White House Spokeswoman Says Different Bertha Lewis on Visitor's Log  —  UPDATE: According to Politico's Ben Smith, the Bertha Lewis who went to the White House is not ACORN's CEO but another woman named “Bertha Lewis.”  I contacted Smith to tell him that Big Government would offer a correction if the …

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.

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 …

Al-Qaida double-agent killed CIA officers  —  Officials: Perpetrator of Afghan attack was supposed to infiltrate al-Qaida  —  The suicide bombing on a CIA base in Afghanistan last week was carried out by a Jordanian doctor who was an al-Qaida double-agent, Western intelligence officials told NBC News.

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 …

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 …

Dems' Only Hope For 2010: Make The Race About The Other Guy  —  WHAT'S YOUR REACTION?  —  Democratic incumbents face the most threatening political environment since the Republican landslide of 1994 — and they know it.  —  The trends are all moving in the wrong direction.

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 …

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 …

‘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.”

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.

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.

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 …

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:

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 …

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 …

Clinton says Yemen instability a global threat  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said instability in Yemen posed a global threat and pledged on Monday to plug any holes in U.S. security procedures after a Christmas Day airline bombing attempt.

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 …

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 …

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 …

Thoughts on the Underwear Bomber and the Aftermath  —  Obama has went where the Bush Administration never fully went; the explicit profiling of Muslim passengers.  Granted there was kind of an unspoken rule during the Bush Administration but now it has gone further.  What are my thoughts?

President Obama Names Transgender Appointee to Commerce Department  —  President Obama recently named Amanda Simpson to be a Senior Technical Advisor to the Commerce Department.  —  In a statement, Simpson, a member of the National Center for Transgender Equality's board of directors …

GOP makes Obama foil in state races  —  In governor's races across the country, top GOP candidates are concentrating their attacks on the White House, the surest sign yet that Republicans see opportunity in nationalizing the 2010 election and a departure from the strategy that elected two Republicans to governorships in November.