Obama's Nobel Remarks  —  Following is the prepared text of President Obama's speech at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo on Wednesday, as released by the White House:  —  Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:

Limbaugh vs. McConnell: GOP leader targeted by conservative groups  —  Rush Limbaugh and conservative interest groups are criticizing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for not putting up a strong enough fight to stop the Democratic healthcare legislation.

Nielsen folds Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews  —  Nielsen Business Media Update  —  Today, we announced that Nielsen Business Media has reached an agreement with e5 Global Media Holdings, LLC, a new company formed jointly by Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners …

Americans Want Government to Spend for Jobs, Send Bill to Rich  —  Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — Americans want their government to create jobs through spending on public works, investments in alternative energy or skills training for the jobless.  —  They also want the deficit to come down.

Emerging Medicare buy-in proposal could have costly unintended consequences  —  THE ONLY THING more unsettling than watching legislative sausage being made is watching it being made on the fly.  The 11th-hour “compromise” on health-care reform and the public option supposedly includes …

Beck: We Should ‘Just Abolish Medicare’  —  Yesterday, Senate Democrats working on health care reform reached a compromise on the public option that will create a network of nonprofit insurers and allow Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 to buy into Medicare.

Election 2010: Pennsylvania Senate Election  —  2010 Pennsylvania Senate: Toomey With Narrow Lead Over Both Specter and Sestak  —  Likely Republican nominee Pat Toomey is now ahead of both Democrats who are vying to run against him next year in Pennsylvania's 2010 race for the U.S. Senate.

How liberal is Obama?  —  It's not every day that Christian conservative Ross Douthat enthusiastically recommends people read social democrat Tony Judt: … The first year of the Obama presidency has been a long tutorial on the difference between liberal ends and liberal means.

In Shift, Oren Calls J Street ‘A Unique Problem’ … Published December 09, 2009, issue of December 18, 2009.  —  Breaking with his previous restraint, Israel's ambassador to the United States delivered an unprecedented blast against J Street, the new dovish Israel lobby that has made waves …

Reid Asks Republicans for Weekend Off, Has Big Easy Fundraiser to Get To  —  ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: Senators and staffers watched CSPAN breathlessly from their offices Wednesday evening as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated they might not have to work this weekend.

Can Republicans Retake the Senate in 2010?  —  Probably not, but their candidate recruitment so far has been stellar.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  Democrats began the year as masters of the political universe, winning the White House and increasing their majorities in Congress.

Send Us Your Tired, Your Poor, But Only if They're ‘Culturally Unique’  —  Immigration Caseworker AA0089 Has Some Thoughts About What Is Art  —  LOS ANGELES — When Jordan Peimer booked an Argentine band that fuses Jewish Klezmer music with tango, he thought he had the perfect act to headline his “Fiesta Hanukkah” concert.

Poll: 39% of Israelis believe Obama is ‘Muslim’  —  The New America Foundation's poll of Israelis, released today, contains a finding suggesting campaign-trail rumors about Barack Obama's religion penetrated deeply in the Jewish state.  —  The survey, by Jim Gerstein, asked Israelis …

Dems to lift debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion, fear 2010 backlash  —  In a bold but risky year-end strategy, Democrats are preparing to raise the federal debt ceiling by as much as $1.8 trillion before New Year's rather than have to face the issue again prior to the 2010 elections.  —  “We've incurred this debt.

Obama's Bad War — By: Victor Davis Hanson  —  The president said some good things, but unfortunately, his long academic lecture on the nature of war itself had all the characteristics of we have come to accept from a Barack Obama sermon:  —  1) Verbosity (4,000 words plus!) and extraneousness …

Low Reimbursement Rates Are a Feature Not a Bug  —  To continue with the Medicare reimbursement rate blogging from yesterday, it's important to understand that the program's low reimbursement rates are a feature not a bug.  Probably the single most persuasive conservative critique …

Give North Koreans A Chance  —  For them to curse their government in public takes a lot of courage.  —  While climate delegates are quarreling in Copenhagen, and President Barack Obama is collecting his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, an important story is unfolding in relative obscurity, in North Korea.

The Joys of Political Sex  —  It's time for political sex scandals to reclaim their rightful place in our national discourse.  The way things have been going lately, you'd think extramarital sex only happened to professional athletes.  —  Consider the case of Senator Max Baucus of Montana.