The final poll results are out!  Looks like it’s Romney at 24%, Paul at 22%, and 15% for Santorum.   Rumors are already swirling that Bachmann/Perry supporters may throw their support behind Santorum, now the most viable social conservative.   If Steve King endorses Santorum on Tuesday, we might have a real horse race here. 

(DesMoinesRegister)…Mitt Romney tops the latest Des Moines Register Iowa Poll in the closing days before the Iowa caucuses, but Ron Paul and Rick Santorum are poised within striking distance.  The poll, conducted Tuesday through Friday, shows support at 24 percent for Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts; 22 percent for Paul, a Texas congressman; and 15 percent for the surging Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.  But the four-day results don’t reflect just how quickly momentum is shifting in a race that has remained highly fluid for months. If the final two days of polling are considered separately, Santorum rises to second place, with 21 percent, pushing Paul to third, at 18 percent. Romney remains the same, at 24 percent.  (more…)

I think it’s great to see Virginia’s AG, Ken Cuccinelli,  stepping in to see if he can get this issue resolved on the legislative side.  The citizens of Virginia deserve to see this process reformed…hopefully in time to see all the GOP candidates on the ballot. 

(FoxNews)…Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is intervening in his state’s presidential primary dispute and plans to file emergency legislation to address the inability of most Republican presidential candidates to get their name on the ballot, Fox News has learned.

Meanwhile, four GOP candidates on Saturday joined fellow candidate Rick Perry’s lawsuit against the state, urging the Board of Elections to either allow them on the ballot or at least refrain from taking any action until a Jan. 13 court hearing.

Only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul qualified for the Virginia primary, a contest with 49 delegates up for grabs. Perry and the four candidates joining the lawsuit — Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman — did not.

The failure of other candidates to qualify led to complaints that the 10,000-signature requirement is too stringent.   (more…)

Psychologists have a name for adults who still believe in Santa…

Out of this world: Winners of National Geographic competition capture stunning images of nature at its most beautiful

Video surfaces of Ron Paul talking about racist newsletters in 1995, far earlier than he said he knew about them

GOP presidential candidate says he didn’t write reports

( NYDaily)…A blast from the past is blowing a big hole in Ron Paul’s campaign.  A recently surfaced video from 1995 shows the GOP presidential hopeful discussing controversial newsletters that he claimed this week he didn’t even read until about 2001.

The Texas congressman has come under fire in recent days for the newsletters, called Ron Paul’s Political Report, Ron Paul’s Freedom Report and the Ron Paul Survival Report, which went out under his name in the late 1980s and early 1990s during his time in and out of office.  Some contained a series of racist statements, including, “We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational.”  During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, another read, “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.”

Video below the fold.…   (more…)

Oh, Mr. President…you really are too modest.  After all, aren’t you the guy who slowed down the rising of the oceans, and brought about the healing of our planet?  Come on Mr. President, in my book I’ve got you pegged at number one…albeit my list has a different heading.

Deadly series of attacks rock Baghdad…

Dozens killed and many more injured in wave of bombings across Iraqi capital amid rising sectarian tensions.

(Aljazeera)…Dozens of people have been killed and many more wounded in a series of blasts in Baghdad, according to Iraqi police.  At least 63 people died and 176 people were injured in at least 12 bombings across the Iraqi capital on Thursday morning, health ministry sources told Al Jazeera.  But there remained discrepancies amid officials over the fast-changing casualty count.  The wave of bombings come amid renewed fears of sectarian strife following the withdrawal of US troops and a deepening political crisis over an arrest warrant issued for Tariq al-Hashimi, the country’s vice president and most senior Sunni politician.  (more…)

Update:  Quoting Boehnner at his 5:30pm presser, “It may not have been politically the smartest thing in the world to wage this ultimately futile war.”  Understatement.

Update:  Looks like not all Republicans are on board with Boehnner’s plan to pass this quietly via unanimous consent.

Great….the optics couldn’t have been better.  President gives a presser surrounded by an adoring crowd of middle-class taxpayers demanding action, then within the hour, the Republicans cave making it look even weaker than it is.  Is anybody still talking about Keystone anymore?   Oh, and just a thought…what if Boehnner doesn’t have the votes to pass this?  Is he done as Speaker?   But is Boehnner really the one we should be blaming?  It looks to me like Boehnner went out on a limb over this, and Mitch McConnell just cut him off.

(ABCNews)… House Republican leaders have decided to accept a short-term extension of the payroll tax cut, sources told ABC News this afternoon, preventing a hike in taxes just nine days before the tax break expires for 160 million Americans.  (more…)