Multi-Tasking: Senate to Debate START Treaty & Omnibus Spending Bill In Final Year-end Flurry  —  ABC News' Matthew Jaffe reports:  —  With the tax bill passed through the Senate and headed to the House, senators are now set to begin work on ratifying the START treaty and passing …

White House finds ‘fragile’ gains in Afghan war; appears cautious on July troop withdrawal  —  A White House review of President Obama"s year-old Afghan war strategy concluded that it is “showing progress” against al-Qaeda and in Afghanistan and Pakistan but that “the challenge remains …

Poll: Obama down but not out  —  NBC/WSJ survey shows president leading in 2012 match-ups  —  Below:  —  Deputy Political Director  —  After his party's midterm losses and with the unemployment rate still hovering around 10 percent, President Barack Obama might be down.

U.S. Tries to Build Case for Conspiracy by WikiLeaks  —  WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors, seeking to build a case against the WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for his role in a huge dissemination of classified government documents, are looking for evidence of any collusion in his early contacts …

Obama tells lawmakers not passing tax deal could end presidency, Dem says  —  In urging lawmakers to vote for his tax deal, President Obama is using one of his go-to lines from the healthcare debate, according to a Democratic lawmaker.  —  Obama is telling members of Congress that failure …

Two Californias  —  The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California.  I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements …

Servicers Downgraded Credit Score of Man Who Asked for His Note  —  (Graphic via SEIU's WheresTheNote.com site)  —  Many homeowners have taken advantage of SEIU's Where's the Note website.  It helps you generate letters to your bank to ask for evidence that they hold the mortgage note, or the IOU on the property.

Orszag and Citigroup  —  James Fallows gently chides me and my paper for not writing more on Peter Orszag's decision to take an executive position with Citigroup.  He's probably right to do so, though my silence was in part motivated by terror at having to try and add anything to this brilliant post …

Mao's Great Leap to Famine  —  HONG KONG — The worst catastrophe in China's history, and one of the worst anywhere, was the Great Famine of 1958 to 1962, and to this day the ruling Communist Party has not fully acknowledged the degree to which it was a direct result of the forcible herding …

John Boehner's Crying: Is He Drinking Too Much? … Incoming House Speaker John Boehner's recent interview on “60 Minutes” with Lesley Stahl, where he once again cried publicly, has created a minor controversy among pundits, with observers trying to figure out the cause of his unusual behavior.

Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Fell to 420,000 Last Week  —  The number of U.S. workers filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly declined last week, pointing to a labor market that is on the mend.  —  Applications for jobless insurance payments decreased by 3,000 to 420,000 …

Sarah Palin goes ‘lamestream’  —  After making attacks on what she memorably labeled “the lamestream media” one of her signature issues, Sarah Palin has begun to experiment with a new strategy toward the press - engaging it.  —  The former Alaska governor has started cautiously cooperating …

Updating Hotline's RNC Chairman's Race Whip Count  —  Republican National Committee members now have a total of six candidates from which to choose as they contemplate their next chairman.  And, slowly, the 168 members of the committee are making their decisions public.

Poll: Assessment of Afghanistan War Sours  —  ABC News/Washington Post Poll: Record Six in 10 Say it's ‘Not Worth Fighting’  —  A record 60 percent of Americans say the war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting, a grim assessment — and a politically hazardous one …

Not Really ‘Made in China’  —  The iPhone's Complex Supply Chain Highlights Problems With Trade Statistics  —  BEIJING—One widely touted solution for current U.S. economic woes is for America to come up with more of the high-tech gadgets that the rest of the world craves.

God Help Me, I Agree with Greenwald  —  My feelings about U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning are well documented by The Google, which has my blog entries Let's Try Bradley Manning for Treason and Brad Manning, I Hope They Hang You High being the #1 and #2 search results for a search on “Bradley Manning traitor.”

Michael Moore's Comments on Julian Assange Rape Allegations Spark Outrage  —  Filmmaker Michael Moore is in hot water over comments he made during Tuesday night's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.  In discussing rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Moore appeared to dismiss …

U.S. Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable  —  Suppose the unthinkable happened, and terrorists struck New York or another big city with an atom bomb.  What should people there do?  The government has a surprising new message: Do not flee.  Get inside any stable building and don't come out till officials say it's safe.

GOP looks to box in Obama on $1.1 trillion government spending bill  —  Republicans are trying to box President Obama in on congressional Democrats' $1.1 trillion spending bill by dredging up the president's past statements.  —  The GOP is pointing to the president's previous remarks …

L.A. teachers union won't accept pay cuts, ‘value-added’ evaluations  —  UTLA leaders dispute criticisms from the mayor and others, but reiterate their firm opposition to furloughs, larger classes and use of students' test scores to evaluate teachers' performance.