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.

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.

U.S. Approved Business With Blacklisted Nations  —  Despite sanctions and trade embargoes, over the past decade the United States government has granted special licenses allowing American companies to do billions of dollars in business with Iran and other countries blacklisted as state sponsors of terrorism …

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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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 …

Bush Policy on Lands Is Reversed  —  The Interior Department reversed a Bush-era policy on wilderness on Thursday, restoring the authority of its Bureau of Land Management to identify and recommend new areas for protection.  —  Since 2003, the department has excluded wilderness as a criterion …

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.

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.

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 …

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

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 …

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 …

Don't Believe the Reapportionment Hype  —  The decennial census has told the same story for the better part of a century—it's a story of exodus from the Northeastern and Midwestern regions and of an exploding South and West, a migration from the cold winters of industrial demise toward the bright sun of economic innovation.

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.

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 …

Palestinian family sends mentally ill son to settlement in hope IDF shoots him  —  Boy caught near central West Bank settlement of Beit El, said family forced him at gunpoint to go to settlement in hopes he would be killed.  —  A Palestinian caught trying to infiltrate a settlement Wednesday night claims …

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 …

Abortion fight at Catholic hospital pushes ACLU to seek federal help  —  The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday asked federal health officials to ensure that Catholic hospitals provide emergency reproductive care to pregnant women, saying the refusal by religiously affiliated hospitals …