South Carolina Primary: Romney 27%, Santorum 24%, Gingrich 18%  —  What a difference a caucus makes.  Rick Santorum who two months ago had one percent (1%) support among likely South Carolina Republican Primary voters now is running a close second there with 24% of the vote.

Santorum's ‘Freedom’ is Pretty Much Slavery  —  Rick Santorum got high marks for his near-victory speech in Iowa.  In the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne called it “by far the best speech Tuesday night.”  Santorum's address impressed me, too, but for a different reason: his astonishing endorsement …

Legislator apologizes for ‘YoMama’ email about first lady  —  Kansas legislator acknowledges forwarding email note mocking first lady's name, hair style.  —  Kansas House Speaker Mike O'Neal on Thursday apologized for an email that made fun of first lady Michelle Obama's hair style and mockingly called her “Mrs. YoMama.”

Path to Green Card for Illegal Immigrant Family Members of Americans  —  Obama administration officials announced on Friday that they will propose a fix to a notorious snag in immigration law that will spare hundreds of thousands of American citizens from prolonged separations from immigrant spouses and children.

U.S. Adds 200,000 Jobs; Unemployment Rate at 8.5%  —  The United States added a robust 200,000 new jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday, in a sign that the long-awaited economic recovery has finally built up a head of steam.  —  The nation's unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent in December …

All Good Things...  FrumForum launched itself almost exactly three years ago, on Inauguration Day 2009.  Over the subsequent interval, our hundreds of contributors have reached more than 5 million individual readers.  I like to think that together we have helped to move the national debate.

A New Social Agenda  —  I'm to Rick Santorum's left on most social issues, like same-sex marriage and abortion.  I'm also put off by his Manichaean political rhetoric.  He seems to imagine America's problems can best be described as the result of a culture war between the God-fearing conservatives and the narcissistic liberals.

House Democrats Rush Floor Demanding Republicans Come Back To Work, GOP Cuts Off C-SPAN  —  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and a group of Democratic lawmakers took to an empty House floor today to demonstrate that they were willing to work while Republicans lawmakers are at home.

Short NBC gig for Chelsea?  —  Chelsea Clinton's much-trumpeted deal with NBC seems to be nearly done.  Her contract is for only 90 days, and while she'll provide the network with two more stories, sources say it is not certain she'll immediately sign again.

Jodi Kantor Goes Inside the Obamas' Marriage in New Book  —  INSIDE THE EAST WING: A new book pulls back the curtains on the First Couple  —  This month, Jodi Kantor, 36, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times, delves into the lives of the president and First Lady with The Obamas (Little, Brown and Company, $29.99).

Special report: Romney's steel skeleton in the Bain closet  —  (Reuters) - It was funny at first.  —  The young men in business suits, gingerly picking their way among the millwrights, machinists and pipefitters at Kansas City's Worldwide Grinding Systems steel mill.

Obama takes victory lap  —  Two days after defying Republicans and appointing Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Obama took a little time to gloat.  —  Making a victory lap of sorts at the independent agency, Obama cracked a joke …

Rubio in letter to Obama: You are turning America into a ‘deadbeat nation’  —  In a scathing letter sent to Barack Obama this morning, Senator Marco Rubio said that under the President's first term in office, “more and more people have come to believe that America is becoming a deadbeat nation.”