Officials: Al Qaeda claims it killed Bhutto  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin Thursday citing an alleged claim of responsibility by al Qaeda for former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination, a DHS official told CNN.

Be Reasonable  —  As Iowa sizes up the candidates, so do I.  —  By next week politically active Iowans will have met and tallied their votes.  Their decision this year will have a huge impact on the 2008 election, and a decisive impact on various candidacies.  Some will be done in.  Some will be made.

Trouble With Trade  —  While the United States has long imported oil and other raw materials from the third world, we used to import manufactured goods mainly from other rich countries like Canada, European nations and Japan.  —  But recently we crossed an important watershed …

Under Attack, Drug Maker Turned to Giuliani for Help  —  In western Virginia, far from the limelight, United States Attorney John L. Brownlee found himself on the telephone last year with a political and legal superstar, Rudolph W. Giuliani.  —  For years, Mr. Brownlee and his small team …

Iowa Saturated by Political Ads  —  DES MOINES — One week before Iowa kicks off the presidential nomination contest, the campaigns are spending three times as much money flooding the airwaves and the Internet as candidates did in 2004, hoping to sway the huge number of undecided voters after months of on-the-ground appeals.

Military Paper Challenges Defense Dept.  —  WASHINGTON — Top editors at the military newspaper Stars and Stripes are asking for full disclosure of the paper's relationship with a Department of Defense publicity program, called America Supports You, after disclosures that money for the program was funneled through the newspaper.

The 2007 Golden Monkeyfist Awards...  Finally!  —  The big awards are here, and I am ever humbled by the incredible lot of excellent consonant-level, unsung, Progressive blogs out there.  I honestly wish that I had time for more awards, but, we all have real jobs, and only so much time in a day to read new blogs.

Defaults moving beyond sub-prime  —  Joan Olsen, a retired welfare worker, fears she'll join the ranks of the delinquent.  She said she didn't fully understand the loan terms when she refinanced her San Diego condominium 15 months ago with an option ARM.  “I have no one but myself to blame …

Bhutto death makes McCain man of the moment  —  URBANDALE, Iowa — John McCain, older than dirt and with more scars than Frankenstein as he likes to say, suddenly wasn't looking so bad.  —  Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated in Pakistan and the political conversation in America had changed.