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News reports say that Reid and McConnell are going to work through the weekend to try ad reach a deal. House members have been called back to the Capitol,and the House is scheduled to meet Sunday evening. All this is designed to possibly get a bull that Obama can sign Monday morning, in order to avoid going over the fiscal cliff. But there's just one small problem, which nobody's talking about.. the House rule that mandates that no legislation can be passed until three days have passed, to allow for representatives, and the public, to read, understand, and comment on...

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, to “explain why her department failed.” In an editorial published on Wednesday, Rubio said the State Department Accountability Review Board (ARB) report released last week “concisely lays out much that we already knew” about the attack that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. “This was the premeditated work of terrorists, not a protest about a YouTube video that spun out of control,” Rubio said, adding that...

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told a crowd gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Friday that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has given “veto power to the most extreme members of the Tea Party caucus.” Van Hollen called on the House to vote on a Senate measure that would raise taxes on individuals making more than $200,000 in order to avoid the fiscal cliff. The Democrat claimed that the Republican Boehner will not call for the vote because of the Tea Party caucus …

A new petition posted on the “We the People” page of the White House website calls for trying Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) in federal court for treason. … The petition is a response to Senator Feinstein’s proposed legislation that seeks “to stop the sale, transfer, importation and manufacturing of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices.” …

Cliff Deal Hinges on Senators White House Meeting Ends With Expressions of Cautious Optimism From Both Sides on Negotiations By JANET HOOK and CAROL E. LEE WASHINGTON—The job of averting year-end tax increases and spending cuts landed squarely on the Senate, whose leaders said Friday they would launch a last-ditch weekend effort to avert the so-called fiscal cliff. President Barack Obama met with all four congressional leaders in an hourlong meeting in the Oval Office to review an increasingly narrow range of options. He later said he was "modestly optimistic" a deal could be reached, echoing comments from the top...

So how did the last-ditch fiscal cliff meeting go this afternoon? Not great. President Obama again put forth the scaled-back version of the proposal he pitched last week. A source familiar with the meeting told CNBC that Obama was not making a new offer; just laying out what he thinks can pass the House and Senate. That includes keeping the tax cut for those making up to $250,000 and an extension of unemployment insurance for 2 million people. He will then ask the participants what they are willing to support, and if they don't have a counterproposal that can pass the...

President Barack Obama issued an executive order to end the pay freeze on federal employees, in effect giving some federal workers a raise. One federal worker now to receive a pay increase is Vice President Joe Biden. According to disclosure forms, Biden made a cool $225,521 last year. After the pay increase, he'll now make $231,900 per year. Members of Congress, from the House and Senate, also will receive a little bump, as their annual salary will go from $174,000 to 174,900. Leadership in Congress, including the speaker of the House, will likewise get an increase.

“The American people are watching what we do here. Obviously, their patience is already thin. It’s déjà vu all over again,” Obama added. “The American people are not going to have any patience for a politically self inflicted wound to our economy.”

Congressional leaders spoke Friday after meeting about the fiscal cliff with President Barack Obama at the White House. -snip- McConnell spoke immediately after Reid, saying, “I share the view of the majority leader. We had a good meeting down at the White House. “We are engaged in discussions, the majority leader and myself and the White House, in the hopes that we can come forward as early as Sunday and have a recommendation that I can make to my conference and the majority leader [Reid] can make to his conference and so we’ll be working hard to try and see...

Dow Futures Live As on 28-Dec-2012 18:15:18 EDT 12,777 -226.00 -1.77%

...Revolution? Yes, it all sounds rather “extreme”, but the cold hard reality of our era is not going to comfort us with diplomacies and niceties, so honestly, why should I have to sugar coat anything? We live in extreme times and there is no longer room for prancing around the ultimate consequences of that which is taking place in America today. This country is increasingly sliding towards the edge of internal conflict. The Liberty Movement and true Constitutionalists see it, subsections of Republicans and Democrats see it, and most of all, the federal government sees it. In fact, they may...

