House GOP makes a $2.2 trillion debt counteroffer to Obama on cliff  —  House Republican leaders have made a counteroffer to President Obama in the fiscal cliff negotiations, proposing to cut $2.2 trillion with a combination of spending cuts, entitlement reforms and $800 billion in new tax revenue.

Corporate Profits Hit Record High While Worker Wages Hit Record Low  —  A constant conservative charge against President Obama is that he is inherently anti-business.  However, businesses keep defying the storyline by making larger and larger profits, rebounding nicely out of the Great Recession.

Rush Limbaugh: Bob Costas ‘cop out’  —  Rush Limbaugh said Monday that Bob Costas' supporting tougher gun control laws on NBC Sunday was a “cop-out” and “an easy, almost lazy way” to approach Kansas City Chiefs football player Jovan Belcher's killing of the mother of his child and himself.

NEWS FLASH  —  ONE QUARTER OF REPUBLICANS WANT TO SECEDE |  Twenty five percent of registered Republicans want their state to secede from the United States, according to a new poll from Public Policy Polling.  This new statistic comes just weeks after Mitt Romney's loss prompted secession petitions …

Michelle Obama's Next Move  —  What's next for our incredibly popular first lady?  Samuel L. Jackson and other super-fans weigh in.  —  Chatting with a group backstage on the set of Jimmy Kimmel Live! in October, Michelle Obama made it clear that she wasn't thinking about what she might do in the future.

Sheldon Adelson Spent Far More On Campaign Than Previously Known … REACT:  —  FOLLOW:  —  Elections 2012, John Boehner, Mitt Romney, Campaign Finance, Elections 2012, Newt Gingrich, Video, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Las Vegas Sands, Sheldon Adelson, Fcpa, Mitt Romney 2012, Sands Casino …

It's Health Care Costs, Stupid  —  Busy day, so not much blogging.  But a further thought on budget issues.  —  In today's column, I tried to emphasize a point that is weirdly absent from public discourse, at least among VSPs: the favorite VSP “solution” to the long-run budget deficit …

Congress Retains Low Honesty Rating  —  Nurses have highest honesty rating; car salespeople, lowest  —  PRINCETON, NJ — As Congress remains involved in protracted negotiations over the pending “fiscal cliff” that could disrupt the nation's economy if not addressed by Jan. 1 …

Clinton for Mayor in '13?  Bloomberg Asked Her to Consider Succeeding Him  —  Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has long struggled to imagine a successor with the combination of star power, experience and grit to fill his shoes.  —  But not long ago, he was struck by an inspiration: Hillary Rodham Clinton, the retiring secretary of state.

New York Times Seeks Buyouts From 30 in Newsroom  —  Aiming to cut costs in an increasingly troubled advertising environment, The New York Times announced on Monday morning that it would offer buyout packages to newsroom employees.  While the primary goal of the buyout program is to trim managers …

When Barney Frank announced he was ‘coming out of the room’ (er... the closet)  —  The story of when Barney Frank came out to his colleagues involves a double date with flight attendants on New Year's Eve in Egypt.  —  Frank, 72, is retiring next month after more than three decades in Congress.

The Big Budget Mumble  —  In the ongoing battle of the budget, President Obama has done something very cruel.  Declaring that this time he won't negotiate with himself, he has refused to lay out a proposal reflecting what he thinks Republicans want.  Instead, he has demanded that Republicans themselves say, explicitly, what they want.

Boehner Counter Offer To Obama Includes Higher Medicare Age, Social Security Benefit Cut  —  Last November, a full year before President Obama's decisive re-election, Erskine Bowles, a co-chair of President Obama's fiscal responsibility commission, scratched out a series of measures …

GOP Steering Committee Shuffles Conservatives  —  Speaker John A. Boehner initiated today a small purge of rebellious Republicans — mostly conservatives — from prominent committees; it's the latest instance of the Ohio Republican's clamping down on his fractious conference.

Santorum launches column for ‘birther’ website  —  Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has taken a job as a columnist for World Net Daily, a conservative website best known for articles advancing “birther” conspiracy theories about President Obama.

Homeless Man Is Grateful for Officer's Gift of Boots.  But He Again Is Barefoot.  —  After Officer Lawrence DePrimo knelt beside a barefoot man on a bitterly cold November night in Times Square, giving him a pair of boots, a photo of his random act of good will quickly took on a life of its own …