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"Coming off one of the most difficult weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama has beefed up his political staff and is expected to deliver an uncompromising State of the Union address. But aides said Sunday that the White House wasn't making any abrupt policy shifts, even as the message was retooled to focus more sharply on job creation. If anything, an unfinished agenda from 2009 will grow larger as, in addition to tackling health care and unemployment, the president presses for a bipartisan commission to tackle the budget deficit against resistance from Republicans. White House officials said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe will be brought on as a political consultant as the White House gears up for the midterm elections. The president's party is facing a stiff headwind from an electorate angry about high unemployment and what they see as ineffectual government, White House officials say. Republican Scott Brown's victory for the Massachusetts Senate seat Tuesday was a first shot in what Democrats worry will be hard-fought contests in November. "People are working harder," White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on ABC's "This Week," referring to the economy. "If they have a job, they're working harder for less. They're falling behind. That's been true for a decade. They look at a wave of irresponsibility from Wall Street to Washington that led to that. And those were the frustrations that got the president elected in the first place, and they were reflected again on Tuesday" in the Massachusetts election."

In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan -- Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism -- responds to critics of the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies by saying "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda." Brennan writes that, "Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill." In the oped, titled "'We need no lectures': Administration disrupts terrorists' plots, takes fight to them abroad," Brennan writes that politics "should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe." The administration op-ed is in response to a USA Today editorial entitled "National security team fails to inspire confidence; Officials' handling of Christmas Day attack looks like amateur hour." Brennan provides a detailed defense of the administration's handling of failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab whom, he says, was "thoroughly interrogated and provided important information." He suggests that many critics are hypocritical and clueless.

What a baffoon!

Chile's Chaiten volcano has been placed under red alert due to an increase in seismic activity for three weeks, the Chilean government said.The volcano in southern Chile became active in May 2008 after being dormant for more than 9,000 years.Volcanic activity was on the decline in the past few months until picking back up January 21, the Chilean Interior Ministry said in a news release Monday.The red alert, which indicates activity is above normal levels and an eruption could be imminent, was enacted in large part to protect tourists in the area, said Carmen Fernandez, director of Chile's National Emergency Office.Underground seismic rumblings 1.2 to 5 miles (2 to 8 kilometers) deep in the area around the volcano and constant gas eruptions in the dome indicate "a high grade of instability," the National Emergency Office said.

Global stocks were mixed Friday, with European shares paring earlier gains after preliminary data showed the euro zone economy's recovery faltered in the fourth quarter, on top of investors still uncertain as to what will happen to Greece. Experts told CNBC that given Greece's troubles, investors should get out of stocks and bonds and into something safer, like cash.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a "punch" that will stun world powers during this week's 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution. "The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11) in a way that will leave them stunned," Khamenei, who is also Iran's commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel. The country's top cleric was marking the occasion when Iran's air force gave its support to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a key event which led to the toppling of the US-backed shah on February 11, 1979.

Treasury said it is working closely with Congress to raise the ceiling. The Senate has approved legislation to increase it by $1.9 trillion to $14.3 trillion. A ceiling that high would equal about $45,000 for every American. The House is expected to vote on the increase Thursday.

San Jose State economics professor Jeffrey Rogers Hummel tells all his students that the easiest way to understand the Federal Reserve is to think of it as a giant, legalized counterfeiter. I had always known that the Fed and other central banks were like counterfeiters, but I still thought that the actual mechanics of open-market operations and so forth actually provided some important distinctions.

The U.S. may lose 824,000 jobs when the government releases its annual revision to employment data on Feb. 5, showing the labor market was in worse shape during the recession than known at the time. Click here for a Bloomberg Multimedia interactive visual analysis of the economy's job losses.

A lot of people are very upset about the rapidly increasing U.S. national debt these days and they are  demanding a solution. What they don't realize is that there simply is not a solution under the current U.S. financial system. It is now mathematically impossible for the U.S. government to pay off the U.S. national debt. You see, the truth is that the U.S. government now owes more dollars than actually exist. If the U.S. government went out today and took every single penny from every single American bank, business and taxpayer, they still would not be able to pay off the national debt. And if they did that, obviously American society would stop functioning because nobody would have any money to buy or sell anything.

The United Nations and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are moving forward with their plan to confiscate your guns. The United States joined 152 other countries in support of the Arms Trade Treaty Resolution, which establishes the dates for the 2012 UN conference intended to attack American sovereignty by stripping Americans of the right to keep and bear arms. Working groups of anti-gun countries will begin scripting language for the conference this year, creating a blueprint for other countries when they meet at the full conference. The stakes couldn't be higher.