Rick Santorum's curious closing argument  —  POLK CITY, Iowa — Nothing fires up a crowd like cloture.  —  Rick Santorum, the man who has improbably become a contender in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses, was making his closing argument to a sea of TV cameras here on Monday when he swerved into a thicket of Senate trivia.

Santorum: “ Ron Paul is Disgusting.”  —  “Ron Paul is disgusting,” presidential candidate Rick Santorum said to a handful of FOX reporters shortly after his FOX and Friends interview Tuesday morning.  —  Santorum blamed his rival for Iowa robo calls that claimed that the former U.S. senator …

Gingrich: Mitt Romney is a liar  —  PLAY CBS NEWS VIDEO  —  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose support in Iowa has withered after riding on top of the polls, today called former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney a liar who would lie to the American people if elected to the White House …

W.H. to Boehner: Ditch the GOP, pass bills  —  John Boehner walks to a news conference on the payroll tax cut with Eric Cantor on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011.  AP Photo  —  A senior White House official challenged House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to buck his own Republican conference …

Why Iowa gets to go first, and other facts about tonight's caucus  —  (Jessica Reilly) David Redlawsk is a political scientist at Rutgers University and co-author of “Why Iowa?  How Caucuses and Sequential Elections improve the Nominating Process.”  We spoke earlier today …

Workers of the World, Unite!  —  The Republican Party is the party of the white working class.  This group — whites with high school degrees and maybe some college — is still the largest block in the electorate.  They overwhelmingly favor Republicans.  —  It's a diverse group, obviously …

Santorum: States Should Have The Right To Outlaw Birth Control  —  Rick Santorum reiterated his belief that states should have the right to outlaw contraception during an interview with ABC News yesterday, saying, “The state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that.

The Next War: Pentagon to Present Vision of Reduced Military  —  WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is set this week to reveal his strategy that will guide the Pentagon in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from its budget, and with it the Obama administration's vision …

Michelle Obama's backside is your business how?  —  Can you imagine how the incident would play out if an African American congressman made a crude remark about First Lady Laura Bush's body?  It certainly would have taken more than an insincere apology to wash that sin away.

Un-American Activities  —  In the tenth paragraph of a page A15 Times piece, Rick Santorum accuses Barack Obama of engaging in “absolutely un-American activities.”  What are they?  The article doesn't say.  The quote appears without explanation or comment, in an article entitled …

Perry: ‘This is Omaha Beach’  —  WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — With a sense of history on the biggest political day — to date — of the 2012 cycle, Texas Gov. Rick Perry today compared the GOP's quest to defeat President Barack Obama to one of the deadliest battles of the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944.

Double Barrel Blast From Big Sky Country: Montana Rejects Citizens United  —  On December 30, 2011, by a vote of 5 to 2 the Montana Supreme Court decided that Montana's ban on corporate political expenditures dating back to 1912 could stand.  In a hard hitting decision …

Wisconsin: No Roger, No Rerun, No Recall?  Barrett and the unusual nature of the recall Rematch/Rerun  —  As we heard earlier this week, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, the losing Democratic gubernatorial candidate in 2010, is considering running in the recall against Governor Scott Walker.

When will media demand that Mitt Romney back up his claims about jobs?  —  I don't know how to be any clearer about this, but here goes.  It is now beyond doubt that Mitt Romney will be resting his case against Obama on two core claims.  —  The first: At Bain Capital, Romney created over 100,000 jobs …

Huckabee: Rs more interested in defeating Obama than in rebuilding USA (audio)  —  Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, victor in the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, called into the Radio Iowa newsroom this morning for a chat.  I'll be posted snippets over the next few hours.

Young, gay caucus-goers talk politics, support for GOP  —  Several young gay Iowa caucus goers discuss which GOP candidates they will support today.  (Washington Blade photo by Chris Johnson)  —  DES MOINES, Iowa — For some gay Iowa Republicans, the 2012 presidential election is about more than just LGBT issues.

Mitt Romney seeks to end GOP contest in January  —  Mitt Romney is preparing a broad strategy after Iowa's caucuses tonight, apparently hoping to close out the GOP presidential contest before the calendar turns to February.  —  The Post's Phil Rucker reported last night …

The Trouble With Time's ‘Person of the Year’  —  This isn't just my first post of the New Year—it's my first post of the modern era.  Actually, I did guest-blog here at TheAtlantic.com a couple of years ago, so maybe a better way to put it is that this is the first-ever post in my very own blog stream.

Iran Missile Drill Results Exaggerated, Images Photoshopped Previously  —  TEHRAN, Iran - At first, Iran claimed it had launched three long range missiles; a pronouncement at the end of ten days of war games in the Strait of Hormuz designed to test the patience of western nations as they weigh how to sanction Iran's oil exports.

Krugman - Nobodys Understands Debt (But Now I Do!)  —  Let's start the New Year by breaking a resolution.  Here we go with Krugman v. Krugman, with yet another illustration of how Krugman's economic theories are dictated by the residency of the White House.