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.

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.”

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”.

OHIO SENATE PUTS END TO ‘HEARTBEAT’ ABORTION BILL  —  You are here  —  Home » Julie Carr » Ohio Senate puts end to ‘heartbeat’ abortion bill  —  COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The leader of the Ohio Senate put a stop Tuesday to a bill that would have imposed the most stringent restriction on abortions in the nation.

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.

Who Will Be the Next Treasury Secretary?  This Guy!  —  President Obama walks with White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew in March on the South Lawn of the White House  —  I was considering doing a post with chin-stroking speculation about who the next Treasury secretary will be, but instead let me just tell you.

A Struggling CNN Worldwide Is Said to Be Drawn to Jeffrey Zucker  —  In the days to come, when Time Warner appoints a new leader of CNN Worldwide for the first time in a decade, that person will face an identity crisis unlike any other in corporate America.  —  Though CNN over all is on track …

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.

Regarding Saxby Chambliss  —  Saxby Chambliss is waffling around like a dog off its leash for the first time.  —  He says he does not care about a “twenty year old pledge” he signed.  He's talking about the Americans for Tax Reform pledge that says he pledges not to raise taxes.

House committee chairs all men  —  At the top of House committees, it's a man's world.  —  Not a single woman will lead any of the major House committees in the 113th Congress.  —  After a day of meetings closed to the public, the House Republican Steering Committee announced an all-male slate …

Geithner Keeps Withholding Freeze as Weapon to Curb Cliff  —  The Obama administration has a way to blunt about half of the fiscal cliff's economic fallout for 2013, even if Congress stays deadlocked: Freeze paycheck withholding levels.  —  Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has the authority …

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.

James Bond and the new sex appeal  —  In the new James Bond movie, “Skyfall,” Daniel Craig takes off his shirt and examines his wounds.  There appear to be two of them — small holes on his skin from bullets fired at the beginning of the movie.  He touches his wounds and winces.

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.

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 …

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.

Students Told to Disavow ‘American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality’  —  A political science professor at Butler University asks students to disregard their “American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality, middle-class status” when writing and speaking in the classroom …

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 …