• Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) calls in at 8:30am Pacific to talk about the importance of passing meaningful health care reform.

• President Obama is expected to nominate Ben Bernanke to a second term as head of the Federal Reserve today. Bernanke, a Republican who has played a central role in the government’s extraordinary response to the recession and 2008 banking panic, will have to be confirmed by the Senate.

• The Obama administration launched a criminal investigation yesterday into harsh questioning of detainees during President Bush’s war on terrorism, revealing CIA interrogators’ threats to kill one suspect’s children and to force another to watch his mother sexually assaulted.

• The Los Angeles County coroner’s finding that the death of Michael Jackson was a homicide could mean criminal charges for his doctor, who told investigators that he administered a mix of powerful drugs to treat the pop star’s insomnia hours before his death.

• President Obama played tennis with his wife and golf with his buddies yesterday, starting his first vacation in office on Martha’s Vineyard of the coast of Massachusetts.

• CNN’s Paul Begala calls in at 7:05am Pacific to talk about health care reform, Libya, and the President’s vacation.

• The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing CIA employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects.

• Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the independent senator counted on by Dems in the health care debate, showed signs of wavering yesterday when he urged President Obama to postpone many of his initiatives because of the economic downturn.

• The First Family settled in yesterday for their vacation on Martha’s Vineyard not long after Hurricane Bill scampered away, leaving behind big waves and heavy rip currents for the Obamas.

• The Obama administration expects the federal deficit over the next decade to be $2 trillion bigger than previously estimated, White House officials said Friday, a setback for a president already facing a Congress and public wary over spending.

• Administration officials defended President Obama’s broad health care proposals yesterday and urged a skeptical public not to judge the Dems’ overhaul until Congress writes the final version. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that it’s “a work in progress,” and said “more will be done. The House and Senate are committed to working with the president to get this done.

• Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the top GOPer on the Senate committee reviewing Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination said yesterday her testimony did not settle his concerns about elevating her to the Supreme Court. “I was troubled by a number of the things the nominee has said, a number of the rulings she has made,” he said.

• The House Intelligence Committee will investigate whether the CIA broke the law by not telling Congress earlier about a secret program to deploy hit teams to kill individual Al Qaida members. Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) announced the investigation in a statement on Friday.

• A self-described “more contrite” South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford wrote an op-ed, published in newspapers around South Carolina yesterday, trying to win forgiveness after admitting to an affair and being incommunicado while he left the state for several days. He vowed to “begin the journey of trying to get things more right with you and others.”

• AIG Insurance is preparing to pay millions of dollars more in bonuses to several dozen top corporate executives after an earlier round of payments set off a national furor. The troubled insurance giant has been pressing the federal government to bless the payments in hopes of shielding itself from renewed public outrage.

• The White House says it expects “frank” but constructive talks in President Obama’s meeting today with Pope Benedict XVI – two men who share similar views on helping the poor and pushing for Middle East peace, but disagree on abortion and stem cell research.

• CIA Director Leon Panetta has ordered an internal inquiry into the agency’s handling of a contentious and still highly classified program that has caused heated dispute between the CIA and Dems on the House Intelligence Committee.

• Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) will today be announcing that he will not run for re-election in 2010. In addition to his problems regarding the details of his appointment to the seat by ousted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Burris has raised just $845 for the 2010 cycle.

• In April 2008, Sen. John Ensign’s parents each made gifts to the campaign staffer he had his affair with, her husband, and two of their children in the form of a check totaling $96,000. The payments were made as gifts, accepted as gifts, and complied with tax rules governing gifts.

• Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) calls in at 8:35am Pacific to talk about the economy and the stimulus.

• CIA Director Leon Panetta recently testified to Congress that the agency concealed information and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001, according to a letter from seven House Democrats to Panetta made public yesterday. The letter contained no details about what information the CIA officials allegedly concealed of how they purportedly misled members of Congress.

• House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said Tuesday he would consider supporting a second economic stimulus bill, but said people need to give the package that passed in February more time to work.

• Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) said yesterday that lawmakers still need to come up with $320 billion over the coming decade in taxes to pay for health care reform. The remaining cost of the bill would be paid for through savings in Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs.

• The leaders of the G-8 nations issued a joint statement last night expressing serious concerns about the post-election violence in Iran, as well as its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons, but the G-8 will not push for new economic sanctions or tougher enforcement of those that exist, the Obama administration announced yesterday.

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bluntly accused the CIA yesterday of misleading her and other lawmakers about its use of waterboarding during the Bush administration, escalating a controversy grown to include both political parties, the spy agency, and the White House.

• The CIA says it has denied a request by former Vice President Dick Cheney to declassify secret internal government memos that detail whether valuable intelligence was gained from the use of torture techniques under the Bush administration. A CIA spokesman says the documents are the subject of pending litigation – making them not subject to declassification.

• President Obama is planning to resume the Bush administration’s highly controversial military tribunal system – which Obama suspended his first week in office – for some Gitmo detainees. The updated system will include expanded due-process rights for suspects. The ACLU called the expected new approach “fatally flawed” despite the changes.

• President Obama urged Congress yesterday to quickly send him legislation ending abusive credit card practices. But his populist appeal also included a stern warning to shoppers whose eyes are bigger than their budgets.

• Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about the economy and other news of the day.

• Cassandra Peterson (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark) joins us in studio at 8am Pacific to talk about all things politics and pop culture.

• A former FBI supervisory agent told Congress yesterday that the so-called CIA enhanced interrogation techniques authorized for use against Al Qaida by the Bush administration were in fact “slow, ineffective, unreliable, and harmful.”

• President Obama reversed course on releasing more detainee abuse photos yesterday by saying they would not be released, defending his decision by saying it would only put American troops in harm’s way and create a backlash against Americans.

• Congress is nearing completion of a bill that would place tough new restrictions on credit card companies and protect card holders from arbitrary rate hikes and other deceptive practices. Senators could vote this week on a “Bill of Rights” for owners of credit cards.

• The GOP blocked President Obama’s pick for the No. 2 job at the Interior Department yesterday in a dispute over oil and gas leases, but Dems said they would soon make a second attempt to win confirmation.

• President Obama gathered together every confirmed member of his Cabinet for the first time as president yesterday and challenged them to cut $100 million in the next 90 days. The edict is part of Obama’s “commitment to go line by line through the budget to cut spending” and “reform the government.

• The Norm Coleman legal team announced yesterday that it would be filing a notice of appeal with the Minnesota Supreme Court. Coleman’s lawyers say it could take anywhere from “two weeks to two months” for the court to begin hearing oral arguments.

• A number of delegates walked out of a United Nations conference on racism in Geneva yesterday when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a racist government during his address. Some 40 Western diplomats walked out of the room when Ahmadinejad said Israel was created on the “pretext of Jewish suffering” from the Second World War. The U.S. Canada, and Israel all boycotted the meeting.

• A Boston University medical student was arrested yesterday in the shooting death in a hotel of a masseuse and the robbery of another woman who both advertised their services on Craigslist.

• President Barack Obama is sending his Treasury secretary and budget director to Capitol Hill today to defend his proposed tax increases, which are being met with misgivings by both GOPers and Dems in Congress. Administration officials say the nation’s economic crisis requires bold action to right the economy and expand access to health care while providing tax breaks to middle- and low-income families.

• The CIA has destroyed nearly 100 interrogation tapes of terror suspects, a number far greater than was previously acknowledged by the agency. The agency’s admission came in new documents filed in a lawsuit seeking details about the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody outside the country.

• U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised today to work with the incoming Israeli government, easing tensions ahead of a meeting but delivered a clear message that Washington is committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state, putting her at odds with Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu.

• President Obama nominated Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius yesterday to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. She would help him overhaul a health care system whose cost has risen 4 times as fast as people’s wages in recent years.