Food-safety measure passes Senate in Sunday surprise  —  A bill that would overhaul the nation's food-safety laws for the first time since the Great Depression came roaring back to life Sunday as Senate Democrats struck a deal with Republicans that helped overcome a technical mistake …

Nina Totenberg: ‘I Was At - Forgive the Expression - a Christmas Party...’  —  “I was at - forgive the expression - a Christmas party,” NPR reporter Nina Totenberg interjected on Inside Washington in the weekend's oddest cautionary separation from a common description for a common event …

The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time  —  What's Your Reaction:  —  This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet.  —  As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field.

Proposed Amendment Would Enable States to Repeal Federal Law  —  The same people driving the lawsuits that seek to dismantle the Obama administration's health care overhaul have set their sights on an even bigger target: a constitutional amendment that would allow a vote of the states to overturn any act of Congress.

When Zombies Win  —  When historians look back at 2008-10, what will puzzle them most, I believe, is the strange triumph of failed ideas.  Free-market fundamentalists have been wrong about everything — yet they now dominate the political scene more thoroughly than ever.  —  How did that happen?

Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.  —  The system, by far the largest …

TRENDING: Palin disses Michelle Obama over ‘dessert’  —  (CNN) - Sarah Palin is again taking aim at Michelle Obama over her anti-obesity campaign, taking the opportunity in Sunday's “Sarah Palin's Alaska” to land a diss against the first lady's efforts to improve nutrition.

Tea Party Discontent Bubbles to the Surface  —  Discontent Boiling Over Tax Cuts Bill and House GOP Committee Leadership Positions  —  The new Congress hasn't been seated yet but signs of a rift are already beginning to emerge between Republican leaders and Tea Party groups …

Obama reaches out to liberal groups to shore up Democratic base after tax deal  —  In the wake of President Obama's tax-cut deal with Republicans, the White House is moving quickly to mend its strained relationship with the Democratic base, reassuring liberal groups, black leaders …

State Budgets: The Day of Reckoning  —  Steve Kroft Reports On The Growing Financial Woes States Are Facing  —  (CBS) By now, just about everyone in the country is aware of the federal deficit problem, but you should know that there is another financial crisis looming involving state and local governments.

Auditors Face Fraud Charge  —  New York Set to Allege Ernst & Young Stood By as Lehman Cooked Its Books  —  New York prosecutors are poised to file civil fraud charges against Ernst & Young for its alleged role in the collapse of Lehman Brothers, saying the Big Four accounting firm stood …

A Scientific Theory Is Judged By Its Predictive Power  —  “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.”  That is what global warming alarmists in Great Britain were telling us just ten years ago: … The Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was, as you probably remember …

Pigford Video Blockbuster: Key ‘Black Farmers’ Lawyer Admits Clients ‘Got Away With Murder’  —  The mainstream media has treated accusations of large-scale fraud in the Pigford settlement with overt skepticism and a distinct lack of journalistic curiosity.  The press has blindly repeated …

A Tough Season for Believers  —  Christmas is hard for everyone.  But it's particularly hard for people who actually believe in it.  —  In a sense, of course, there's no better time to be a Christian than the first 25 days of December.  But this is also the season when American Christians can feel most embattled.

House GOP Crushes Bill That Would Protect Against Child Marriage  —  On Thursday night, hours before passing the tax cut compromise, House Republicans thwarted a bill that aimed to protect girls around the world from being coerced into child marriage.  They opposed it because, they claimed, it might fund abortions.

One Battle Won, Activists Shift Sights  —  WASHINGTON — As gay people around the country reveled on Sunday in the historic Senate vote to repeal “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” a liberal media watchdog group said it planned to announce on Monday that it was setting up a “communications war room for gay equality” …

Unlikely Foes  —  The Southern Poverty Law Center is among the premier civil rights organizations in the United States, known for taking on hate groups and defending the powerless.  A group of leading genocide scholars this month sent the center a stinging letter, obtained by Inside Higher Ed …

What's radicalizing Muslim Americans?  —  Peter King (R-Seaford) represents New York's 3rd Congressional District.  —  Earlier this month, I was elected by the House Republican Conference to be chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.  I've made it clear that I'll focus the committee …

Barbour doesn't remember Civil Rights era being ‘that bad’  —  Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says he doesn't remember the Civil Rights era being “that bad,” citing his attendance at a Martin Luther King Jr. rally nearly 50 years ago.  —  “I just don't remember it as being that bad,” Barbour …