The Commentariat -- Dec. 2, 2012

Cliff Notes

Mark Smith of the AP: "President Barack Obama is ready to entertain Republican proposals for spending cuts, but GOP lawmakers must first commit to higher tax rates on the rich and specify what additional spending cuts they want in a deal to avoid the looming 'fiscal cliff,' Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said. 'The ball really is with them now,' Geithner, one of the president's chief negotiators with Capitol Hill, said during appearances on five Sunday talk shows."

Jia Lin Yang & Suzy Khimm of the Washington Post: "U.S. multinationals have spent years pushing for a change to the tax code that would eliminate taxes on business profits overseas.... Now ... lobbyists and some on Capitol Hill are latching onto the 'fiscal cliff' as a potential springboard for their cause." Support comes from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform co-chaired by Erskine Bowles & Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), President Obama's jobs council, Mitt Romney's economic platform, the Business Roundtable & the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Some tax experts warn, however, that such a change could radically alter how companies behave and have broad implications for the economy. Without the right safeguards, they say, eliminating taxes on foreign profits and switching to what is known as a 'territorial' system would blow a hole in tax revenue, give multinationals more leeway to exploit tax havens and drive jobs overseas." CW: No kidding. Hey, what could be more American than more tax breaks for the ultra-rich corporations/people?

"What Does Jack Think?" Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times profiles Jack Lew, President Obama's chief of staff & a former budget director under both the Obama & Clinton administrations.

Louise Story of the New York Times: "A Times investigation has examined and tallied thousands of local incentives granted nationwide and has found that states, counties and cities are giving up more than $80 billion each year to companies. The beneficiaries come from virtually every corner of the corporate world, encompassing oil and coal conglomerates, technology and entertainment companies, banks and big-box retail chains. The cost of the awards is certainly far higher.... For local governments, incentives have become the cost of doing business with almost every business."

Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "Just as the housing market is recovering, a growing group of homeowners -- widows over the age of 50 whose husbands alone were holders of the mortgage -- are losing their homes to foreclosure because of a paperwork flaw that keeps them from obtaining loan modifications. In the latest chapter of the foreclosure crisis, homeowners over 50 are falling into foreclosure at the fastest pace of any age group, according to nationwide data, in part because women are outliving their spouses and are unable to cope with cuts in their pensions, ballooning medical costs -- and the fine print on their mortgages." CW: Nice going, Banksters. Nothing like hitting elderly widows when she's down. No one can say you jackasses are not living up to your stereotype. ...

... Kevin Roose of New York: banksters dread the coming of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, fearing she is more than "one of a hundred."

Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News: "... the story McCain and Graham are trying to sell is getting harder and harder to swallow."

For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, "It might have been."Mitt Is Bored, Ann Is Disconsolate. Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Four weeks after losing a presidential election he was convinced he would win, Romney's rapid retreat into seclusion has been marked by repressed emotions, second guessing and, perhaps for the first time in the overachiever's adult life, sustained boredom, according to interviews with more than a dozen of Romney's closest friends and advisers.... By all accounts, the past month has been most difficult on Romney's wife, Ann, who friends said believed up until the end that ascending to the White House was their destiny. They said she has been crying in private...."

Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: David "Petraeus was neither a conquering hero nor an empty suit. To view his military record through the lens of his personal failure merely serves to replace one myth with another."

Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, U.S. officials said. The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units."

David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's "recent tone and actions reminded critics of the autocratic ways of his predecessor, and have aroused a new debate here about his commitment to democracy and pluralism at a time when he and his Islamist allies dominate political life."

Right Wing World

Tom Tomorrow in AlterNet.

Andre Tartar of New York: Defeated Tea Party Rep. Allen West (Florida) compares himself to -- Abe Lincoln.

News Ledes

The Hill: "President Obama and former President Bill Clinton hit the golf course on Sunday."

AP: "The trial of an Army private charged with sending U.S. secrets to the website WikiLeaks is being pushed back from February to March. Military judge Col. Denise Lind announced the change Sunday at a pretrial hearing at Fort Meade for Pfc. Bradley Manning."

AP: "The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has returned home to a hero's welcome after winning a resounding endorsement for Palestinian independence at the United Nations. Some 5,000 people thronged a square Sunday outside Abbas' government headquarters in the West Bank. Many hoisted Palestinian flags and balloons in the colors of the flag." ...

