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 …

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.

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 …

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.

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.

Fisker Recalling 239 Karma Plug-In Hybrids for Fire Hazard  —  Fisker Automotive is recalling all 239 of its 2012 Karma luxury plug-in hybrid cars because of a fire hazard, according to a report filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  Prices on the 2012 model start at $103,000, including the destination charge.

Surging Santorum Would Annul All Same-Sex Marriages  —  Social conservatives are lauding Rick Santorum's “surge” to third place in the Iowa polls, but his new forthrightness about his positions may backfire.  In a recent interview with MSNBC's Chuck Todd, Santorum explained that not only would he support …

Tis the season for predictions  —  No end of the year political shindig would be complete without pundits and prophets gazing into the chicken entrails and letting us know what we should expect in the year to come.  Given the fact that we so rarely see end of the year, “Look how well I did last December” …