Democrats Considering Health Care-Immigration Deal To Overcome Key Sticking Point  —  Lawmakers who want to extend health coverage to illegal immigrants will not block the passage of the final health care reform bill so long as the White House offers a substantive promise to start pushing comprehensive immigration legislation this year.

MI5 told US about Detroit bomber's terror links ‘a year ago’  —  Britain told American intelligence agents more than a year ago that the Detroit bomber had links to extremists, according to Downing Street.  —  The prime minister's spokesman indicated that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was named …

New scanners break child porn laws  —  The rapid introduction of full body scanners at British airports threatens to breach child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images of children, the Guardian has learned.  —  Privacy campaigners claim the images created by the machines …

Poll: Republican Scott Brown Trails by 11 in Mass. Senate Race  —  There has been a notable absence of public polling in the January 19 special election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.  That will begin to change tomorrow, when Scott Rasmussen releases the results of a poll that he's conducting tonight.

Group Gives Up Death Penalty Work  —  Last fall, the American Law Institute, which created the intellectual framework for the modern capital justice system almost 50 years ago, pronounced its project a failure and walked away from it.  —  There were other important death penalty developments last year …

How Visa, Using Card Fees, Dominates a Market  —  Every day, millions of Americans stand at store checkout counters and make a seemingly random decision: after swiping their debit card, they choose whether to punch in a code, or to sign their name.  —  It is a pointless distinction to most consumers …

Behind Afghan Bombing, an Agent With Many Loyalties  —  ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The suicide bomber who killed seven C.I.A. officers and a Jordanian spy last week was a double agent who was taken onto the base in Afghanistan because the Americans hoped he might be able to deliver top members …

‘N-Word’ Sign Dogs Would-Be Tea Party Leader  —  Dale Robertson, a Tea Party activist who operates TeaParty.org, is getting stung for an old photo — taken at the Feb. 27, 2009 Tea Party in Houston — in which he holds a sign reading “Congress = Slaveowner, Taxpayer = Niggar.”

New US flight checks ‘discriminate against Nigeria’  —  Buzz up!  —  ABUJA (AFP) - Nigeria, home of the failed US plane bomber, Monday branded new security measures for passengers flying to the United States unfair and said they amounted to discrimination against its 150 million people.

Quist: Defeating liberals a bigger battle than defeating terrorism  —  Allen Quist, a Republican who is seeking to defeat Rep. Tim Walz in southern Minnesota's First Congressional District, told attendees of the Wabasha County Republicans Christmas Party in mid-December that beating the …

Hell Freezes Over: Rush Limbaugh Loves Union Hospitals and Socialized Medicine  —  Over the past year of Obama's presidency, conservative blowhard Rush Limbaugh has routinely mocked, distorted and even invented various health insurance reform proposals before Congress.

Brit Hume's off message: Have faith, Tiger Woods, as long is it's Christianity  —  In “North by Northwest,” cold and heartless bureaucrats in Washington realize they may have inadvertently sent a frivolous but innocent advertising man to his death, and one of them says, “It's so horribly sad — why do I feel like laughing?”

Freed Guantánamo inmates are heading for Yemen to join al-Qaeda fight  —  At least a dozen former Guantánamo Bay inmates have rejoined al-Qaeda to fight in Yemen, The Times has learnt, amid growing concern over the ability of the country's Government to accept almost 100 more former inmates from the detention centre.

Revisionaries  —  How a group of Texas conservatives is rewriting your kids' textbooks.  —  Don McLeroy is a balding, paunchy man with a thick broom-handle mustache who lives in a rambling two-story brick home in a suburb near Bryan, Texas.  When he greeted me at the door one evening last October …

Guantánamo: The Definitive Prisoner List (Updated for 2010)  —  Please support my work!  —  Back in March, I published a four-part list identifying all 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002, as “the culmination of a three-year project …

Who Is the Enemy?  — By: Victor Davis Hanson  —  I don't think anyone knows quite what this administration's anti-terrorism policy is.  Last August, Obama's counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, lambasted the Bush administration, citing “the inflammatory rhetoric, hyperbole and intellectual narrowness …

Secret Service confirms third crasher at White House state dinner  —  Another uninvited guest made it into the White House state dinner made famous by gate-crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the Secret Service announced Monday — exposing more holes in the security perimeter around President Obama.

Grayson: Satan should write foreword to Cheney book  —  The Prince of Darkness himself might be best-suited to write the foreword to former Vice President Dick Cheney's forthcoming book, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) suggested Monday.  —  Grayson, during an appearance on MSNBC …

Personal Bankruptcy Filings Rising Fast  —  The number of Americans filing for personal bankruptcy rose by nearly a third in 2009, a surge largely driven by foreclosures and job losses.  —  And more people are filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which liquidates assets to pay off some debts and absolves the filers of others.

BeautifulPeople.com axes holiday weight gain members  —  Dating and social network site BeautifulPeople.com has axed some 5,000 members following complaints that they had gained weight.  —  The members were singled out after posting pictures of themselves that reportedly showed they had put on pounds over the holiday period.

The man behind RedState.com shakes up the Republican Party  —  Erick Erickson, 34, has emerged as one of the leading new voices for Republican activists through his blog, RedState.com.  —  Times]  —  MACON, Ga. — Between pecks at his laptop, Macon City Council member Erick Erickson ticked off some of his goals for the new year:

RGA Smashes Fundraising Records  —  The Republican Governors Association announced today that it raised a record $30 million dollars in 2009 and carried forward more than $25 million into 2010.  —  “We raised more, saved more, and won more than DGA in 2009 and that's a good forecast of what's …

Even in G.O.P., Lazio's Bid for Governor Is Hard Sell  —  CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. — Rick A. Lazio is on a tear: ripping into corruption and cowardice in Albany, blasting state leaders' addiction to spending and taxes, warning that New York is on the verge of losing a generation of job seekers to economic decline.

Bankruptcy hanging like a cloud over Labour's election campaign  —  An impoverished Labour Party will be unable to return fire against the Conservatives' pre-election advertising blitz for months, amid fears that it could emerge from the campaign bankrupt.  —  David Blunkett …

Are IDF dogs trained to pounce all who say ‘God is great’ in Arabic?  —  The Israel Defense Forces has denied allegations that it trains its canines to attack anybody heard saying Allah Hu Akbar, Arabic for ‘God is great.’  —  Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi on Monday told the Knesset plenum …

Health debate resumes with WH meet  —  The health care debate resumes in earnest on Tuesday after more than a week of quiet following Senate passage of its landmark bill on Christmas Eve.  —  The four relevant House chairmen will meet with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team …

Top House Liberal Rips Dem Plan To Skip Conference To Pass Health Care  —  Uh oh.  Looks like the Dem leadership's plan to quickly pass health care reform by skipping House-Senate conference negotiations has further alienated House liberals — a potential problem, since liberal support …