White House could protect middle class from looming tax hikes  —  The White House has the power to temporarily protect taxpayers from middle-class tax hikes even as upper income rates rise if Congress does nothing and all of the Bush-era tax rates expire in January.

Volcanoes, Not Meteorite, Killed Dinosaurs, New Study Suggests … REACT:  —  FOLLOW:  —  Video, Dinosaur Death, Dinosaur Extinction, Dinosaurs Asteroid, Dinosaurs Deccan Traps, Dinosaurs India, Dinosaurs Lava, Dinosaurs Volcano, Volcanic Activity Dinosaurs, Volcanoes Killed Dinosaurs, What Killed Dinosaurs, Science News

How close did Israel just come to its own Cuban missile crisis?  —  Nov. 17, 2012: Explosion and smoke rise following an Israeli strike in Gaza, seen from the Israel Gaza Border, southern Israel.AP  —  HAIFA, ISRAEL - Hundreds of Iranian-made, long-range missiles already smuggled …

Lagarde: ‘Zero’ U.S. growth without a deal  —  Washington (CNN) — The head of the International Monetary Fund warned that the American economy won't grow next year without a deal on the fiscal cliff.  —  Chistine Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF, spoke to CNN's Candy Crowley on …

Big Money Bets on a Housing Rebound  —  DAVID N. MILLER, a master of bailouts, steps to the dais and coolly explains how the financial world went crazy.  —  It is February 2010.  The anger behind Occupy Wall Street is building.  Flicking through slides, Mr. Miller, a Treasury official working …

Boustany Jr. tops Landry in La. runoff  —  Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (La.) defeated fellow Republican Rep. Jeff Landry late Saturday in a runoff, according to the Associated Press, bringing the last outstanding House race of the 2012 cycle to a close.  —  With 85 percent of the precincts reporting …

Ed Miliband to wage war on George Osborne over benefit cuts  —  Labour set for Commons showdown as church leaders and charities protest at assault on welfare  —  Ed Miliband is to put Labour at the head of a national revolt to kill off the chancellor's latest benefit cuts as church leaders …

Clinton's Countless Choices Hinge on One: 2016  —  You're one of the most famous women on earth, and you're jobless for the first time in decades.  You'd like to make money, but you don't want to rule out running for president.  So what do you do all day?  —  Right now, aides and friends say …

How the Mainstream Press Bungled the Single Biggest Story of the 2012 Campaign … Elections 2012 , Thomas Mann , Elite Political Press , Fact Checking , Lies , Msm , Norman Ornstein , Political Coverage , Media News  —  Post-mortems of contemporary election coverage typically include regrets …

Pennsylvania Considers Electoral College Reform  —  MoJo's Nick Baumann has an alarmist post titled “GOP Resurrects Plan to Rig Electoral College.”  The actual proposal, though, is inarguably more democratic than the status quo. … Changing the rules in September would have been blatantly unfair …

Sanders: GOP Senate obstructionism ‘undemocratic’ and ‘unAmerican’  —  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) slammed Republican obstructionism in the Senate as “undemocratic” and “unAmerican” and urged filibuster reform after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked his own bill earlier this week.

Gay Activists Weigh Possibilities of Marriage Ruling  —  LOS ANGELES — Within moments of the announcement on Friday that the Supreme Court would hear two cases relating to same-sex marriage, gay activists rejoiced, heralding the decision as a major advancement for their movement.

Responding to Jon Chait on the Suddenly Possible Idea of Raising the Medicare Eligibility Age  —  So my old college pal Jon Chait (I promise before the end of my time here to pull out the parody my college humor magazine did of his column in the Michigan Daily) has responded to my criticism …