Poll: Obama makes gains, is even with Clinton in N.H.  —  PELHAM, N.H. — Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are locked in a dead heat among New Hampshire voters in a statewide USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, underscoring the volatility of the race less than three weeks before the nation's first primary.

Hasta La Vista  —  Tom Tancredo is an angry man.  —  We know this because he has proposed dropping bombs on Mecca.  We know this because he sang “Dixie” at a South Carolina gathering full of Confederate flags and white supremacists.  And we know this because he wants to expel 12 million people now living in the United States.

Richardson Accuses Clinton of ‘Flip-Flop’ on Iraq Pullout  —  MUSCATINE, Iowa — I just got a phone call — unprompted — from Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democratic candidate for president, blasting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for saying she would withdraw nearly all American troops …

A Flibbertigibbet, A Will O' The Wisp, A Clown  —  How do you solve a problem like Bill Clinton?  Eugene Robinson wonders whether it wouldn't be easier to keep a wave upon the sand than to try to shoehorn him into a ceremonial post as First Spouse.  Bill already acts as though the campaign exists …

Bush boxed in his congressional foes  —  HALCYON DAY: Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) at the opening of the 110th Congress in January.  Over the course of a year, President Bush used his veto and a core of loyal Republicans to substantially limit gains by the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

Hardball: Ed Schultz Squares Off Against Mark Green  —  Air America Radio President Mark Green and progressive talk show host Ed Schultz (whose show appears on some Air America affiliates as well as on their XM Radio channel) went toe to toe on Hillary Clinton's whisper campaign against Barack Obama on Thursday's Hardball.

Spending Bills Still Stuffed With Earmarks  —  Democrats Had Vowed To Curtail Pet Projects  —  Twice in the past two years, Alaska lawmakers lost congressional earmarks to build two “bridges to nowhere” costing hundreds of millions of dollars after Congress was embarrassed by public complaints …

Ron Paul's Photo-Op with Stormfront  —  An LGF reader emailed this photograph, showing Ron Paul at the Values Voters Presidential Debate in Fort Lauderdale on September 17, 2007.  Immediately to Paul's left: Don Black, the owner of neo-Nazi hate site Stormfront.

An Interview With Fred Thompson's Wife, Jeri Thompson  —  Yesterday, I got together with Fred Thompson's wife, Jeri Thompson, for a phone interview as she traveled around Iowa.  Unfortunately, near the end of the interview, while she was running low on time, she hit a bad cell.

Reid and company target the true enemy: “Dodd and his allies”  —  (updated below - Update II)  —  During yesterday's chat with Washington Post Congressional reporter Paul Kane, this extremely revealing exchange occurred, regarding the view of Harry Reid and other anonymous Democrats …

American Pastoral  —  Mike Huckabee preaches to the choir, but not everyone's singing along.  —  I didn't see the famous floating cross.  What I saw when I watched Mike Huckabee's Christmas commercial was a nice man in a sweater sitting next to a brightly lit tree.

Why Isn't Anyone Paying Attention to This?  —  This was not exactly bannered across the front page of the New York Times yesterday.  As a matter of fact, I don't think I saw it in my paper at all.  But on the Times' website, dated December 20, there is this headline: “Giuliani's Office Shifted Money Around?

Belgium arrests 14 in terrorist plot  —  BRUSSELS, Belgium - Belgian police Friday arrested 14 Muslim extremists suspected of planning the jailbreak of an al-Qaida prisoner convicted of plotting a terrorist attack on U.S. air base personnel, officials said.  —  Extra police were deployed across …

Putin ‘has secret $40bn fortune’  —  An unprecedented battle is taking place inside the Kremlin in advance of Vladimir Putin's departure from office, the Guardian has learned, with claims that the president presides over a secret multibillion-dollar fortune.