memeorandum: Back to Vacation: Obama Takes Midnight Flight to Hawaii (Daniel Halper/Weekly Standard)

9:35 AM ET, January 2, 2013

Top Items:

The fiscal cliff deal that almost wasn't — House Speaker John Boehner couldn't hold back when he spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby last Friday. — It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight …

Discussion: NBC Politics, Washington Wire, Daniel W. Drezner, Weekly Standard, Mediaite, ABCNEWS, Business Insider, Taegan Goddard's …, The National Memo, No More Mister Nice Blog, CNN, The New Civil Rights Movement and The Week

David Rogers / Reuters:

House pulls plug on Sandy aid bill — House Republicans abruptly pulled the plug Tuesday night on their promise to take up this week an emergency supplemental disaster aid bill for Northeast states damaged by Hurricane Sandy. — The decision is a stunning reversal since just hours …

Discussion: Politico, The Hill, Taegan Goddard's …, The Mahablog and The Hill

Los Angeles Times:

House approves ‘fiscal cliff’ deal, rescinding broad tax hike — This post has been updated. See below for details. — WASHINGTON — The House gave final approval Tuesday night to a bill to rescind tax increases for the vast majority of Americans, but only after a day of closed-door …

Discussion: The Daily Beast, CBS News, USA Today, ABCNEWS, TechCrunch, The Moderate Voice, The Reaction and Patterico's Pontifications

Igor Volsky / ThinkProgress:

GOP Congressmen Suggest Republican Senators Who Voted For ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Compromise Were Drunk — House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is joining a growing number of Republicans trying to add more spending cuts to the last-minute fiscal cliff deal and send it back to the Senate …

Discussion: The Raw Story, Balloon Juice, The Other McCain and The Gateway Pundit

Peter Schroeder / The Hill:
CBO: ‘Fiscal cliff’ deal carries $4 trillion price tag over next decade

Discussion: ABCNEWS, Politico, RedState, BREITBART.COM, The Week, John Lott's Website, The Gateway Pundit, The Other McCain, CNN, Business Insider and The Fix

Ginger Gibson / Politico:
Boehner, Cantor take different sides

Discussion: Algemeiner.com

Washington Post:
House members meet to review Senate-passed cliff deal

Discussion: Washington Monthly, DownWithTyranny!, Hot Air, The Week, AMERICAblog, The Fix, Roll Call, Post Politics, Power Line, Althouse, The Raw Story, BuzzFeed, Calculated Risk, The Plum Line and The Moderate Voice

Kyle Balluck / The Hill:
House Republicans gauging support for two budget options

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, NBC Politics, The Huffington Post, CBS News, The Moderate Voice, Firedoglake, Liberal Values, AMERICAblog, The Hill, Crooks and Liars and Post Politics

Kevin Drum / Mother Jones:
Part 1 of the Fiscal Cliff is Over. Now Gird Yourself for Part 2.

Discussion: Wonkblog, Post Politics and Washington Monthly

Brian Beutler / Talking Points Memo:
Could A Boehner-Cantor Rift Send The Country Over The Fiscal Cliff?

Discussion: Bloomberg, CBS News, The Impolitic, The Raw Story, Associated Press, The Hill, CANNONFIRE, Washington Post and Alan Colmes'Alan Colmes'

Jennifer Steinhauer / New York Times:
Tax Deal's Passage Ends Latest Standoff

Discussion: Wonkblog, Washington Post, msnbc.com, News Desk, The Week, Wall Street Journal, Truthdig, Angry Bear, CNN, The Maddow Blog, Taegan Goddard's …, Balloon Juice and Politico

Bob Cusack / The Hill:
Boehner's 100 loyal soldiers might give him political cover on ‘fiscal cliff’

Discussion: ABCNEWS, The Hill, Hullabaloo and Crooks and Liars

David Rogers / Politico:
The price tag: Deal could add nearly $4 trillion to deficit

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, Jared Bernstein, Truthdig and The Gateway Pundit

