How the White House cut its deal and lost its base  —  If you look at the numbers alone, the tax cut deal looks to have robbed Republicans blind.  The GOP got around $95 billion in tax cuts for wealthy Americans and $30 billion in estate tax cuts.  Democrats got $120 billion in payroll-tax cuts …

Cancer claims Elizabeth Edwards  —  Elizabeth Edwards, author of ‘Saving Graces’ , greets and autographs copies of her book for the community in 2006.  —  Elizabeth Anania Edwards, who became a national figure in her fight against cancer and as a partner in her husband John's political career, died today.

Tax Package Will Aid Nearly All, With the Highest Earners Benefiting Most  —  The deal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for two years includes a bevy of additional credits and deductions that will reduce the burden on nearly all households.  —  But the tax benefits will flow most heavily …

Julian Assange's Great Luck  —  Why his arrest and jailing in the United Kingdom is good news for him.  —  A U.K. magistrates' court denied Julian Assange bail and jailed him this morning over charges filed in Sweden that he had violated sex laws in that country last summer.

DeMint To Oppose “the Deal”  —  Senator JimDeMint just announced on my program that he will oppose the deal as well as a vote for cloture on the deal.  He is reluctant to criticize GOP Senate leadership, but believes the deal at a minimum has to be paid for, and that we need “a permanent economy” …

Obama: On the way to a failed presidency?  —  Ronald Reagan famously quipped that the Democratic Party left him before he left the party.  Like many progressive supporters of Barack Obama, I'm beginning to have the same feeling about this president.  —  Consider what we've seen since …

Seminal Moment  —  Let's be honest with each other here: Presidential press conferences are usually news voids into which a lot of ink and chatter are dumped.  —  But Obama's press conference this afternoon will be seen as a turning point if not in his Presidency then in how we understand and perceive him and his approach to politics.

Obama administers a stern scolding to lefty critics  —  I noted this morning that Obama's strategy going forward will be to position himself as Washington's lone resident adult in a town full of squabbling children on right and left, and at his presser just now, Obama offered a surprisingly stern …

More Dems Sign On To Extended Session Plan To Save DADT Repeal  —  Add Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) to the list of Democrats who say the Senate should stay open long enough to give Republicans the time they require to bring the military's ban on openly gay servicemembers to an end.

Klobuchar Formidable  —  Amy Klobuchar is overwhelmingly popular and would cruise to reelection at this point pretty much no matter who her Republican opponent was.  —  Klobuchar's approval rating is 59% with only 29% of voters disapproving of her.  She is universally well liked by the Democratic base …

Olbermann, Assange, and the Holocaust Denier  —  When you want to believe, you'll believe anything.  —  It now seems that the smears in the Julian Assange rape case are bidirectional, from the exceptionally flimsy charges accusing the WikiLeaks boss of being a sexual predator to the increasingly loud …

Secret GOP plan: Push states to declare bankruptcy and smash unions  —  Congressional Republicans appear to be quietly but methodically executing a plan that would a) avoid a federal bailout of spendthrift states and b) cripple public employee unions by pushing cash-strapped states such as California and Illinois to declare bankruptcy.