Romney leads Paul in new Des Moines Register Iowa Poll; Santorum surges  —  The Des Moines Register's latest Iowa Poll shows a surprise three-way match-up in contention to win the Iowa Republican caucuses: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.  —  Santorum, who has been largely invisible …

Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies  —  The benefits of his candidacy are widely ignored, as are the Democrats' own evils  —  As I've written about before, America's election season degrades mainstream political discourse even beyond its usual lowly state.

OWS mob in clash with cops  —  Some 800 Occupy Wall Street protesters began the new year by trying to retake Zuccotti Park last night, starting a massive clash with police in which one officer was stabbed in the hand with a pair of scissors.  —  A suspect was arrested in the 11:30 p.m. incident, according to a law enforcement source.

I Just Got Here, but I Know Trouble When I See It  —  BELIEVE it or not, times are getting better.  —  At least that's what the dry statistics keep telling us.  Industrial production, G.D.P. — the kind of figures that Washington and Wall Street sweat over — suggest that the economy is on the mend.

Obama Signs Military Spending Bill  —  President Obama signed a broad military spending bill into law on Saturday despite “serious reservations” about provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.  —  The bill also applies penalties …

Adam Bellow hopes to give voice to the tea party with new conservative imprint at HarperCollins  —  NEW YORK — Attention, conservatives: Adam Bellow says this is your moment.  —  The intellectual left, he contends, is in a vacuum.  The right is where there are ideas, variety, excitement.

Online community Reddit driving opposition to piracy bill  —  Members of Congress and their staff have grown used to scouring the Web, Twitter and Facebook to see where voters stand before finalizing their positions.  But the heated debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) …

TRENDING: Democrats send ghost from Romney's past  —  (CNN) - Democrats aren't missing a chance to take aim at their favorite target: Republican presidential frontrunner and former Bain Capital executive Mitt Romney.  —  Randy Johnson, a worker laid off when Bain bought American Pad and Paper Company …

Chief Justice Defends Peers on Health Law  —  In the face of a growing controversy over whether two Supreme Court justices should disqualify themselves from the challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Saturday defended the court's ethical standards.

Newt Gingrich reins himself in during final push  —  ATLANTIC, Iowa — After months of bringing his legendary rhetorical meanderings to the presidential campaign trail, Newt Gingrich has suddenly discovered message control.  —  With just three days to go to the Iowa caucuses …