... Reuters: "Israel said on Sunday it was withholding this month's transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, after the United Nations' de facto recognition of a Palestinian state."

Reuters: "Protests by Islamists allied to President Mohamed Mursi forced Egypt's highest court to adjourn its work indefinitely on Sunday, intensifying a conflict between some of the country's top judges and the head of state. The Supreme Constitutional Court said it would not convene until its judges could operate without 'psychological and material pressure', saying protesters had stopped the judges from reaching the building."

Reuters: "Suicide attackers detonated bombs and fired rockets outside a major U.S. base in Afghanistan on Sunday, killing five people in a brazen operation that highlighted the country's security challenges ahead of the 2014 NATO combat troop pullout."

Reuters: "A strike by clerical workers at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach idled most of the busiest U.S. cargo shipping complex for a fifth day on Saturday as container-laden vessels waited to be unloaded and marathon contract talks stretched into the night. Some 10,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 were refusing to cross picket lines of some 500 striking clerical workers, effectively shutting down 10 of the two ports' combined 14 container terminals."

Reuters: "Kansas City Chiefs starting linebacker Jovan Belcher shot his girlfriend to death, then drove to the team training facility and killed himself in front of the coach and general manager in a burst of violence on Saturday that stunned the NFL and its fans." CW: (1) give a guy a job where he gets his head bashed several times a day; (2) give him a gun; (3) act all surprised when he kills his girlfriend over a trivial argument, then takes his own life.

The Commentariat -- Dec. 1, 2012

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here. Still harping on the middle-class tax cuts. And here's that My2K page where you can tell Congress what $2,000 means to you. The ABC News story, by Mary Bruce, is here.

Zachary Goldfarb & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: Obama & Boehner trade barbs.

Steven Dennis of Roll Call: "Ever since Republicans walked away three times from bipartisan debt talks in 2011, the White House has eschewed sweet-talking the GOP and dismissed suggestions from the likes of presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin that Obama embark on assorted charm offensives involving cocktails and late-night White House get-togethers with lawmakers.... Instead, carrying a big stick is in at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and the fiscal cliff is the biggest stick Obama will ever have -- a $600 billion bucket of pain largely aimed at GOP priorities, such as tax cuts and defense spending."

David Firestone of the New York Times: "Republicans reportedly laughed when they saw the Obama administration's initial offer in the fiscal negotiations yesterday. The idea that President Obama might actually want to enact his campaign promises -- tax hikes on the rich, modest Medicare cuts, investments in infrastructure -- is apparently considered a joke to the party that has shown virtually no flexibility in the last four years.... But once the laughter dies down, they will have to come to the table with a responsible offer of their own, rather than simply declaring a stalemate, as Speaker John Boehner did today.... If they continue to refuse to do so, the public won't find it very funny."

Mike Lillis of The Hill: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday announced Democrats would circulate a discharge petition to force a House vote to extend current tax rates only on annual household income below $250,000.... Democrats would need the support of more than 20 Republicans to secure the 218 signatures needed to force the bill to the floor."

** Our Stenographic Press. Michael Grunwald of Time: "It's really amazing to see political reporters dutifully passing along Republican complaints that President Obama's opening offer in the fiscal cliff talks is just a recycled version of his old plan, when those same reporters spent the last year dutifully passing along Republican complaints that Obama had no plan. It's even more amazing to see them pass along Republican outrage that Obama isn't cutting Medicare enough, in the same matter-of-fact tone they used during the campaign to pass along Republican outrage that Obama was cutting Medicare.... As long as the media let an entire political party invent a new reality every day, it will keep on doing it. Every day."

Deirdre Walsh & Ashley Killough of CNN: "House Speaker John Boehner named Rep. Candice Miller of Michigan as the chairman of the House Administration Committee on Friday, three days after the Republican conference took heat for electing only males as committee heads." Miller ran for chair of the Homeland Security Committee but lost out to a white guy. CW: as far as I can tell the main job of the House Administration Committee is to make sure the bosses have all they need in way of coffee and pencils & stuff. Miller actually said she was "humbled & honored" by the appointment. I wish a Republican woman would write to me & argue that Boehner didn't intentionally humiliate women with this appointment.

