How Congress Occupied Wall Street  —  Politicians who arrive in Washington as men and women of modest means leave as millionaires.  Why?  —  Mark Twain famously wrote, “There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”  Peter Schweizer's new book, “Throw Them All Out …

Untouchable: Is the GOP Field Afraid to Criticize Newt Gingrich in Debates?  —  The former House Speaker is the only candidate yet to be attacked at the seven debates conducted since Rick Perry joined the GOP field  —  With increased media scrutiny on new GOP presidential co-frontrunner …

Failure Is Good  —  It's a bird!  It's a plane!  It's a complete turkey!  It's the supercommittee!  —  By next Wednesday, the so-called supercommittee, a bipartisan group of legislators, is supposed to reach an agreement on how to reduce future deficits.

Republicans want Obama to break the supercommittee's logjam  —  Republicans are calling for President Obama to jump into the deficit-reduction talks gripping Washington, reflecting the widespread view that the congressional supercommittee is now headed for a failure.

Court orders reinstatement of redistricting official  —  The Arizona Supreme Court Thursday evening reinstated the chairwoman of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, rebuffing Gov. Jan Brewer⊃1;s unprecedented action earlier this month.  —  The ruling came less than three hours …

Bachmann: “I haven't had a gaffe”  —  Michele Bachmann, making the case on Fox News that she's the safest candidate in a rather jaw-dropping statement. … Besides small gaffes like confusing one John Wayne for another, mixing up the date of Elvis' birth with the date of his death …

A Caveman Won't Beat a Salesman  —  Obama is somber but unserious.  Glib unseriousness isn't the answer.  —  There is an arresting moment in Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs in which Jobs speaks at length about his philosophy of business.  He's at the end of his life and is summing things up.

Why the supercommittee is in trouble  —  House Speaker John Boehner dropped by a D.C. fundraiser Wednesday appearing downtrodden and pessimistic.  After 2½ months of painstaking negotiations, the deficit supercommittee he helped create was nowhere near a deal.

Jack Abramoff pleads with Dems for his domain name  —  Jack Abramoff wants his name back.  But House Democrats own it and they are going to keep it.  —  The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee owns the rights to the Web domain name “jackabramoff.com,” having secured it in 2006.

Woman Gets Jail For Food-Stamp Fraud; Wall Street Fraudsters Get Bailouts  —  Had a quick piece of news I wanted to call attention to, in light of the recent developments at Zuccotti Park.  For all of those who say the protesters have it wrong, and don't really have a cause worth causing public unrest over …

The Technocratic Nightmare  —  During the first half of the 1990s, I lived in Brussels and wrote about the European Union, among other subjects, for The Wall Street Journal.  This was the heyday of European integration.  Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand and Jacques Delors were in power …

Rules Chairman David Dreier to vote against balanced-budget amendment  —  House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) said he would vote against the balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution later this week, a high-profile Republican defection that will make it one vote harder …

Syracuse's Bernie Fine placed on leave  —  Two former Syracuse University ball boys say they were molested by associate head basketball coach Bernie Fine, starting in the late 1970s and continuing into the 1990s.  —  Police in Syracuse said they have opened an investigation into the allegations.