The Warren Problem: Jane on CNN  —  Jane addresses the problems with having Pastor Rick Warren give the invocation at Barack Obama's inaugural on CNN at this hour.  —  Update: Jane spoke with Rick Sanchez who repeatedly asked why “the left” would have a problem with inviting Warren to speak at the presidential inaugural.

Franken The Likely Winner As Minnesota Recount Heads To Finish Line  —  Late Update: Norm Coleman's apparent lead has been cut to a mere five votes at the close of business today, according to the running vote count from the Star Tribune, down from a 358-vote lead last night.

Kennedy Takes A Beating From Upstate Media  —  Reporters Jump All Over Mostly Silent Princess Of Camelot; Mayor Of Syracuse Doesn't Offer Endorsement  —  Who Should Get Senate Gig?  Siena Poll: Cuomo 26, Kennedy 23  —  Reporting  —  Caroline Kennedy took a page from Hillary Clinton's playbook …

New Rule Protects Health-Care Workers' ‘Right of Conscience’  —  The Bush administration today issued a sweeping new regulation that protects a broad range of health-care workers — from doctors to janitors — who refuse to participate in providing services that they believe violate their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

AP source: Rep. Hilda Solis is Obama's labor pick  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — A labor official says Rep. Hilda Solis of California will be nominated as labor secretary by President-elect Barack Obama.  —  The Democratic congresswoman was just elected to her fifth term representing heavily Hispanic portions …

Brilliant: Credit Suisse To Pay Top Execs With Illiquid Mortgage Securities  —  We're shocked that nobody has suggested this before, but on its face this looks like a great idea... Credit Suisse announced today that bonuses for its top executives would be made in illiquid, mortgage-backed securities.

W. Mark Felt, Watergate Deep Throat, Dies at 95  —  W. Mark Felt, who was the No. 2 official at the F.B.I. when he helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon by resisting the Watergate cover-up and becoming Deep Throat, the most famous anonymous source in American history, died Thursday.

Russia rewriting Josef Stalin's legacy  —  Archives on dictator seized from human-rights group Memorial  —  A rally this month celebrating the 1936 adoption of Josef Stalin's Soviet Constitution illustrates his rising stock among some Russians.  (Dmitry Kostyukov / Getty-AFP / December 17, 2008)

“The American Public has a Right to Know That They Do Not Have to Choose Between Torture and Terror": Six questions for Matthew Alexander, author of How to Break a Terrorist  —  At 5:15 p.m. on June 7, 2006, two American F-16 fighters dropped 500-pound bombs on a farmhouse about five miles north of the Iraqi town of Baqubah.

Report raps ex-White House pair on Iraq claims  —  Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition  —  WASHINGTON - Former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales misled Congress when he claimed the CIA in 2002 approved information that ended up in the 2003 State of the Union speech …

President Bush Addresses the American Enterprise Institute  —  Washington, D.C.  —  In Focus: Health Care  —  In Focus: Economy  —  MR. DeMUTH: Mr. President, what's on your mind this morning?  —  THE PRESIDENT: First, thanking you for being the leader that you've been, and thanking AEI for generating good thought.

The economic Civil War  —  The South's attempt to kill the North's auto industry is the latest battle in an ongoing conflict.  It's time for a Third Reconstruction to put an end to it.  —  It is just as well that Barack Obama is emulating Abraham Lincoln by traveling to his inauguration in Washington by train.

Protest at the New School Turns Unruly  —  Dozens of students at the New School collided with security guards and police officers Thursday morning in a shouting and shoving confrontation after an overnight sit-in at a university cafeteria organized to protest the leadership of Bob Kerrey, the university's president, among other issues.

Fiscal policy and the burden of proof  —  I'd like to drive home the point that the case for fiscal policy has not yet been made by its advocates (the rest is under the fold)...  I believe that most current advocates of a huge fiscal stimulus have two major arguments in mind.

Katrina's Hidden Race War … The way Donnell Herrington tells it, there was no warning.  One second he was trudging through the heat.  The next he was lying prostrate on the pavement, his life spilling out of a hole in his throat, his body racked with pain, his vision blurred and distorted.