THE NEVADA CAUCUS: Poll: Nevada going to Clinton, Romney  —  Obama picks up no ground; Giuliani fades  —  Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Mitt Romney have comfortable leads in Nevada going into Saturday's presidential campaign caucuses, according to a new Review-Journal poll.

Obama Debuts New Act in Vegas  —  LAS VEGAS (AP) - The White House campaign has brought a new act to Vegas.  Barack Obama has stepped up his campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton, and he's trying to use humor to bring her down before this weekend's Democratic presidential caucus.

Placing the Candidates  —  Interesting chart from the Pew Center.  One piece of bad news for liberals is that it seems that the self-assessed ideology of the American people is still somewhat right of center.  It's also funny how unhinged Republicans' views of Hillary Clinton are.

Mauling survivor said he yelled at tiger  —  (01-17) 18:05 PST SAN FRANCISCO — One of the two survivors of the San Francisco Zoo tiger attack that left a 17-year-old dead told the victim's father that the three had yelled and waved at the animal while standing atop the railing of the tiger's exhibit …

Huck Hoax: Why He Won't Break Out  —  Mike Huckabee has pulled a neat trick.His appeal so far has been limited exclusively to evangelicals, yet the press has taken him seriously as a new populist force in the Republican Party who could at any moment “break out” to appeal to lower-income voters.

Mitt Romney's Lobbyist Connections  —  In a tense exchange with an AP reporter on Thursday, Mitt Romney insisted that even though a registered lobbyist is one of his senior advisers, lobbyists do not “run” his campaign.  —  The claim is part of Romney's new self-styled outsider message …

Nicholas Burns and the Clinton Legacy at State  —  Reports indicate R. Nicholas Burns, the State Department's Number 3 official, will be stepping down.  A career foreign service officer, Burns will best be remembered for his most visible post: the Clinton administration's top State Department spokesman during the mid-1990s.

Southern Blacks Are Split on Clinton vs. Obama  —  ATLANTA — The People's Voice African-American Weekly News in tiny Roanoke, Ala., has not endorsed a candidate in the state's Democratic presidential primary on Feb. 5 — much to the frustration of its publisher, Charlotte A. Clark-Frieson, a Barack Obama supporter.

O'Reilly Admits There Are 200K Homeless Vets, Still Says Edwards ‘Is A Liar’ Who Owes ‘An Apology’  —  Recently, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly attacked former senator John Edwards for noting the 200,000 homeless veterans who “go to sleep under bridges and on grates” every night.

Callous Conservative  —  After watching Fred Thompson debate his Republican rivals, I have often wondered why he is not in the top tier of candidates.  He seems to have John McCain's honesty, without his razor-sharp edges, and Mitt Romney's conservatism, without his jaw-dropping inconsistencies.

Fact Check: Sen. Obama Followed Hillary's Lead On Stimulus  —  Today, Sen. Obama falsely claimed that Hillary followed his lead on introducing a stimulus package: … Actually, the opposite is true.  Hillary first suggested a stimulus package in December.

50 WAYS TO BE A LOSER  —  I know I've been hitting on the Rudy collapse story for a while.  But it's just so vast there are a lot of points to cover.  Remember that the Rudy ‘plan’ (which on many levels is a phony one anyway) was to plan for a knockout blow in February by winning big states like California.

Ben Affleck made Nancy Pelosi giggly  —  Both Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek lost precious personal photos during vacations abroad over the holidays.  Hayek, who's a new mom, got her laptop stolen, and Cruz's camera was lost or stolen, according to letters sent out by Hollywood legal giant Marty Singer …

McCain Lies His Head Off; NY Times Asleep at Switch  —  One of the most common-supply-side talking points is that tax cuts always lead to higher tax revenues.  It's not really true (revenues crashed after the 2001 Bush tax cuts) but even if it were, it's misleading: Tax revenues tend to rise …

Misjudging McCain  —  He was right about the nuclear option.  —  JOHN MCCAIN HAS COME UNDER HEAVY FIRE from conservatives critical of his alleged apostasies.  To be sure, several of his stances—on tax cuts, illegal immigration, campaign-finance reform—stand at odds with the current mainstream of American conservatism.