Lieberman Gets Ex-Party to Shift on Health Plan  —  WASHINGTON — Just the thought of Joseph I. Lieberman makes some Democrats want to spit nails these days.  But Mr. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, is not the least troubled by his status as Capitol Hill's master infuriator …

Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don't add up  —  Hannah Devlin, Ben Webster, Philippe Naughton in Copenhagen  —  There are many kinds of truth.  Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.  —  The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead …

National Security Archive and White House Reach Agreement for Restoration of Missing Bush White House E-mails  —  For more information contact:  —  The National Security Archive (the Archive), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the White House and the National Archives …

Putting Obama on Hold, in a Hint of Who's Boss  —  President Obama didn't exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him.  “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street's top brass on Monday.

U.S. Said to Pick Illinois Prison to House Detainees  —  WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is expected to announce on Tuesday that it has selected a prison in northwestern Illinois to house terrorism suspects now being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in a major step toward shutting down that military detention facility.

Conservatives grab for tea party cash  —  “It's time for the tea party movement to start flexing its muscle in the electoral process,” Odom said in announcing the launch of Liberty First, which he said collected $11,500 in its first week of fundraising, and has accepted pledges for another $98,000.

DOE sends a “litigation hold notice” regarding CRU to employees - asking to “preserve documents”  —  It appears bigger things are brewing related to CRU's Climategate.  —  WUWT commenter J.C. writes in comments:  —  I work at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.

Hollywood Producer Urges Celebs to Target Joe Lieberman's Wife  —  What's the Difference Between the Mafia and a Hollywood Leftist? ...the Mafia doesn't go after your family.  —  It shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that Jane Hamsher, the founder and publisher of the website targeting Joe Lieberman's wife …

A Courage of Failure  —  ObamaCare backer: Defying public, wrecking health care would be “a significant political achievement.”  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  There's trouble in paradise, or rather there would be if the U.S. Senate's Democratic Caucus were paradise.

House Democrats lose fourth member to retirement  —  Caucus privately expresses concern about implications  —  House Democrats got a jolt Monday when a fourth lawmaker in a matter of weeks announced his retirement, leaving party officials and strategists fearful that they represent …

Don't Blame the Billionaires  —  Who cares about the excesses of the rich?  It's the fate of the poor that matters.  —  When I was growing up, my mother used to sing me the old adage, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” before hastening to add, “And it's all Ronald Reagan's fault.”

The unintended consequences of reconciliation  —  Joe Lieberman's compromise, it seems, is no compromise.  And he's infuriated so many Senate and House Democrats, not to mention so many in the Democratic base, that his bitter reversal might have made the prospects of any compromise a lot more remote.

ECONOMY AND HEALTH LEAD BUT CLIMATE CHANGE GAINS ATTENTION  —  In a week when retail sales rose, banks began paying off their government loans, and a compromise appeared to be struck in the Senate over the controversial public option, the economy and health care competed for the top of the news agenda.

Franken feuds with GOP's No. 4  —  Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) sparred sharply on the Senate floor Monday evening, a departure from the usually dormant speeches in the august chamber.  —  Franken said he was struck by a speech in which he said Thune had refused …

Report: John Edwards bought Charlotte home for former mistress Rielle Hunter  —  Rumors have been circulating for several days through Charlotte's Eastover neighborhood that former U.S. Sen. John Edwards bought a home here for his admitted former mistress, Rielle Hunter.

Anne Applebaum on devaluing humanity and hope in Copenhagen  —  There is no nihilism like the nihilism of a 9-year-old.  “Why should I bother,” one of them recently demanded of me, when he was presented with the usual arguments in favor of doing homework: “By the time I'm grown up …

Trusting Nature as the Climate Referee  —  Imagine there's no Copenhagen.  —  Imagine a planet in which global warming was averted without the periodic need for thousands of people to fly around the world to promise to stop burning fossil fuels.  Imagine no international conferences wrangling over the details of climate policy.

Regulators Resist Volcker Wandering Warning of Too-Big-to-Fail  —  Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — Paul A. Volcker visited nine cities in five countries in the past eight weeks to warn that bankers and regulators “have not come anywhere close to responding with necessary vigor” to the worst economic crisis in 70 years.