No cliff deal as final hour approaches  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell still haven't struck a deal to prevent taxes from rising on wage earners in the new year, sources say, as eleventh-hour negotiations to avert historic tax hikes approach a make-or-break moment Sunday.

December 30: President Barack Obama, Tom Brokaw, Jon Meacham, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Brooks, and Chuck Todd  —  December 30: President Obama, Brokaw, Meacham, Kearns Goodwin, Brooks, Todd  —  Below:  —  updated 2012-12-30T14:17:37  —  DAVID GREGORY:  —  Mr. President, welcome back to Meet the Press.

Lindsay Graham: I Will Destroy America's Solvency Unless The Social Security Retirement Age Is Raised  —  Although official Washington is currently fixated on the so-called “Fiscal Cliff,” the biggest threat to American prosperity is the debt ceiling, which must be raised in February to prevent economic catastrophe.

Newtown Task Force Returns Biden to Gun Control Arena  —  WASHINGTON — Never much known for restraint, Joseph R. Biden Jr. did not hold back during a presidential primary debate in 2007 when a voter asking about gun rights in a recorded video displayed a fearsome-looking semiautomatic rifle and declared, “This is my baby.”

Some Thoughts About The Kingdom of Thailand  —  With Former Prime Minister Abhisit.  —  On Christmas Eve, ThaiPBS television interviewed me in Bangkok.  The interview is scheduled to air on 31 December at 9:40PM Thailand time.  Our interview will be online here.

Worst year in Washington: The tea party  —  The Gadsden flag, which flew proudly over the 2010 midterm elections, now lies in tatters — rent by internal disagreements, losses among its most visible standard-bearers and a growing sense that the tea party movement, which once looked …

Why the War Party Fears Hagel  —  In the fortnight since Chuck Hagel's name was floated for secretary of defense, we have witnessed Washington at its worst.  —  Who is Chuck Hagel?  —  Born in North Platte, Neb., he was a squad leader in Vietnam, twice wounded, who came home to work …

An Anatomy of a Most Peculiar Institution  —  A Campus-full of Contradictions  —  Almost everything about the modern university is a paradox.  It has become a sort of industry gone rogue that embraces practices that a Wal-Mart or Halliburton would never get away with.