Food-safety measure passes Senate in Sunday surprise  —  A bill that would overhaul the nation's food-safety laws for the first time since the Great Depression came roaring back to life Sunday as Senate Democrats struck a deal with Republicans that helped overcome a technical mistake …

Nina Totenberg: ‘I Was At - Forgive the Expression - a Christmas Party...’  —  “I was at - forgive the expression - a Christmas party,” NPR reporter Nina Totenberg interjected on Inside Washington in the weekend's oddest cautionary separation from a common description for a common event …

Proposed Amendment Would Enable States to Repeal Federal Law  —  The same people driving the lawsuits that seek to dismantle the Obama administration's health care overhaul have set their sights on an even bigger target: a constitutional amendment that would allow a vote of the states to overturn any act of Congress.

The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time  —  What's Your Reaction:  —  This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet.  —  As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field.

Tea Party Discontent Bubbles to the Surface  —  Discontent Boiling Over Tax Cuts Bill and House GOP Committee Leadership Positions  —  The new Congress hasn't been seated yet but signs of a rift are already beginning to emerge between Republican leaders and Tea Party groups …

When Zombies Win  —  When historians look back at 2008-10, what will puzzle them most, I believe, is the strange triumph of failed ideas.  Free-market fundamentalists have been wrong about everything — yet they now dominate the political scene more thoroughly than ever.  —  How did that happen?

Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.  —  The system, by far the largest …

TRENDING: Palin disses Michelle Obama over ‘dessert’  —  (CNN) - Sarah Palin is again taking aim at Michelle Obama over her anti-obesity campaign, taking the opportunity in Sunday's “Sarah Palin's Alaska” to land a diss against the first lady's efforts to improve nutrition.

Obama reaches out to liberal groups to shore up Democratic base after tax deal  —  In the wake of President Obama's tax-cut deal with Republicans, the White House is moving quickly to mend its strained relationship with the Democratic base, reassuring liberal groups, black leaders …

Lawyers cry foul over leak of Julian Assange sex-case papers  —  LAWYERS for Julian Assange have expressed anger about an alleged smear campaign against the Australian WikiLeaks founder.  —  Incriminating police files were published in the British newspaper that has used him as its source for hundreds of leaked US embassy cables.

State Budgets: The Day of Reckoning  —  Steve Kroft Reports On The Growing Financial Woes States Are Facing  —  (CBS) By now, just about everyone in the country is aware of the federal deficit problem, but you should know that there is another financial crisis looming involving state and local governments.

A Scientific Theory Is Judged By Its Predictive Power  —  “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.”  That is what global warming alarmists in Great Britain were telling us just ten years ago: … The Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was, as you probably remember …

Auditors Face Fraud Charge  —  New York Set to Allege Ernst & Young Stood By as Lehman Cooked Its Books  —  New York prosecutors are poised to file civil fraud charges against Ernst & Young for its alleged role in the collapse of Lehman Brothers, saying the Big Four accounting firm stood …

House GOP Crushes Bill That Would Protect Against Child Marriage  —  On Thursday night, hours before passing the tax cut compromise, House Republicans thwarted a bill that aimed to protect girls around the world from being coerced into child marriage.  They opposed it because, they claimed, it might fund abortions.

A Tough Season for Believers  —  Christmas is hard for everyone.  But it's particularly hard for people who actually believe in it.  —  In a sense, of course, there's no better time to be a Christian than the first 25 days of December.  But this is also the season when American Christians can feel most embattled.

Pigford Video Blockbuster: Key ‘Black Farmers’ Lawyer Admits Clients ‘Got Away With Murder’  —  The mainstream media has treated accusations of large-scale fraud in the Pigford settlement with overt skepticism and a distinct lack of journalistic curiosity.  The press has blindly repeated …

One Battle Won, Activists Shift Sights  —  WASHINGTON — As gay people around the country reveled on Sunday in the historic Senate vote to repeal “Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” a liberal media watchdog group said it planned to announce on Monday that it was setting up a “communications war room for gay equality” …

Unlikely Foes  —  The Southern Poverty Law Center is among the premier civil rights organizations in the United States, known for taking on hate groups and defending the powerless.  A group of leading genocide scholars this month sent the center a stinging letter, obtained by Inside Higher Ed …