, the lady cut his penis off with a knife. She then wrapped up the penis in a piece of polythene and brought it to the Jhalakathi police station as evidence of the crime," police chief Abul Khaer said.</p>

It's a personal story, but let it also serve as a public health rebuttal to the proposed ban on male circumcision that will be on the San Francisco ballot this November. San Francisco's ballot initiative would prohibit circumcision on all males under the age of 18. It would allow no religious exemptions, and it apparently gives no regard to the numerous studies demonstrating that male circumcision can substantially reduce—by more than 50%—the transmission of the HIV virus during sex. "Communities, and especially women, may benefit much more from circumcision interventions than had previously been predicted, and these results provide an...

Two days ago, Matt Drudge linked to a new book by Jerome Corsi, unflinchingly titled Where’s the Birth Certificate? The book immediately leapt to number one on Amazon.com, where it has remained ever since. The media has shown its usual incredulity at the indisputable stupidity of the American people. How could so many people question President Obama’s birthplace? How could they wonder about his origins? Are they all simply racist?

San Francisco -- ***Protestors in high-end fundraiser - see below*** Motorcade left the Intercontinental Hotel at 9 am local and arrived at the St. Regis for President Obama's last Bay area fundraiser. A couple dozen demonstrators are on a corner across the street from the hotel. They have signs - "Yes We Cannabis" and "Protect Marijuana Patients Rights" - and are chanting something your pooler couldn't make out. One of them also has sign of Uncle Sam's face with "LIAR" written on his hat. About 200 donors were at the breakfast fundraiser, per a Democratic official.Your pooler counted 15 tables...