Post-Election Analysis of the Absurd. Paul Waldman of American Prospect: Tea Party types like brand-new Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) are arguing that Romney never made the case for conservatism. "In fact, that was the best thing about this election: for all the trivia, it presented a fundamental ideological debate, with both candidates talking about first principles throughout. Conservatives aren't happy that they lost that argument. But even though it's not particularly good politics to condemn the voters for not seeing the light, it's a lot more honest than saying they never got the chance to hear what conservatism had to offer." ...

... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "For months, conservatives yelled from the rooftops about how 2012 presented the sharpest choice ever in governing philosophies.... But as soon as they lost, Republicans suddenly decided that it hadn't been a big-picture election after all. It was about bribing Hispanics. It was about voter turnout machinery. It was about Hurricane Sandy. It was about Mitt Romney being a bad candidate.... Conservatism can never fail. It can only be failed." ...

... CW: Yesterday I decided not to link this piece by Noam Scheiber of TNR, who got hold of some of Romney's internal polling because the piece was pretty much in the weeds & only substantiated what others had reported earlier: that Romney's own pollster thought Romney had several routes to winning the election because they put him ahead in several states he lost. But Paul Krugman puts this bit in the larger context of the "epistemic closure" of the conservative mind. Krugman writes, "My immediate question is not so much why those polls were wrong, but rather why the campaign didn't have severe doubts about what its pollsters were telling them.... All this in turn ties in, I think, with a phenomenon I notice a lot on the right (you can see it often in the comments on this blog): the persistent portrayal of people who disagree with them as marginal figures with trivial support." ...

... CW: the other thing I think you have to credit -- and for some reason scarcely anybody is saying this -- is that Mitt Romney, who ran as a Super-Numbers-Man who could fix any problem with his laser-sharp focus on arithmetic realities, was never anything of the sort. Mitt's successes in life should be attributed to a silver spoon & ruthless indifference, not to super-competence. If Mitt wasn't "severely conservative," why did he only read The Severely Conservative News? This is just more evidence that Romney -- as we've all said -- would have made a horrible president. Not only is he ideologically a throwback to the 19th century, he is incapable of seeing any data or listening to any ideas that don't conveniently fit into his worldview. This is the mindset of disaster-in-the-making. The country's good fortune was that the Romney disaster ended with the campaign. ...

... Nate Silver on the polls: "... when campaigns release internal polls to the public, their goal is usually not to provide the most accurate information. Instead, they are most likely trying to create a favorable news narrative -- and they may fiddle with these assumptions until they get the desired result.... The seeming inaccuracy of Mr. Romney's internal polls ought to present a warning to future campaigns.... Campaigns may also be fooling themselves."

... CW: AND some liberals like Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post are feeling kinda sorry for Romney of the White House Lunch Date. So I'll re-caption that photo: "President Romney welcomes Kenyan Ambassador to Oval Office." Tomorrow I will write on the blackboard 100 times "I will not be such a sore winner." ...

... Gail Collins has some reflections on the Obama-Romney lunch, too. ...

... For earlier presidential history, we turn to historian Paul Finkelman, who writes in a New York Times op-ed: Thomas Jefferson "was a creepy, brutal hypocrite.... His proslavery views were shaped not only by money and status but also by his deeply racist views, which he tried to justify through pseudoscience."

CW: I am going to get sick of stories like this one by Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post on the rising star Kelly Ayotte (RTP-N.H.), an "influential new voice" & Sarah Palin's pick for perfect "mama grizzly." Ayotte, who is auditioning for Joe Lieberman's post as Third Stooge by joining Top Stooges McCain & Graham in lambasting Susan Rice, had the gall to speak at Sen. Warren Rudman's memorial service about Rudman's bipartisanship which she hoped would inspire the Senate to come together now.

Oh, noes! Pat Robertson Denies Creationism. Thanks to Akhilleus for the heads-up:

Local News

Laura McGaughy of the (New Orleans) Times Picayune: "Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's school voucher overhaul was dealt a blow Friday when a Baton Rouge area judge declared the diversion of public money by the voucher program to private schools unconstitutional." ...

... Or, as Charles Pierce put it: "... Over the past year, Jindal has managed to marry educational 'reform' grifting to Christian theocracy by allowing charter schools in his state to employ to teach from Jesus-on-a-dinosaur creationist textbooks. Well, today, a local judge pretty much blew up the whole system on him." Read the whole post in which Pierce comments on Jindal as presidential timber.

News Ledes

USA Today: "The U.S. Military Academy's Cadet Chapel at West Point hosted its first same-sex marriage Saturday. Penelope Gnesin and Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, exchanged vows in the regal church in a ceremony conducted by a senior Army chaplain."

