Obama Is Set to Shuffle His Staff  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama is planning the first major reorganization of his administration, preparing to shuffle several positions in the West Wing as he tries to fortify his political team for the realities of divided government and his own re-election.

U.S. Approved Business With Blacklisted Nations  —  Despite sanctions and trade embargoes, over the past decade the United States government has allowed American companies to do billions of dollars in business with Iran and other countries blacklisted as state sponsors of terrorism, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The Humbug Express  —  Hey, has anyone noticed that “A Christmas Carol” is a dangerous leftist tract?  —  I mean, consider the scene, early in the book, where Ebenezer Scrooge rightly refuses to contribute to a poverty relief fund.  “I'm opposed to giving people money for doing nothing,” he declares.

Exclusive - Biden: White House to Hold Line on Taxes in 2012; ‘Inevitability’ of National Consensus on Gay Marriage; Air Bases May Remain in Afghanistan Past 2014  —  The president's primary negotiator for the tax cut deal on Capitol Hill told me the administration will hold the line in two years …

Reid: My job will be ‘easier’ next year  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says his job will be “easier” in the 112th Congress, despite a slimmer Democratic majority and a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.  —  “It's going to be much easier than it was,” Reid told the Las Vegas Sun.

We misunderestimated him: Bush's memoir sells 2m copies in a month - nearly as many as Bill Clinton's sold in six years  —  For someone who mangled words on a regular basis, it's an impressive feat.  —  Former U.S. President George W Bush's memoir has sold an astonishing two million copies since …

Whoops: homosexuals lose “get out of jail free” card  —  According to National Review Online, there may be a whole lot of homosexuals who just got an unpleasant surprise.  With the repeal of the law prohibiting homosexual service in the United States military, they just lost their “get out of jail free” card.

Woman arrested at ABIA after refusing enhanced pat down  —  Early Wednesday morning, a computer glitch shut down a security checkpoint for a couple of hours at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.  The line snaked out the door as many travelers waited for more than an hour and some missed their flights.

Proposed U.S. House Rules Welcome (Quiet) Mobile Devices to the Floor  —  So, it looks like, yep, iPads are indeed coming to the floor of the House of Representatives, at least as long as the rules changes proposed by the incoming Republican leadership are adopted as they stand.

EPA vows to enforce curbs on emissions  —  The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it will regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and oil refineries next year in an attempt to curb global warming.  —  The move, coming on the same day the Interior Department unveiled …

Would global warming be so bad?  —  Guest blogger Stefan Karlsson presents his take on global warming, more often called ‘global climate change.’  —  What has always troubled me the most with the view that we needs to stop “climate change” in the form of “global warming” is the idea that it would be bad if the Earth became warmer.

Bloomberg's aides provided political support for Ground Zero mosque, released emails show  —  Mayor Bloomberg's top deputies went to great lengths to help the developers of a planned mosque near Ground Zero - even drafting a letter to the community board for them.

Pryor, four other Ohio State football players receive five-game suspensions in 2011  —  Terrelle Pryor and four of his Ohio State teammates will be suspended from the first five games of the 2011 season because of NCAA violations, the school and NCAA announced today.

It's all politics, claims Julian Assange  —  WikiLeaks founder says it would be ‘politically impossible’ for Britain to extradite him to the US  —  Julian Assange said today that it would be “politically impossible” for Britain to extradite him to the United States, and that the final word …

Cuba puts ‘imperialist’ US Wikileaks online  —  President Raul Castro says the cables show the US still acts as the “world's policeman”  —  Cuba says it will publish on the internet more than 2,000 US diplomatic cables released by the website Wikileaks.  —  The aim is to highlight US …

Job Offers Rising as Economy Warms Up  —  As the economy gradually recovers, some big U.S. companies are cranking up their recruiting and advertising thousands of job openings, ranging from retail clerks and nurses to bank tellers and experts in cloud computing.

On President Obama's Hawaiian Reading List: Book on President Reagan  —  The White House says that President Obama plans on spending some of his Hawaiian vacation reading, and among the books on his list is one about President Reagan.  —  Obama will be digging into Lou Cannon's biography, “President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime.”