Napolitano Scolds Reporter for Airing Complaints of Dead Border Agent's Family  —  Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, leaving the funeral of a murdered Border Patrol agent Wednesday, scolded a reporter for asking her to address the victim's family's concerns that not enough is being done to secure the southern border.

Boy, 13, Busted For Illegal Marker Possession  —  Oklahoma City math teacher in citizen's arrest of student … A 13-year-old boy was arrested Friday for using a permanent marker while in class at his Oklahoma City middle school, a violation of an obscure city ordinance.

Pat Robertson Questions Prison for Pot Convictions  —  Updated Chalk this one up as a real head-scratcher.  —  Pat Robertson, the televangelist who once ran for president, said on his show “The 700 Club” that he thought marijuana should be legalized.  —  Yep, the Christian conservative preacher …

Bradley Manning Speaks About His Conditions … Sign the letter to the Commanding Officer of Bradley Manning's brig urging for Bradley's unnecessary POI order to be lifted  —  Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old Army private accused of leaking classified information to Wikileaks …

Taxes and the Top Percentile Myth  —  A 2008 OECD study of leading economies found that ‘taxation is most progressively distributed in the United States.’ More so than Sweden or France.  —  When President Obama announced a two-year stay of execution for taxpayers on Dec. 7 …

Obama Family Vacation Runs Into Troubled Waters: Again  —  The first family just can't seem to enjoy a beach vacation near clean, pristine water, and the current presidential vacation is no different.  —  Hawaii has been plagued with heavy rains recently, and the Oahu village of Kailua …

Breaking the filibuster in one graph  —  If you're looking for some good historical data on the filibuster, the fine folks who keep up (the surprisingly useful) Senate.gov site have you covered.  They've tracked the number of cloture filings (when the majority begins the process of breaking a filibuster) …

Fresh humiliation for eurozone as China says it will bail out debt-ridden nations  —  China has said it is willing to bail out debt-ridden countries in the euro zone using its $2.7trillion overseas investment fund.  —  In a fresh humiliation for Europe, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu …

Crisis Of The Public Intellectual  —  Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy  —  A few days ago a friend of mine who works at MSNBC asked if I'd come on to talk about Haley Barbour.  I declined because Kenyatta had a final that evening and my son had math homework, as well as a bedtime.

2012 hopefuls to skip Hispanic forum  —  It was billed, in part, as a forum for the 2012 Republican presidential field to speak directly to Hispanics - a replica of the vaunted Conservative Political Action Conference, but tailored to the fastest-growing slice of the electorate.

TMI, Mr. President!  TMI!  —  Do you know who recently stopped smoking Marlboros?  Here are some hints: He received 12 stitches in his busted lip.  He wears a size 11 or so shoe.  And his wife says he is sometimes “too snore-y and stinky” to share the marital bed.  —  Here are some more hints.

Christmas in Bethlehem: the cross banished from souvenirs  —  For fear of Islamic fundamentalism, textile workshops in Hebron and Jerusalem, produce and sell T-shirts and other items depicting the Church of the Nativity without the cross.  Discrimination and economic crisis are forcing Christians …

Lisa Murkowski goes rogue  —  Lisa Murkowski isn't gunning down caribou on national TV like that other famous Alaskan, but the Republican lawmaker is going rogue in the Senate just weeks after staging the most stunning back-from-the-dead political win of the 2010 cycle.

Gates Reminds Troops That 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' is Still in Effect … The president has signed the repeal of “Don't ask, Don't tell,” but Defense Secretary Robert Gates is warning troops that the policy banning gays from serving openly in the military is still in effect.

Harry Reid devising plan to press forward with filibuster reform, aide says  —  Still more good news for filibuster reform: Harry Reid is in active discussions with his caucus about moving forward with reform in the new year, and is currently devising a plan to do just that, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide tells me.

FLOTUS chows at the taxpayers' trough  —  First lady Michelle Obama didn't feel like waiting around cold, boring old Washington, D.C., for her husband and Congress to wrap up their work for the year.  So she simply stuck the taxpayers with the $63,000 tab to start her Hawaiian vacation a bit early …

“A Rough Version of Mr. Bush's Dream May Yet Come True”  —  In its editorial today, “A Good Year in Iraq,” the Washington Post writes this: … The editorial goes on to point out that (a) the election was judged free and fair, a very rare event in the Middle East; (b) measures …

McMillan warns Obama  —  Because life is short, I try generally to avoid irrelevant joke candidacies (particularly ones whose views have a slightly sinister tinge) in this space, but it seems worth noting that the semi-coherent Jimmy McMillan of “The Rent is Too Damn High Party” fame is attempting to take his black-gloved act national.

Dave Camp's plan: Taxes made simple  —  Many parents have heard FICA Screams.  Indignant children, holding in trembling hands their first paychecks, demand to know what FICA is and why it is feasting on their pay.  —  FICA (the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax) is government compassion …

A Letter to Santa Claus  —  What's Your Reaction:  —  Dear Santa Claus,  —  I am writing out of concern, because you may have to move from the North Pole due to the dramatic melting of Arctic sea ice.  The Navy's chief oceanographer says that by the summer of 2020 the North Pole …

PolitiFiction  —  True ‘lies’ about ObamaCare.  —  So the watchdog news outfit called PolitiFact has decided that its “lie of the year” is the phrase “a government takeover of health care.”  Ordinarily, lies need verbs and we'd leave the media criticism to others, but the White House …

Did the No Labels folks read Arlen Specter's speech?  —  The No Labels website links to the farewell speech by Sen. Arlen Specter (D/R/D-Pa.).  I guess they must search for the word “civility,” but next time they should actually read the speech before offering it as a model of public decorum.

Rove: Hillary might run in 2016  —  Karl Rove talked about a Hillary Clinton 2016 bid on Fox News last night.

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange Fires Back at ‘Idiot’ Critics … From his house arrest in a British mansion, beleaguered WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is firing away at his critics, including the unlikely trio of Vice President Joe Biden, Sarah Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Gender at the RNC  —  Indiana GOP Committeeman James Bopp, endorsing Reince Priebus yesterday, wrote:  —  I believe that Reince Priebus is the best choice for chairman.  It was a close decision, particularly between Saul and Reince, since I think Ann has an insurmountable difficulty reaching …

Why Republicans Gave In  —  One X-factor in the Dems' run of lame duck wins was the GOP.  They didn't exactly make it easy for Dems to do stuff...but they could've made it harder.  Much harder.  They ceded back hours of time; they handed Dems the food-safety bill after Dems basically botched it …

Six big achievements of a surprisingly ‘do something’ Congress  —  The outgoing 111th Congress is among the most productive in history, in spite of its reputation for gridlock and 13 percent approval rating.  Democrats controlled the House and the Senate, and used their large majorities …