Stupak aims to sink ‘unacceptable’ abortion compromise  —  An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D. Mich.) coordinated opposition to the Senate health bill's abortion compromise this morning with the Republican Senate leadership according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO.

A Pyrrhic Victory?  —  Special editorial, December 19, 2009.  —  When a fellow conservative tried to cheer me up this morning by assuring me that the Senate Democrats' victory on health care was going to be a Pyrrhic one, I realized I didn't remember much about Pyrrhus.  —  I went of course to Wikipedia.

Kristol: Ten Words To Remember  —  There are lots of embarrassing little things to mock in the Senate bill (e.g., the special provision for Nebraska), and lots of bad provisions to attack (the tax hikes and federal funding for abortion, to mention two).  But Republicans shouldn't lose sight …

Manager's Amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act  —  CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have released an analysis of the budgetary effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), Senate Amendment 2786 in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 3590 …

Show Us the E-Mail  —  WE end this extraordinary financial year with news that the Treasury is in discussions with American International Group about selling the taxpayers' 80 percent ownership stake in that company.  The government recently permitted several banks to break free …

Still time to think small  —  This is a good bill.  Not a great bill, but a good bill.  Imagine telling a Democrat in the days after the 2004 election that the 2006 election would end Republican control of Congress, the 2008 election would return a Democrat to the White House …

Palin continues to blast climate change believers  —  (CNN)- In a late night posting on her Twitter feed, Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin continued to blast climate change believers Friday, calling the talks in Copenhagen, Denmark a representation of man's “arrogance,” for believing people have an impact on nature.

Winter Arrives Early, Blanketing Washington and East Coast  —  An enormous winter storm piled snow on New York and New England Saturday evening, after crippling the nation's capital and the mid-Atlantic earlier in the day, causing thousands of flights to be canceled across the country …

Tiger Woods, Person of the Year  —  AS we say farewell to a dreadful year and decade, this much we can agree upon: The person of the year is not Ben Bernanke, no matter how insistently Time magazine tries to hype him into its pantheon.  The Fed chairman was just as big a schnook as every …

Obama, Denied Full Victory on 2 Issues, Takes Validation  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, likes to say that the only thing that is not negotiable is success.  The last 48 hours offered a case study in how the president applies that maxim to governing.

Harder to buy US Treasuries  —  IT is getting harder for governments to buy United States Treasuries because the US's shrinking current-account gap is reducing supply of dollars overseas, a Chinese central bank official said yesterday.  —  The comments by Zhu Min, deputy governor …