Fox News: Ben Nelson Opposes Health Reform Because He ‘Understands The True Meaning Of Christmas’  —  Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) is still refusing to support Senate health care reform legislation, with his main objection being that the bill doesn't restrict women's rights enough by severely limiting access to abortions.

Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure  —  Deal thrashed out at talks condemned as climate change scepticism in action  —  The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement in Copenhagen tonight, falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries …

Flashback of the Day  —  When Sen. Al Franken objected to Sen. Joe Lieberman's request for additional time, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that in his 20-plus years in the Senate he had never heard a senator do that before.  —  However, a Political Wire reader sends this excerpt from the Congressional Record from October 10, 2002:

Grayson wants to send critic to jail for five years  —  WASHINGTON — Not everyone thinks imitation is the best form of flattery.  —  In fact, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson of Orlando took such offense at a parody website aimed at unseating him that the freshman Democrat has asked …

The moment Ted Kennedy would not want to lose  —  My late husband, Ted Kennedy, was passionate about health-care reform.  It was the cause of his life.  He believed that health care for all our citizens was a fundamental right, not a privilege, and that this year the stars …

DC snowstorm chills Pelosi's global warming trip  —  Copenhagen (CNN) - In a strange twist, a Washington snowstorm is forcing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, to make an early departure from a global warming summit here in Denmark.  —  Pelosi told CNN that military officials leading …

Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike on Yemen Terrorists  —  Cruise Missiles Launched Thursday Hit Two Suspected al Qaeda Sites; Major Escalation of US Efforts Against Terrorists  —  On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday …

Wheeling In The Cots: A Winter Snow Emergency—And An Absentee Lieberman—Is Complicating Democrats' Health Care Push  —  As if Democrats didn't have enough to worry about.  Overnight and into tomorrow, Washington, D.C. is preparing for a major snow storm, complete with thunder and high winds.

The Left/Right Populist Wrap-Around vs. the Beltway Insiders  —  Glenn Greenwald and Ed Kilgore both have very good pieces up today on the impoverished left/right dialectic that dominates the media coverage of politics, and its inadequacy when it comes to discussing the dynamics of the health care debate.

MoveOn opposes Senate bill  —  Progressive standard bearer MoveOn is opposing the Senate bill and asking its millions of members to sign a petition calling on liberal Sens. Bernie Sanders, Roland Burris, and Russ Feingold to block the bill's passage until it can be strengthened.  —  From the email:

Copenhagen negotiators bicker and filibuster while the biosphere burns  —  George Monbiot despairs at the chaotic, disastrous denouement of a chaotic and disastrous climate summit  —  First they put the planet in square brackets, now they have deleted it from the text.

The Adam Lambert Problem  —  “Wrong track” poll numbers aren't just about the economy.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  The news came in numbers and the numbers were fairly grim, all the grimmer for being unsurprising.  A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll reported this week that more than half …

What Lieberman has wrought  —  Joe Lieberman's reckless decision to blow up last week's compromise has had exactly the impact many of us predicted.  Much of the left has flipped into vicious, angry opposition to the bill.  Is that because the Medicare buy-in, a good but limited policy, has disappeared from the bill?

Coburn defends the Party of No; Durbin blasts “styptic-hearted Republicans;” Update: Video added  —  On the Senate floor a few minutes ago, GOP Sen. Tom Coburn gave a rousing defense of the “Party of No.”  —  “We're accused of being the party of no,” he said.  But “no is a wonderful word.

Hot Air TV: Jason Mattera takes on the AARP  —  In January, I dubbed the porkulus bill the “Generational Theft Act of 2009.”  Generational theft has been the leitmotif of the Obama administration throughout the entire year.  We rang in the new year with it and the White House and Democratic majority …

Most influential person of the decade  —  Which of these nominees had the greatest influence in shaping the past decade, either by changing how we live or by making the greatest impact on our culture?  Cast your votes now and we'll reveal the winner on Monday, Dec. 21st.  Want to nominate someone else?

Editor's politics raise Qs at WSJ  —  Not long ago, a British conservative columnist and Weekly Standard contributor who once wrote a column asking if America was ready for a “dangerous left-winger” like Barack Obama would have been an unlikely second-in-command at The Wall Street Journal.

Mom's tweet as son was dying stirs debate  —  MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. — As Shellie Ross waited in a hospital for word on her son, Bryson, she posted this note to the social networking site Twitter.com: “Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool.”  —  She found out 19 minutes later that Bryson was dead.