Let's Hear Some Straight Talk  —  BEGIN TRANSCRIPT  —  RUSH: A new California poll taken just after Fred Thompson's withdrawal from the Republican primary shows Mitt Romney as leading big over McCain in California when it comes to which candidate best represents the Republican Party.

Some in Party Bristle At Clintons' Attacks  —  Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign aired a new radio ad here Wednesday that repeated a discredited charge against Sen. Barack Obama, in what some Democrats said is part of an increasing pattern of hardball politics by her and former president Bill Clinton.

Tentative Deal on Economic Stimulus Plan  —  WASHINGTON — House leaders and the White House on Thursday announced a tentative agreement on an economic stimulus package of roughly $150 billion that would pay stipends of $300 to $1,200 per family and provide tax incentives for businesses to encourage spending.

Jay Rockefeller's unintentionally revealing comments  —  As the Senate takes up “debate” today over granting the President new warrantless eavesdropping powers and granting immunity to lawbreaking telecoms, the individual who joined forces with Dick Cheney to get this ball rolling …

Obama said oops on 6 state Senate votes  —  He pushed the wrong button, he asserted at the time.  Two of the admitted flubs were on hotly contested issues.  —  Barack Obama angered fellow Democrats in the Illinois Senate when he voted to strip millions of dollars from a child welfare office on Chicago's West Side.

The Dems just gave away your stimulus check  —  According to AP, congressional leaders have reached a deal on those economic stimulus checks.  And rather than being geared towards helping the economy, they're apparently geared towards redistributing wealth (that would be our wealth) to the poor.

Bill Gates Issues Call For Kinder Capitalism  —  Famously Competitive, Billionaire Now Urges Business to Aid the Poor  —  Free enterprise has been good to Bill Gates.  But today, the Microsoft Corp. chairman will call for a revision of capitalism.  —  In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos …

Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby Poll: Obama's SC lead slipping but still wide  —  Edwards makes gains amid shifting voter preferences  —  Utica, NY - Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's lead over New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has shrunk by four points overall and by nine points among black voters …

The Thompson Postmortem  —  This will be the first in a series of posts analyzing each of the Republican presidential candidates as they depart the race (or, in one case, somehow miraculously wind up with the nomination).  I have asked some of the GOP's brightest strategists to share …

Bono confesses sins to ‘father’ Al Gore  —  Having climate campaigner Al Gore round to your house is to open yourself to a self-flagellating guilt trip, Irish rock star Bono confessed Thursday.  —  Sharing a stage with the former US vice president at the annual gathering of world movers …

Canadian Military Has Quit Turning Detainees Over to Afghans  —  OTTAWA — The Canadian military secretly stopped transferring prisoners to Afghanistan's government in November after Canadian monitors found evidence that they were being abused and tortured.  —  The suspension, which began Nov. 5 …

Editing Hillary's Story  —  Last summer, I asked Hillary Clinton if she had any reservations about using her husband in her campaign.  She said no, that having Bill on the team was “a great gift.  I have always believed you should get the very best people to advise you."  —  I never really made use of the interview.

‘Internal and External Threats’  —  But it also includes a provision that promises to maintain the stability of Iraq's government from “internal and external threats."  This sentence is raising alarms for some U.S. lawmakers.  —  Any such agreement would be considered a treaty by many legal experts.