Peter Baker / New York Times:
On the Left, Seeing Obama Giving Away Too Much, Again

Discussion: The Maddow Blog, ABCNEWS, The Reaction, The Week, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Conservatives4Palin

Ryan Grim / The Huffington Post:
U.S. Fiscal Cliff Deal Leaves House Republicans Angry, Deal In Jeopardy

Discussion: Right Turn, Associated Press, Talking Points Memo, Politico, Balloon Juice, Booman Tribune, CNN, The Agonist and The Hill

David Kurtz / Talking Points Memo:

House Passes Fiscal Cliff Deal — The House of Representatives gave final passage to the fiscal cliff deal Tuesday night. The final vote was 257-167.

BREITBART.COM:
FISCAL CLIFF DEAL: HOLLYWOOD GETS TAX INCENTIVE EXTENSION

Discussion: The PJ Tatler, The Gateway Pundit, RealClearPolitics Video Log, Business Insider, Politico and Michelle Malkin

Joe Weisenthal / Business Insider:
6 Things You Won't Believe That Are In The Fiscal Cliff Bill That The Senate Passed At 2 AM …

Discussion: Rational Irrationality, The PJ Tatler, Mediaite and The National Memo

William Kristol / Weekly Standard:
Say Yes to the Mess — The fiscal cliff deal that the Senate …

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Dskriloff / The Rockland County Times:

The Journal News is Armed and Dangerous — ROCKLAND COUNTY TIMES EXCLUSIVE — Armed guards from RGA Investigations have taken up post at the Journal News' Rockland County headquarters — Journal News' Rockland headquarters in West Nyack, Town of Clarkstown — Guns are good for the goose but NOT for the gander.

Discussion: Shot in the Dark, Weasel Zippers and Gawker, more at Mediagazer »

Dylan Byers / Politico:

‘Journal News’ hires armed security guards — The Journal News of West Nyack, N.Y., has hired armed security guards to defend its offices after receiving a torrent of phone calls and emails responding to the paper's publication of the names and addresses of area residents with pistol permits.

Discussion: Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Reuters, Poynter, Jammie Wearing Fools and UrbanGrounds

Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:

Back to Vacation: Obama Takes Midnight Flight to Hawaii — After Congress agreed temporarily to avert the “fiscal cliff” last night, President Barack Obama hailed the deal in brief remarks delivered from the White House, and then headed to Air Force One to take a midnight flight to Hawaii.

John Hinderaker / Power Line:

An Optimistic Take On the “Cliff” Deal — Here are some glass-half-full observations on last night's McConnell-Biden fiscal deal from an inveterate optimist. — Raising taxes on those who are already paying roughly double their fair share, while leaving everyone else's taxes the same, is lousy public policy.

Ross Douthat:
Liberalism's $400,000 Problem

Discussion: American Power, Instapundit, The Agonist, The Maddow Blog and Little Green Footballs

Talking Points Memo:

Obama Praises Passage Of House Tax Deal — Late Tuesday night, President Obama praised the House's passage of the Senate-approved fiscal cliff agreement to prevent a variety of tax hikes on middle class Americans. — The bill now heads to the president's desk.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars

Richard Rubin / Bloomberg:

Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households — The budget deal passed by the U.S. Senate today would raise taxes on 77.1 percent of U.S. households, mostly because of the expiration of a payroll tax cut, according to preliminary estimates from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit

Washington Post:

Congress approves ‘fiscal cliff’ measure — Video: President Obama says the “fiscal cliff” deal makes the tax code more fair, while helping the U.S. avoid falling back into recession. The president spoke after the House passed the bill Tuesday night. — But Obama warned again …

Discussion: The Heritage Foundation

Andrew Malcolm / Investor's Business Daily:

New Year's Thoughts from Our House to Yours — A lot of people are looking at 2013 and feeling pessimistic. — That's silly, of course. Sure, The Incompetents got reelected. The economy still sucks. It's likely to get worse because Barack Hussein Obama doesn't have a clue about capitalism …