New York Times: "Enrique Peña Nieto became president of Mexico early Saturday, beginning a six-year term in which he has promised to accelerate economic growth, reduce the violence related to the drug war and forge closer, broader ties with the United States."

New York Times: "Israel is moving forward with development of Jewish settlements in a contentious area east of Jerusalem, defying the United States by advancing a project that has long been condemned by Washington as effectively dooming any prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." ...

... AP: "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met senior Israeli and Palestinian officials Friday, with each side locked in a pattern of actions that the United States had expressly warned against: the Palestinians winning U.N. recognition of their claim to a state on Thursday and the Israelis retaliating Friday by approving 3,000 new homes on Israeli-occupied territory."

Reuters: "International garment firms have demanded fast action to ensure the safety of Bangladeshi textile workers, a week after a plant fire killed more than 100 people.... Mohammad Shafiul Islam, President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), said a 19-member buyers' forum was blunt in suggesting it would 'lose confidence' in the country's industry unless change came fast. Rights groups have called on big-brand firms to sign up for a fire safety program."

AP: "A freight train derailed Friday on a [New Jersey] railroad bridge that has had problems before, toppling tanker cars partially into a creek and causing a leak of hazardous gas that was blamed for sickening dozens of people, authorities said." ...

... The South Jersey Times has the finger-pointing story, plus one on the impact of the chemicals released in the wreck.

ABC News: "PFC Bradley Manning choked back tears during a second day of testimony at a hearing before his military trial as he claimed he didn't tell his family about the conditions of his confinement at the Marine brig at Quantico, Va., because he did not want them to worry. He also expressed concern that doing so could lead to an end to visiting privileges for his family."

The Commentariat -- Nov. 30, 2012

"So is that office you're renting from Tagg as nice as this one?" CLICK PHOTO TO SEE LARGER IMAGE. Is that David Plouffe there in the private dining room? And what's that in his hand? A blackjack? And what about those boxing gloves on the sideboard? -- a reminder for the history books -- and for the Loser guest -- of who knocked out whom? CLICK TO SEE LARGER IMAGE.

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner presented the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a detailed proposal on Thursday to avert the year-end fiscal crisis with $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, $50 billion in immediate stimulus spending, home mortgage refinancing and a permanent end to Congressional control over statutory borrowing limits. The proposal, loaded with Democratic priorities and short on detailed spending cuts, met strong Republican resistance. In exchange for locking in the $1.6 trillion in added revenues, President Obama embraced the goal of finding $400 billion in savings from Medicare and other social programs to be worked out next year, with no guarantees." ...

... Lori Montgomery & Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "President Obama demanded Thursday that Congress relinquish control over federal debt levels and approve at least $50 billion in fresh spending to boost the economy next year as part of a deal to avert the year-end fiscal cliff, senior Republican aides said." ...

... David Dayen of Firedoglake: "In the context of doing a deficit reduction deal at all, this is an extremely strong bid that Tim Geithner delivered to John Boehner today. Now we know why Boehner whined and cried* all afternoon." Dayen does a nice job of summarizing the key elements of the offer. ...

     * Daniel Newhauser of Roll Call: "Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and Republican leaders are fuming after a late night phone call with President Barack Obama was leaked to the press, despite an agreement that it would not be, according to several GOP aides.... White House aides, however, denied that the leak came from the administration." ...

... Jake Sherman & Manu Raju of Politico: "After meeting with Geithner, [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid said Democrats are still waiting for a 'serious offer' from the Republicans, urging them to move past 'happy talk' and deliver specifics on how the government would boost revenues and make spending cuts." ...

... Ezra Klein: Republicans want Medicare cuts, but since any Medicare 'reform' -- particularly the voucher system Republicans want -- will be unpopular, they "insist that the Obama administration needs to be the one to propose Medicare cuts.... Democrats find this flatly ridiculous: Given that the Obama administration would happily raise taxes without cutting Medicare.... It falls on the Republicans to name their price. But behind their negotiating posture is a troubling policy reality: They don’t know what that price is." ...

... Klein again: "Obama is ... very serious about not negotiating with himself, and his opening bid proves it. Now that [House Republicans] have leaked his initial offer, the next question is obvious: What's their offer?"

