How the fiscal cliff fight will end (unhappily for Republicans) … The word among some Senate Republicans is that a fiscal cliff deal is likely to be struck by Sunday, or Monday at the latest.  (And Monday, being December 31st, is in fact the latest a deal could be struck to avoid January 1 tax increases.)

Claim seeks $100 million for child survivor of Connecticut school shooting  —  Reuters/Reuters - A U.S. flag hangs over stockings left as a memorial for victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, along a fence surrounding the Sandy Hook Cemetery in Newtown, Connecticut December ...more

Woman Accused of Hate-Crime Murder in Subway Push  —  A 31-year-old woman was arrested on Saturday and charged with a hate crime in connection with the death of a man who was pushed onto the tracks of an elevated subway station in Queens and crushed by an oncoming train.

When Getting Your Butt Kicked Is the Strategy  —  Buzzfeed has one of many pieces about anonymous Republicans bemoaning their party's strategic incompetence, this time about the debt ceiling deal.  They report: … Here's what Buzzfeed is missing: For Republicans, losing the political fight isn't a downside of the strategy.

Dick Armey Defends His $8 Million Deal to Leave FreedomWorks  —  Former House majority leader Dick Armey says he took an $8 million consulting deal in return for leaving the conservative organization FreedomWorks because the group was “dishonest” and because he “couldn't leave with empty pockets.”

French Court Says 75% Tax Rate on Rich Is Unconstitutional  —  President Francois Hollande's 75 percent millionaire-tax is unconstitutional because it fails to guarantee taxpayer equality, France's top court ruled today.  —  The tax, one of Hollande's campaign promises …

Wishful Thinking and Middle-Class Taxes  —  IN the continuing fiscal negotiations between President Obama and House Republicans, both sides have, from the very beginning, agreed on one point: Taxes on the middle class must not rise.  But maybe it's time to reconsider this premise.

Egypt to pursue relationship with Hezbollah  —  In shift from Mubarak-era policy, Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon says Brotherhood-dominated Egypt will engage terror group.  —  In a dramatic policy shift, Egypt will seek to forge “tight” relations with Hezbollah, Egyptian Ambassador …

Laws Are for Little People  —  A week ago on NBC's Meet the Press, David Gregory brandished on screen a high-capacity magazine.  To most media experts, a “high-capacity magazine” means an ad-stuffed double issue of Vanity Fair with the triple-page perfume-scented pullouts.

There's Only One Way To Fix The Deficit — And Actually It's Totally Painless  —  People who insist that the US has a gigantic “spending problem” are ignorant of what really drives the deficit and the national debt, as Henry Blodget easily demonstrated in a series of charts.

New York newspaper to list more gun permit holders after uproar  —  Reuters/Reuters - A small portion of guns that were turned in by their owners are stacked inside a truck at a gun buyback held by the Los Angeles Police Department in Los Angeles, California, December 26, 2012 ...more