Low favorables: Dems rip Rasmussen  —  Democrats are turning their fire on Scott Rasmussen, the prolific independent pollster whose surveys on elections, President Obama's popularity and a host of other issues are surfacing in the media with increasing frequency.

Brennan responds to Cheney: He's either ‘willfully mischaracterized’ Obama or is ‘ignorant of the facts.’  —  Earlier this week, former Vice President Dick Cheney joined the GOP's hypocritical attacks against President Obama's response to the attempted Christmas day terror attack, claiming that …

US, UK close Yemen embassies over al-Qaida threats  —  Buzz up!  —  SAN'A, Yemen - The U.S. and Britain closed their embassies in Yemen on Sunday in the face of al-Qaida threats, after both countries announced an increase in aid to the government to fight the terror group linked …

Living on Nothing but Food Stamps  —  CAPE CORAL, Fla. — After an improbable rise from the Bronx projects to a job selling Gulf Coast homes, Isabel Bermudez lost it all to an epic housing bust — the six-figure income, the house with the pool and the investment property.

OUR STUNTED DISCOURSE.... For over a week now, the right has been working aggressively to go after President Obama over national security policy.  But since the failed Christmas-day plot, conservatives haven't quite come up with a coherent line of attack.  Indeed, nine days later …

The Joke's on Us  —  The Pantybomber wasn't the big joke.  We are.  —  On Christmas Day, a gentleman from Nigeria succeeded (effortlessly) in boarding a flight to Detroit with a bomb in his underwear.  Pretty funny, huh?  —  But the Pantybomber wasn't the big joke.  The real laugh was the United States government.

Banks Roll Out New Check, Card Fees … The nation's banks will be bombarding customers with new fees and products in 2010 as they try to replace more than $50 billion in revenue wiped out by new rules that clamp down on certain business practices.  —  So far, the changes are mostly concentrated in checking accounts and credit cards.

Real Estate in Cape Coral, Fla., Is Far From a Recovery  —  FELLOW adventurers, refugees from winter and armchair archaeologists, we are here on this shiny green tour bus to embark on a safari of sorts.  We'll be exploring the local habitat, as upended and reconfigured by an epochal real estate fiasco.

Fruitful Decade for Many in the World  —  IT may not feel that way right now, but the last 10 years may go down in world history as a big success.  That idea may be hard to accept in the United States.  After all, it was the decade of 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the financial crisis, all dramatic and painful events.

From the White House Flickr page.  —  UPDATE: No, I don't think Obama's facial expression is just a fluke of when the shutter went off.  His eyes aren't closed, as some with poor displays seem to think.  Here's a detail from the frame:  —  ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Joseph Gautier writes …

Cash-rich real estate investors trigger bidding wars, frustrate other buyers  —  Investors have reemerged with brute force in the Washington region's real estate market over the past few months, triggering bidding wars in some neighborhoods teeming with foreclosed properties and hindering traditional home buyers such as Melissa Diggins.