... Paul Krugman: "The same people who bet big on Mr. Romney, and lost, are now trying to win by stealth -- in the name of fiscal responsibility -- the ground they failed to gain in an open election.... Consider, as a prime example, the push to raise the retirement age, the age of eligibility for Medicare, or both.... Any proposal to avoid a rate increase is, whatever its proponents may say, a proposal that we let the 1 percent off the hook and shift the burden, one way or another, to the middle class or the poor.... So keep your eyes open as the fiscal game of chicken continues." ...

... Gene Sperling & Jason Furman on the White House blog: "Some [liars & boneheads] have suggested that limits on high-income tax expenditures could substitute for rate increases and that it would be possible to raise $1 trillion or more while keeping the top income tax rate at 35 percent. But a careful look at the math of these types of caps and limits shows that ... plausible limits raise only a fraction of the $1 trillion or more some have suggested." ...

... Here's another "explainer" -- Josh Kalven of the Huffington Post. This series of graphics is simple & comprehensive enough for the kids to understand. Thanks to Julie L. for the link:

Binyamin Appelbaum & Robert Gebeloff of the New York Times: "... most Americans in 2010 paid far less in total taxes -- federal, state and local — than they would have paid 30 years ago.... Households earning more than $200,000 benefited from the largest percentage declines in total taxation as a share of income. Middle-income households benefited, too.... Lower-income households, however, saved little or nothing." There are interactive graphics here. CW: the authors discuss the "feelings" people have that they're paying more in taxes than the used to. But likely they "feel" this way because most earn significant less in gross income (in adjusted dollars) than they would have earned 30 years ago. Holding wages down is a great way to get people to grouse about taxes. Seriously, it is all a GOP plot. ...

... Annemarie Fertoli of WNYC: "Workers at dozens of fast food restaurants in New York City walked off the job to rally for higher wages and the right to unionize. The nation-wide campaign for unionizing fast food workers is being called the biggest such effort in the United States and will involve workers from McDonalds, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Domino's and other fast food restaurants in New York." with audio. ...

... Here's some background, written before the strike by Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times. ...

... Penelope Green of the New York Times: "Multigenerational living, a throwback to the past, is a growing trend in the struggling economy, and major homebuilders are designing flexible layouts.... In fact, architectural historians, statisticians and builders themselves are pointing out that the new household -- and the house that can hold it -- is much like the old household, the one that was cast aside after World War II by the building boom that focused on small, tidy dwellings for mom, dad and their two children."

"A Liberal Moment." Tim Egan: "... here it is: a chance to shore up a battered middle class, make the promise of health care expansion work and do something about a planet in peril. Huge tasks, of course, and fraught with risk. For now, the majority of Americans have Obama's back. But should he fail, the same majority could become something much worse -- a confederacy of cynics."

Elizabeth Drew in the New York Review of Books: "The long lines [of voters] were the symbol of the 2012 election -- at once awe-inspiring and enraging.... Small-minded men, placing their partisan interests over those of the citizenry, concocted schemes to subvert the natural workings of our most solemn and exhilarating exercise as a self-governing nation." Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the heads-up.

Dave Weigel of Slate: "Shortly after 5 p.m. [Thursday], John Boehner's office released a statement pre-condemning a change to the filibuster. The key threat: 'Any bill that reaches a Republican-led House based on Senate Democrats' heavy-handed power play would be dead on arrival.'" CW: aw shucks, Boner, not even a Post Office-naming? P.S. MYOB. ...

... Weigel on why the filibuster changes might actually happen: "Democratic aides describe a small number of connected changes, which could be voted through on Jan. 3, the day the new Senate convenes. Only 51 votes are needed to set Senate rules at the start of the year. After that, it would take 67 votes." Democrats will have 53 seats, and two independents who've announced they'll caucus with them. ...

... BUT. Alexander Bolton of The Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) may be short on votes he needs to force changes to the Senate's filibuster rules, as nine Democratic senators sit on the fence about the proposed reforms. In addition, Sen.-elect Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) did not commit during the campaign to reforming the filibuster rules, which brings the total number of undecided Democrats who will vote on the issue next year to 10." The other nine potential Democratic balkers (more or less in order of balkiness) are Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Carl Levin (Mich.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), John Kerry (Mass.), Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.) & Bill Nelson (Fla.). CW: If any of these are your Senators, call 'em or write 'em.

