Don't ask me why, but I'm on the email list of several extreme Christian fundamentalist groups. And lately I've received a couple of warnings from them: watch out for Mitt Romney. He's a Mormon.

On Thursday, Romney is scheduled to give (finally) what's being called his "Mormon Speech." Romney recently said, "I can tell you I'm not going to be talking so much about my faith as I am talking about the religious heritage of our country and the role in which it played in the founding of the nation and the role which I think religion should generally play today in our society."

No one really wants to hear Romney expound on the history of religion in the United States. The issue is whether he can persuade conservative conventional Christians that he, as a Mormon, is as good a Christian as they (and Mike Huckabee) are. Why is he delivering such a speech just weeks before the Iowa caucus? Obviously he and his advisers have decided he has no choice, especially with Huckabee, the former Baptist minister, surging in the polls in the Hawkeye State.

There are Christians who consider Mormonism a heretical cult, but there's no telling if the fundamentalists who are gunning for Romney will have any influence on GOP Iowa caucus-goers, a relatively small slice of Iowans dominated by social conservatives.

One outfit called Godvoters.org has put out an email decrying Romney.

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The San Francisco Republican Alliance (yes, there are Republicans here) fended off a throng of Ron Paul supporters that threatened to overwhelm its annual pre-election banquet last night at Fisherman's Wharf. The dinner was to be followed by a straw poll, but Alliance leader Gail Neira canceled it after the Paulites showed up in droves. Paul supporters are known for swarming and being locked out of online straw polls, but this may be the first time they've shut down a poll in the meatspace. The pandemonium that ensured, captured on video below, looks like a scene from a Democratic tea party in 1969:

Though Paul supporters may not always be polite (or racially sensitive), they're clearly shaking up the GOP with the kind of energy bordering on fanaticism that is normally associated with the acolytes of left-wing revolutionarios. Among their latest exploits: a Ron-Paul-branded version of Google (RonPoogle), a Bands4RonPaul Myspace page devoted to Paul fight songs (there are 16), and efforts to conscript 40,000 donors to build a nuclear version of the Ron Paul Money Bomb by agreeing to generate $1,000,000 a week. Wonkette calls them Paultards, but I prefer the term embraced by the Weekly Standard: Ronulans.

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Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) chaired an investigations subcommittee hearing on credit cards and the mysteries of how banks determine cardholders' interest rates—and raise them dramatically without warning. In particular, the hearing focused on banks' use of "universal default," by which your card's interest rate gets hiked up because you missed a payment to another creditor—not the card's issuer. Or, as the consumer-rights blog The Consumerist puts it, "the most evil and hated practice where a credit card company boosts your rates because you didn't pay a late fee owed to the library." Oh, and those new rates apply retroactively to all existing items on your bill. This is one of dozens of sneaky credit-card tricks banks spring on plastic-carrying customers. Levin called three unhappy cardholders to testify, followed by three bank executives. The Consumerist liveblogged all three hours of the fun. A couple of choice moments:

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Ah, a bipartisan issue.

Today the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in two cases related to habeas corpus, Boumediene v. Bush and al Odah v. United States. Their quick hour through oral arguments will test the validity of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which essentially strips federal foreign detainees at Guantanamo of their right to be heard in court. (Check out today's top story about a group of Algerians who were set to be freed from a Bosnian prison six years ago, only to end up at Gitmo, where they've been, without trial and awaiting this ruling, ever since.)

The Supremes will likely read dozens of amicus briefs in the case, many of which fall nowhere along party lines, like this one signed by a bevy of policy leaders and diplomats, and this one signed by 20 former federal judges. Both bipartisan briefs urge the Court to strike down the provision of the Act that eliminates the detainees' rights.

No telling how this one will turn out. The Supreme Court originally denied the detainees' petition for certiorari (essentially an appeal) in April, and, then did an about-face, reversing that decision in June.

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