Why the Senate Should Vote Yes on Health Care  —  IF I were still a United States senator, I would not only vote yes on the current health care reform bill, I would do so with the sure knowledge that I was casting one of the most historic votes of my 36 years in the Senate.

Axelrod promises to push for drug re-importation after healthcare reform  —  A senior White House adviser said Sunday that the Obama administration will push forward on safe re-importation of pharmaceutical drugs after the healthcare reform bill is finished.

MARVEL AT THE ‘ARROGANCE’ AND ‘NAIVETE’.... CNN is telling me that Sarah Palin said something on Twitter. … Or, to translate into English, the former half-term governor believes it's “arrogant and naive” to think human activity is responsible for climate change, which she describes as “man overpowering nature.”

House Dems cool to Nelson compromise  —  Anti-abortion Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) doesn't like Sen. Ben Nelson's abortion compromise and promises to fight it.  Now pro-abortion rights Democrats are speaking out, too — they don't like it but stop short of saying they'll try to kill it.

Can Stupak Kill Obamacare in the House?  —  Are there enough votes in the House to pass a health care bill very close to the one the Senate is preparing to pass?  Bart Stupak says the Senate bill's abortion language is “unacceptable” and has pledged to lead a group of pro-life Democrats …

Top Iranian dissident cleric Montazeri dies  —  One of Iran's most prominent dissident clerics, Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri, has died aged 87.  —  Hoseyn Ali Montazeri was a moving spirit in the 1979 revolution which created Iran's Islamic state, and was at one stage set to become its leader.

Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri  —  The head of the UN's climate change panel - Dr Rajendra Pachauri - is accused of making a fortune from his links with ‘carbon trading’ companies, Christopher Booker and Richard North write.

Sunday showdown: The Senate's Demcare treachery  —  Sellout Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) got his Cash-for-Cloture Christmas present early: Special Medicaid expansion subsidies for his state ($45 million for starters over the next decade).  The budget-strapped governors of every other state in the union ought to be crying foul.

McCain: GOP can't stop health care  —  Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) concedes that Republican senators won't be able to stop Democratic health care reform legislation from passing the Senate before Christmas.  —  “We will fight until the last vote,” McCain told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace.

Show Us the E-Mail  —  WE end this extraordinary financial year with news that the Treasury is in discussions with American International Group about selling the taxpayers' 80 percent ownership stake in that company.  The government recently permitted several banks to break free …

Tiger Woods, Person of the Year  —  AS we say farewell to a dreadful year and decade, this much we can agree upon: The person of the year is not Ben Bernanke, no matter how insistently Time magazine tries to hype him into its pantheon.  The Fed chairman was just as big a schnook as every …

Police expect Mumbai-style terror attack on City of London  —  Scotland Yard has warned businesses in London to expect a Mumbai-style attack on the capital.  —  In a briefing in the City of London 12 days ago, a senior detective from SO15, the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism command, said: “Mumbai is coming to London.”