In Tax Fight, Republicans Seeking Fallback Position  —  WASHINGTON — With President Obama insisting on higher tax rates for affluent Americans and winning public support for the idea, Congressional Republicans find themselves in an increasingly difficult political spot and are quietly beginning the difficult search for a way out.

Hillary Clinton Wins High Popularity, Majority Support for a 2016 Bid  —  Carried by a new high in personal popularity and broad approval of her work as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton closes out her diplomatic career with majority support as a candidate for president in 2016.

Fox News Puts Karl Rove on the Bench  —  The post-election soul searching going on inside the Republican Party is taking place inside Fox News as well.  Fox News chief Roger Ailes, a canny marketer and protector of his network's brand, has been taking steps since November to reposition Fox …

Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck dead at age 91  —  Arts critic  —  Dave Brubeck, a jazz musician who attained pop-star acclaim with recordings such as “Take Five” and “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” died Wednesday morning at Norwalk Hospital, in Norwalk, Conn., said his longtime manager-producer-conductor Russell Gloyd.

Detroit councilwoman to Obama: We voted for you, now bail us out  —  DETROIT (WJBK) — The city of Detroit faces a major financial crisis and one member of city council thinks President Barack Obama should step in and help.  —  City Council member JoAnn Watson said Tuesday the citizens support …

Ohio Senator Confronted By Constituents Over Support For Medicare And Social Security Cuts  —  Ohio Senator Rob Portman (R) was one of a handful of Washington, D.C lawmakers and policy experts invited to participate in a panel discussion on the fiscal cliff on Tuesday morning …

Praised Be the Glorious Sovereigntists Who Protect the U.S.A. from.... from.... wait, what?  —  I've blogged on occasion about the development of a sovereigntist lobby that reflexively opposes all treaties because they erode U.S. sovereignty.  For these people, any infringement on American sovereignty …

Adelson to Keep Betting on the GOP  —  LAS VEGAS—After spending more than $100 million mostly on losing Republican election campaigns this year, casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson said he planned to stay in the game and double down on his political donations.

Lack of rank-and-file House GOP backlash hints at softening on taxes  —  Republicans appeared Tuesday to be moving reluctantly toward a debt deal that would increase revenues, one day after Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) offered up $800 billion in tax collection in the fiscal-cliff negotiations.

Ryan, Rubio plot GOP's path  —  Paul Ryan took an unmistakable shot Tuesday at Mitt Romney's assertion that 47 percent of Americans would never vote Republican because they are too dependent on government.  —  “Both parties tend to divide Americans into ‘our voters’ and ‘their voters,’” …

Republicans not handling election results well  —  PPP's first post election national poll finds that Republicans are taking the results pretty hard...and also declining in numbers.  —  49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama.

Anguished fotog: Critics are unfair to condemn me  —  Ki Suk Han, 58, of Queens frantically tries to climb to safety yesterday as a train bears down on him in Midtown.  He was fatally struck seconds later. … I was on an assignment, waiting for a train at the 49th Street subway platform, when I suddenly heard people gasping.

Democrats to Obamaland: Share your data  —  The hottest property to emerge from Barack Obama's lopsided victory over Mitt Romney is not the president's much lauded campaign team.  Nor is it the shrewd turnout operation that catapulted him to victory.  —  It is something far more valuable that's …

Susan Rice and the Senate's blame game  —  A variety of insults have been deployed in opposition to Susan Rice's likely nomination for secretary of state: She is not qualified; she's too aggressive; she “misled” the public following the lethal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.

How The Voter ID Crusade Backfired On Republicans  —  The Republican push to make it more difficult to vote this year — seen by many as a racially tinged attempt to keep Democratic turnout down — could not have failed more spectacularly, a top African American activist told a left-leaning think tank Tuesday.

A losing GOP hand  —  O holds all the fiscal-cliff cards  —  Republicans have a bad hand to play when it comes to the “fiscal cliff” coming up Jan. 1, when taxes will rise automatically on everyone and whopping defense cuts will be imposed automatically.  —  Did I say a bad hand?

Biggs and Richwine: The Underworked Public Employee  —  The cliché is true: Government workers do tend to take it easier than their private counterparts.  —  With state and local governments struggling to balance budgets in a still sluggish economy, government employment has fallen …

French sperm count ‘falls by a third’  —  Chemicals, diet and lifestyle may lower sperm count  —  The sperm count of French men fell by a third between 1989 and 2005, a study suggests.  —  The semen of more than 26,600 French men was tested in the study, reported in the journal Human Reproduction.

Dick Armey, FreedomWorks president clashed over book deal  —  Dick Armey left the deep-pocketed tea party group he helped build over a clash with a top lieutenant who Armey and others in the organization believed was using the group's resources to pad his pockets, POLITICO has learned.

Reid: Filibuster Reform Is Happening Whether Republicans Like It Or Not  —  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) fierce resistance to reforming the filibuster isn't fazing Harry Reid, who insists that he will weaken the minority party's power to obstruct legislative business with Republican support or without it.

Taking the Threat of Default Out of the Debt Limit  —  On Sunday, December 2, Secretary Geithner appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, CBS' Face the Nation, ABC's This Week, FOX News Sunday, and CNN's State of the Union and made the case for the Administration's balanced approach to reducing the deficit and strengthening economic growth.