The Paygo Farce  —  Democrats admit it was all a big confidence game. … Well, as Emily Littela, the half-witted Gilder Radner character on Saturday Night Live, would have put it: "Never mind."  Last week Congressional Democrats formally renounced their ballyhooed budget pledge to offset …

Winfrey wows crowd  —  29,000 attend Columbia rally for Obama  —  In what Sen. Barack Obama described as the best-attended rally of the political season for any candidate, more than 29,000 attendees jammed Williams-Brice Stadium Sunday.  —  Media mogul Oprah Winfrey rallied the crowd of supporters …

Tension in Hillaryland Grows as Plan Goes Awry: Albert R. Hunt  —  Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — To appreciate Hillary Clinton's fundamental political problem, consider the 11 Democrats from Philadelphia who gathered last week to discuss the U.S. presidential race, almost all of whom would vote for her in a general election.

The Transcript of the GOP's Univsion Debate  —  MODERATOR: Good evening and welcome to the presidential forum.  —  (inaudible) in Spanish at the University of Miami.  —  Tonight is the Republicans' night.  For the first time, seven of  —  the Republican candidates are going to participate tonight in a

Students stone police in Iran riot  —  Students defied a clampdown on protests in Iran yesterday by tearing down the gates of Tehran university.  —  They chanted slogans against President Ahmadinejad and carried placards saying "Live free or die", "No war, no fascism" and "Women must decide their fate, not the state."

Henry Paulson's Priorities  —  By Bush administration standards, Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, is a good guy.  He isn't conspicuously incompetent; and he isn't trying to mislead us into war, justify torture or protect corrupt contractors.  —  But Mr. Paulson's actions reflect the priorities of the administration he serves.

Lawrence O'Donnell Loses His Ever-Loving Mind on McLaughlin  —  A sane, if highly flawed, discussion of Mitt Romney's "Faith In America" speech on the McLaughlin Group was cold-cocked into the realm of crazy-faced anger by guest panelist Lawrence O'Donnell this morning, who started off by criticizing Romney …

GOP launches first attack invoking Hillary  —  The Republican Party has launched its first use of unflattering images of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to motivate voters in two congressional special elections this week, marking the beginning of what could be a year-long barrage of ads …

Sunday horror: Church shootings in Colorado; gunman killed by armed female church security staffer  —  Update 12/10 8:30am.  The gunman was wearing a tactical helmet and body armor.  —  By now, you've read about the two tragic church shootings incidents in Colorado earlier today.

CAUGHT YOUTHENING: Maureen Dowd's latest column begins: … But if you're imagining Dowd as a pigtailed six-year-old in the back of the family station wagon, think again.  The temple was finished in 1974.  Maureen Dowd was born in 1952.  So she was a "kid" who was old enough to vote and drink.

Rudy Giuliani plays defense on 'Press'  —  WASHINGTON - Rudy Giuliani, on the hot seat Sunday for the most exhaustive grilling of his presidential campaign, doggedly insisted that death threats against then-girlfriend Judith Nathan prompted the NYPD to launch her taxpayer-funded chauffeur services.

After the Battle of Al-Fajr  —  FALLUJAH, IRAQ - Fallujah is known as the City of Mosques.  It is also a city of walls, and of war.  —  It was a quieter city than most after the initial invasion in 2003.  There was less looting than in Baghdad, and the mayor was pro-American.

U.S. Mortgage Crisis Rivals S&L Meltdown  —  Toll of Economic Shocks May Linger for Years; A Global Credit Crunch  —  The home has long been the bedrock asset of most American families.  Now, its value has become the biggest question mark hanging over the global economy and financial system.

A Joint Investigative Committee Should Expose the Torture Coverup  —  There is a simple way for Speaker Pelosi and Congressional Democrats to counteract the implicit blackmail to which they were subjected in Sunday's Washington Post.  Go public.  They should call the White House's bluff …

Calling a censor a censor — censored!  —  Canada does not have our First Amendment.  It does not have as strong a protection for free speech as we do here in the U. S. of A.  —  I can say this even as America's free speech rights have been eroded by McCain-Feingold and other meddling regulations.

Hoyer Is Proof of Earmarks' Endurance  —  Md. Democrat's Campaign Donors Among Grantees  —  Even as House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer has joined in steps to clean up pork-barrel spending, the Maryland congressman has tucked $96 million worth of pet projects into next year's federal budget …