Nude Protesters Arrested After Storming Speaker Boehner's Office  —  Seven naked protesters swarmed the office of Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on Tuesday for some 20 minutes of loud chanting against cuts to AIDS funding.  —  Among their chants: “Boehner, Boehner, don't be a dick, budget cuts will make us sick.”

Reasons to be encouraged about fiscal cliff's endgame  —  Now this is encouraging.  I'm told that representatives of major unions and progressive groups met privately this morning with senior Obama administration officials at the White House — and were pleased with what they heard.

Susan Rice vs. GOP as Benghazi fight escalates  —  The running fight between U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and congressional Republicans escalated Tuesday, with key senators vowing to block Rice's nomination if President Barack Obama ever decides to pick her as his next secretary of State.

North Korea's top leader named The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive for 2012  —  é‡'.... .æ°"  —  Edited and translated by Zhang Qian, People's Daily Online  —  U.S. website The Onion has named North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un as the “Sexiest Man Alive for the year 2012”.

Tom Ricks: Fox News ‘is making it up’  —  Author Tom Ricks on Tuesday said Fox News is “making it up” that he apologized after slamming the network during an on-air interview as “operating as a wing of the Republican Party” and hyping Benghazi for political reasons.

Harry Reid puts his finger on the ‘nuclear option’ button  —  So here's today's update in the slow, inexorable march towards filibuster reform: Democrats took yet another step in the direction of changing the rules by a simple majority vote — i.e., exercising the dreaded “nuclear option.”

RADIO'S LAURA INGRAHAM OFF THE AIR … NEW YORK (AP) — Radio talk show host Laura Ingraham is off the air - at least temporarily.  —  She said Tuesday that she's leaving her distributor, Talk Radio Network, after more than nine years because her contract is up.

Idaho lawmaker shares ‘last chance’ idea to elect Romney  —  A state senator from north-central Idaho is touting a scheme that's been circulating on tea party blogs, calling for states that supported Mitt Romney to refuse to participate in the Electoral College in a move backers believe would change the election result.

The Next Real Estate Boom  —  How housing (yes, housing) can turn the economy around.  —  hat if there were a new economic engine for the United States that would put our people back to work without putting the government deeper in debt?  What if that economic engine also improved …

The Millennial Generation: Our Liberal Future  —  How doomed are conservatives?  Pretty doomed, if you look carefully at the Pew Research Survey's close analysis of the youth vote in the 2012 elections.  The Republicans' long-term dilemma has generally been framed in racial terms, but it's mainly a generational one.

Virginia Attorney General Suggests Obama Stole The Election … Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) told a radio host he completely agreed with her assertion that investigations are needed to determine why President Obama lost “every one” of the states with photo identification requirements for voting, yet won re-election.

CNN Poll: Americans rate W.H. response to Benghazi attack and Petraeus resignation  —  Washington (CNN) - Americans are giving the White House low marks for how it's handled the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the resignation of former CIA Director David Petraeus, according to a new national survey.

A Struggling CNN Is Expected to Name Zucker Its Next President  —  In the days to come, when Time Warner appoints a new leader of CNN Worldwide for the first time in a decade, he or she will face an identity crisis unlike any other in corporate America.  —  Though CNN over all is on track …

Bob Dole, 89, hospitalized at Walter Reed  —  Updated 5:23 p.m. Eastern Time  —  Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee and longtime leader of Senate Republicans, has been hospitalized at Walter Reed Hospital, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Tuesday.

Decrease in Overall Debt Balance Continues Despite Rise in Non-Real Estate Debt  —  NEW YORK - In its latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced that in the third quarter, non-real estate household debt jumped 2.3 percent to $2.7 trillion.

Retirement watch: Will they stay or will they go?  —  The money game can also provide clues into senators' thinking — Cochran, Enzi, Idaho Sen. Jim Risch and Nebraska Sen. Mike Johanns each had less than $350,000 in their war chests through the end of the third quarter.

Alan Simpson hopes Grover Norquist drowns in bathtub  —  Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wy.), one of the co-chairmen of the president's debt commission, joked Tuesday that he would like to see anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist drown in a bathtub.  —  The comment was a play on Norquist's famous statement …