The White House and Democratic Congressional leaders said Tuesday that they were bracing for a key procedural ruling that could complicate their effort to approve major health care legislation, by requiring President Obama to sign the bill into law before Congress could revise it through an expedited budget process.

“We believe what the president is doing is asking House Democrats to hold hands, jump off a cliff and hope Harry Reid catches them,” Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the No. 3 Republican, said on Tuesday. “And Senator Reid is not going to have any incentive to catch them because by the time the reconciliation bill gets to the Senate, the president will have already signed the health care bill into law and he’ll be well on his way to Indonesia.”

Overall, 43% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. That, too matches the lowest level yet recorded for this President. Fifty-six percent (56%) disapprove.

95 percent of black voters approved in April, with just 3 percentage points fewer — 92 percent — approving of his current performance.

"I think it makes perfect sense. ... African-Americans are more likely to support government intervention, they are more likely to support an activist government policy, they are less likely to trust corporations," he says. "And it also makes sense that the white communities become much more polarized [by the president's policies]; what doesn't make sense is that it has happened so quickly and so deeply."

The follow-up email sent out by the Sergeant at Arms’ office late Tuesday afternoon did not mention Drudge but said: “Our Information Security Operations Center has observed a significant increase in the number of Senate computers infected by fake security software that is malicious and does nothing to secure online information.”

Obama’s problem is that most other world leaders are not empty suits but people of some accomplishments. As these leaders have met and assessed him as of no consequence, in effect agreeing with Bill Clinton that Obama is little more than a coffee boy elected via celebrity syndrome, they have little interest in him and he realizes that he is not of their caliber either. Consequently, once past the pleasantries and the weather, neither has much to say to the other.

Of note is a story he related about Netanyahu when the two of them were at a dinner party hosted by Netanyahu. It seems the waiter accidentally ladled the soup, matzo ball I presume, onto Netanyahu’s lap. The waiter, rather than gushing over with apologies to his head of state, proceeded to berate him for being in the way while he was trying to do his job. Netanyahu apologized profusely... Blair asked rhetorically, in which other Middle Eastern nation might one witness such an episode with a similar outcome.

Ok, chaps, you didn't get us last time around, here's what you need to work on.

For those who might be interested – and you have every reason not to be – I am no longer with MSNBC. Three months short of my current contract I sent the following to the boss, Phil Griffin: “Phil, Just wanted to give you the heads up that my situation with MSNBC has become so unrewarding for me that I’ve decided to move on. — Craig”

i simply could not any longer endure being a cartoon player for lefty games, just gotta move on to higher ground even if there’s no oxygen

Hatch said he knew Scott Matheson was going to be the nominee more than a month ago and disputes any idea that Obama was trying to get a vote for the nomination.

According to internal Department of Interior documents leaked to a Utah congressman and obtained exclusively by Fox News, the mostly public lands include Arizona deserts, California mountains, Montana prairies, New Mexico forests, Washington islands and the Great Basins of Nevada and Colorado -- totaling more than 13 million acres. Sources say President Obama is likely to choose two or three sites from the list, depending on their size, conservation value and the development threat to each one's environment.

(Glora Borger, CNN Political Analyst) : Right. This isn't going to be subtle at all today. I think this is it. I was speaking with one senior White House adviser just before I came on the air, and he said, think of it this way. This is the last helicopter out of Saigon, OK? (Al Velshi, CNN anchor) : Wow. Borger: So, this means that, take it or leave it, this is your last chance to get on health care. . . .

Stupak -- namesake for the controversial Stupak Amendment to the House's original reform bill, which severely restricted funding for abortions -- isn't happy with the abortion language in the Senate version, which the House is being asked to pass. He's saying he'll vote against the legislation, and that 11 other House Democrats who were "yes" votes on that chamber's bill last fall will flip with him. Given the narrow margin of last year's vote, that could well prove a fatal blow to Democrats' efforts to get reform passed.

Pelosi was also asked if the Democratic Party was in crisis, to which she responded, "I feel strong. We were very effective in passing the Obama agenda in 2009," but she said, "When you're effective, you're a target.

Emanuel's greatest "victory" before this one, of course, was the one upon which he earned his reputation: Getting a bunch of conserva-Dems elected in purple states in 2006, winning the party control of the House while at the same time crippling its progressive agenda. This is what Emanuel is all about. For him, victory is everything -- even if you have to give up your core values to win, and even if you could have won while sticking to them.

The Rahm Emanuel that Obama hired is the poster child for the timid, pseudo-pragmatism that is inimical to the idealistic Obama agenda so many excited voters responded to last November. And it's a pragmatism that is absolutely killing the Democratic Party in the long run, because American voters have an intrinsic distrust of politicians they see as tacking with the polls or shying away from a fight. This if nothing else is the lesson of two George W. Bush presidencies: American voters have a profoundly soft spot for people with clear, strongly-held principles, almost regardless of what those principles are. Emanuel is a Bush Democrat - but not in that he has learned the lesson about the value of holding firmly to core values. He is a Bush Democrat in that he has allowed Republicans to traumatize him into submission. Emanuel operates on a battlefield as defined by Republicans, where the terrain is littered with the specter of imaginary but profoundly terrifying GOP attack ads. His reflexive approach is the strategic retreat. Most obviously in the current debate about health care, he has empowered the Democratic and centrist Republican obstructionists by validating their fear that come campaign time, they will be portrayed as radical -- even when they are supporting measures such as the public insurance option that have public support among a super-majority of voters.

To Emanuel, victory is the only thing, and rather than recognize the error of his ways and recalibrate, he is publicly declaring that the now widely-recognized enfeeblement of his boss's presidency is not his failure, but his vindication. Hail Emanuel triumphant.

“In order to avoid my colleagues having to defend me during their elections, I have this morning sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi asking her to grant me a leave of absence until such time as the ethics committee completes its work” on a number of accusations against him, the congressman said in a hurriedly scheduled meeting with reporters.

So, once again, the Obama administration has sold Great Britain, formerly our #1 ally, down the river, along with the inhabitants of the Falklands, whose opinions would seem to count for something. We are past the point where anyone could doubt that the Obama administration's hostility toward the U.K. is intentional. Obama seems to have substituted personal pathology for national policy.

The U.S., which backed Britain to the hilt when Argentina invaded its Falklands in 1982, has suddenly gone neutral on who has sovereignty over the islands. This is much more than a bad slap to our best ally. Remember April Glaspie, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq who infamously told Saddam Hussein in 1990: "But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." To Saddam, that was a green light from the U.S. to invade his tiny neighbor. Today, we hear similar language from the U.S. on another territorial dispute that may take us down the same road.