There are reports that President Obama will appoint a commission the week after next to “reform” Social Security. It will be headed by economists who missed the $8 trillion housing bubble and are on record as wanting to cut Social Security.

Mazda, which reportedly has the largest endorsement deal with a foreigner in China, got Michael Phelps to record a YouTube apology to his “Chinese friends.”

Meet two couples who tried to get married in Beverly Hills today during Freedom to Marry’s marriage counter action. Despite application forms that read Person 1 and Person 2, these couples can’t be legally united because of Proposition 8.

Joe Biden says the U.S. is “going to have to be very deeply involved” in forcing the Iraqi government to get serious about political reconciliation. Iraq’s prime minister tells Biden to go reconcile himself.

Because no one who works for The Letter Z would ever open fire on a group of civilians around a Baghdad traffic circle, right?

The House has passed the revised recovery package. . . no thanks to the Republicans, of course.

The House just passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It now goes to the Senate for a final vote, which is expected to take place tonight. People will be looking over the text of the bill to figure out what it is that passed.

Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel is putting a stake in through the heart of bipartisanship:

Mr.

Remember that Office of Public Responsibility investigation that Congress requested, Bush squelched (by refusing the investigators clearance to do the investigation), but that, under Mukasey got reinstated? Apparently it came to the same conclusion everyone else already had–that the lawyering that went into Bush and Cheney’s justification of torture and warrantless wiretap was crap. The question is, did Michael Mukasey and Mark Filip succeed in their efforts to squelch the report?

It appears Dan Boren doesn’t think the Democrats are Americans.

The power struggle between Rahm and Congressional Democratic leadership continues. Five Thirty Eight:Emanuel said the idea for Gregg as Commerce Secretary had come to the White House through Harry Reid, that it was not the White House’s original idea.

Yesterday Robert Gibbs said that Gregg had approached the White House for the job.