** Remembrances of Yellow Cake. Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham … continued to pledge to block [Susan Rice's] nomination should she be appointed Secretary of State, with Senator McCain accusing Rice of deliberately 'misleading the American people.' Graham [said] her appearances on Sunday shows were 'disconnected from reality.' The episode, however, has clear echoes of McCain's and Graham's own moments of relaying bad intelligence on Sunday shows based on an inaccurate conclusion from the intelligence community. In the 2003 lead-up to the Iraq War, McCain and Graham made appearances on Sunday talks shows such as Meet the Press, Fox News Sunday, and Face the Nation where they made the case that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and would not hesitate to use them." ...

... Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times catches on to Republicans' sudden love for Sen. John Kerry: "The Kerry boomlet adds another level of intrigue to the uproar surrounding [Susan] Rice and has real implications for the balance of power on Capitol Hill. If Mr. Kerry were nominated and confirmed, it could open the door to a return via special election of Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who was defeated this month by Elizabeth Warren. A Brown victory -- which is far from certain -- could cut the Democratic margin by one and restore to office a man who was popular with his Republican colleagues."

Amy Davidson of the New Yorker on Bradley Manning's confinement "inside this cage."

John Cassidy of the New Yorker on British PM David Cameron -- "the latest embodiment of a time-honored tradition in which British governments of the day seek to curry favor with Fleet Street's press barons."

News Ledes

Reuters: "President Barack Obama, reapplying his re-election campaign theme of protecting the middle class, heads to Pennsylvania on Friday suggesting that Republicans could spoil Christmas by driving the country over the 'fiscal cliff.' The president's road trip, visiting a factory that makes Tinkertoys, is infuriating Republicans, with House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner calling it a 'victory lap' Thursday as he rejected Obama's proposals to avoid the cliff...."

New York Times: "Racing against the threat of dissolution by judges appointed by ousted President Hosni Mubarak, and ignoring howls of protest from secular opponents, the Islamists drafting Egypt's new constitution voted Friday to approve a charter that human rights groups and international experts said was full of holes and ambiguities." Al Jazeera story, with video, is here. ...

... Reuters: "Thousands of Egyptians protested against President Mohamed Mursi on Friday after an Islamist-led assembly raced through approval of a new constitution in a bid to end a crisis over the Islamist leader's newly expanded powers. 'The people want to bring down the regime,' they chanted in Tahrir Square, echoing the chants that rang out in the same place less than two years ago and brought down Hosni Mubarak."

Washington Post: "Mexico's attorney general has compiled a list showing that more than 25,000 adults and children have gone missing in Mexico in the past six years, according to unpublished government documents. The data sets, submitted by state prosecutors and vetted by the federal government but never released to the public, chronicle the disappearance of tens of thousands of people in the chaos and violence that have enveloped Mexico during its fight against drug mafias and crime gangs."

Al Jazeera: "Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has criticised the forcible crackdown on protesters at a mine in the country's northwest that has left dozens injured, including Buddhist monks."

Reuters: "The ... U.S. Supreme Court [is] widely expected to decide in a private meeting on Friday to enter the legal fray raging over same-sex marriage. An announcement to take a case could come as early as Friday afternoon or Monday morning."

Washington Post: "Syria's civil war went off­line Thursday as millions of people tracking the conflict over YouTube, Facebook and other high-tech services found themselves struggling against an unnerving national shutdown of the Internet."

New York Times: "Lawmakers in Germany's lower house of Parliament easily passed the next round of financial support for Greece on Friday, despite growing doubt among members of Chancellor Angela Merkel';s coalition and opposition parties that the measures will be sufficient to resolve the Greek problem."

New York Times: "The head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, predicted on Friday that the euro zone economy would begin to recover in the latter part of next year, his confidence contrasting sharply with an official report showing that unemployment in the 17-nation bloc continues to set new records."

Guardian: "A Chinese court has jailed the nephew of the activist Chen Guangcheng for assaulting officials who forced their way into his home after his uncle fled house arrest. Human rights campaigners and lawyers immediately condemned his conviction, which followed a snap trial on Friday, with one supporter describing the case as a 'judicial farce'."

AP: "... lawyers for [former IMF chief Dominique] Strauss-Kahn and the housekeeper, Nafissatou Diallo, made the as-yet-unsigned [settlement] agreement within recent days, with Bronx Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon facilitating that and a separate agreement to end another lawsuit Diallo filed against the New York Post. A court date is expected next week, though the day wasn't set...."