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.

Exclusive: Dick Armey Quits Tea Party Group in Split Over Direction  —  In a move not publicly announced, former Rep. Dick Armey, the folksy conservative leader, has resigned as chairman of FreedomWorks, one of the main political outfits of the conservative movement and an instrumental force within the tea party.

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.

Bloomberg Asked Clinton to Consider Succeeding Him as Mayor  —  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.

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.

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.

Fox News chief's failed attempt to enlist Petraeus as presidential candidate  —  Roger Ailes, the longtime Republican media guru, founder of Fox News and its current chairman, had some advice last year for then-Gen. David H. Petraeus.  —  So in spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed …

Obama Said to Consider Vogue Editor Wintour for U.K. Embassy  —  President Barack Obama is considering nominating Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue, to be either his next ambassador to the U.K. or France, as he looks to reward his biggest fundraisers with embassies that never seem out of fashion …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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.

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.