CNN Poll: 6 point jump in support for health care bill  —  Washington (CNN) - Support for the health care reform bill that Democrats are pushing through the Senate has risen six points since early December, according to a new national poll, and although a majority of Americans still oppose its passage …

An ugly finale for health-care reform  —  Going into Monday morning's crucial Senate vote on health-care legislation, Republican chances for defeating the bill had come down to a last, macabre hope.  They needed one Democratic senator to die — or at least become incapacitated.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani expected to announce Tuesday he will not run for U.S. Senate  —  So long, Rudy.  —  Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani is expected to announce Tuesday he is not running for U.S. Senate or anything else in 2010, effectively ending his storied - and often stormy - electoral career, The Daily News has learned.

Why I Left the Right, Exhibit P for Pawlenty  —  Newsweek has an interview with Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, the very model of a modern GOP candidate, considered by many as a possible front runner for the Presidency in 2012: Anti-science and anti-gay. … Is this a kind of “moderate” creationism?

Obama signs Franken's anti-rape amendment into law.  —  The White House Press Office sent out a statement today announcing that President Obama signed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010 into law on Saturday: … Within the Appropriations Act is Sen. Al Franken's (D-MN) …

Reid defends deals  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) offered a vigorous defense Monday of the deals in the Senate reform bill that benefit individual states, saying “it doesn't speak well” of senators who didn't secure such deals.  —  “There are 100 senators here and I don't know that there's …

Lieberman: Obama Never Pressed Me On Public Option  —  WHAT'S YOUR REACTION?  —  Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) insists that the White House did not pressure him to get in line behind either a public health insurance option or a Medicare buy-in compromise during the health care debate this year.

Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator  —  As the president's job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent …

Rasmussen: Dorgan trailing in ND re-election bid by 22 points  —  Call it the Wages of ObamaCare.  When only 30% of a state's likely voters support the one piece of legislation on which the incumbent has worked for most of the year, they tend to get a little chippy about the idea of sending him back to Washington.

Exclusive: ACORN Qualifies for Funding in Senate Health Care Bill  —  Senator Roland Burris is claiming credit for a provision in Harry Reid's “manager's amendment,” unveiled Saturday morning, that could funnel money to ACORN through the health care bill.  —  On December 9, Burris …

For Obama, No Opportunity Too Big to Blow  —  Cross-posted with EnviroNation.  —  Contrary to countless reports, the debacle in Copenhagen was not everyone's fault.  It did not happen because human beings are incapable of agreeing, or are inherently self-destructive.

MSNBC Libtalker: ‘Morning Joe’ Team Takes Direction From WH  —  STATE CONTROL?  —  Schultz: WH Contacts Team ‘Joe’ Directly During Program!  —  For anyone wondering why an increasing number of conservatives now use the term “state-controlled media” to refer to television networks and newspapers …

Sen. Whitehouse: foes of health care bill are birthers, right-wing militias, aryan groups  —  ****Updated with video link and more transcript  —  Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) today took shots at those who are not supporting the health care legislation.

Listicle of the Day: Worst Washington Post Columnists of the Zeroes  —  It's beginning to feel a lot like listicle time: … I want to keep the explication to a minimum, but this is an award for the aggregate badness of one's Washington Post columns, not a holistic judgment of the character …

Code TEA: Tea Parties, Go Home!  All Politics Is Local  —  TEA Parties nation-wide have found that calling, writing, and showing up in person in D.C. has the same impact as a hiccup in a hurricane.  After turning out thousands of citizens at rallies, overwhelming the Senate phone lines …

Americans Judge The Bush Decade: ‘Awful’ And ‘Not So Good’  —  A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds that Americans are entering 2011 with a negative view of the events of the past decade, which was largely marked by President Bush's tenure from 2001-2009:

In Supreme Court Clerks' Careers, Signs of Polarization  —  A Supreme Court clerkship really brightens the legal résumé, and former clerks have their pick of the best jobs at law firms, in the academy and in government.  —  The career choices they make also say something important about the state of the Supreme Court.

The Wages of Sin (Or, What the 60 Got) — By: Daniel Foster  —  If you've been closely following the Obamacare debacle on NRO, you learned in real time about the sweetheart deals that pervade Harry Reid's bill.  But here they are rounded up in one place.  —  Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.):