... Obama is cutting short his vacation in the Pacific state of Hawaii and will return to Washington to resume talks with congressional leaders aimed at reaching agreement on a deficit reduction package before the year ends. The White House says Obama will leave Wednesday and is expected to arrive back in Washington early Thursday. Early last week,the president said he and Republican House Speaker John Boehner were relatively close to an agreement on a compromise to avert what is being called a "fiscal cliff" -- $500 billion in mandated spending cuts and tax increases that would affect almost all...

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand vigorously championed Americans’ right to carry high-powered guns — before she turned against them. Since the Newtown massacre, the senator has been at the forefront of the national campaign demanding stricter gun-control laws — including her own legislation to prevent gun trafficking. It’s quite the conversion for a former upstate congresswoman who earned an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. When she represented a more conservative Albany-area district, she boasted of keeping two rifles under her bed. That was before her 2009 Senate appointment.

Police in Alexandria, Va., said Sunday that the Idaho Republican was pulled over after his vehicle ran a red light. Police spokesman Jody Donaldson said Crapo failed field sobriety tests and was arrested at about 12:45 a.m. He was transported to the Alexandria jail and released on an unsecured $1,000 bond at about 5 a.m.... Police said Crapo, who was alone in his vehicle, registered a blood alcohol content of .110. The legal limit in Virginia, which has strict drunken driving laws, is .08.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said that she and other gun control advocates are considering a law that would create a program to purchase weapons from gun owners, a proposal that could be compulsory. “We are also looking at a buy-back program,” Feinstein said today in a press conference. “Now, again, this is a work in progress so these are ideas in the development.”Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., already discussed the possibility of a buy-back law for his state, but he made clear it would be a forced buyback.“Confiscation could be an option,” Cuomo told The New York Times yesterday when discussing...

Jesse Jackson Jr. & Wife Sandi Jackson, Accused of ‘Double Dippin’By Brittney M. Walker December 23, 2012 *Oops, Jesse Jackson, Jr. did it again. Just five days after the politician resigned from Congress, his lovely wife and fellow politician, Alderwoman Sandi Jackson, filed a series of interesting amendments to her ward committee’s campaign fund, revealing dozens of previously undisclosed transactions that date back three years. One of the records includes a hefty $13,000 from her hubby’s congressional account into her ward organization account, according to the Chicago Sun Times. So far, these two aren’t looking so good.

With President Obama’s announcement of a commission to study and recommend ways to reduce gun violence, the two most important Democrats in government — Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — have both indicated a desire to slow the momentum toward gun control in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut school shootings. The president’s decision to appoint a blue-ribbon panel — the classic Washington ploy to defuse and delay consideration of an issue — along with Reid’s inaction on the gun question will undoubtedly frustrate many in their party who want immediate action. Obama seemed to anticipate that frustration...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Authorities say U.S. Sen. Michael Crapo has been arrested and charged with driving under the influence in a Washington, D.C. suburb. Police in Alexandria, Va., said Sunday that the Idaho Republican was pulled over early Sunday morning after his vehicle ran a red light. Police spokesman Jody Donaldson said Crapo failed field sobriety tests and was arrested at about 12:45 a.m. without incident. He was transported to the Alexandria jail and released on an unsecured $1,000 bond at about 5 a.m.. Donaldson said he didn't immediately know what Crapo's blood alcohol level was. Crapo has a...

Top U.S. lawmakers voiced rising fear on Sunday that the country would go over "the fiscal cliff" in nine days, triggering harsh spending cuts and tax hikes, and some Republicans charged that was President Barack Obama's goal. "It's the first time that I feel it's more likely that we will go over the cliff than not," Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said on CNN's "State of the Union." "If we allow that to happen it will be the most colossal consequential act of congressional irresponsibility in a long time, maybe ever in American history," Lieberman added.

Congressman Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said Governor Rick Perry “had blood on his hands” for supporting the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.