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While the mood may be icy when it comes to political sparring in Washington, there was a warm bit of good cheer in the U.S. Senate.  Minnesota's Sen. Al Franken, inspired by an old grade school tradition from his childhood, organized a Secret Santa gift exchange again this year.  The parties regularly tangle over government spending, but the senators did agree to a $10 spending cap for gifts. 

Aides say a bipartisan group of 60 senators participated by picking names, mostly across the aisle, keeping those identities secret and then delivering small presents at a gathering over eggnog and seasonal treats Monday night.

Frank Fey / U.S. Senate Photographic Studio

Sen. Al Franken, right, speaks with colleagues during the gift exchange.

Not just any fruitcake was served -- the Senate kitchen began making fruitcake a few months ago, giving the brandy enough time to soak the cake.  Due to fog that delayed some flights and therefore postponed Senate votes, some members were not able to attend the Monday party but were spotted exchanging wrapped gifts on the Senate floor late Tuesday.

Among the gifts given and received:

• Sen. Franken received a VHS copy of the movie "Tunnel Vision" and a DVD of  "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29" from Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barasso.
• Franken, in turn, gave Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman a mahnomin porridge kit from Hell's Kitchen, a popular restaurant in Minneapolis. Sen. Franken serves that breakfast porridge at his weekly breakfast with constituents.
• Florida Republican Marco Rubio gave Godiva chocolates to Delaware Democrat Chris Coons. 
• North Carolina Democrat Kay Hagan gave her state's famed peanuts to fellow Democrat Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.
• New Hampshire Republican Kelly Ayotte gave Hagan a book, "1,001 Gardens you Should See Before You Die."
• Wyoming's Mike Enzi, R-WI, gave Virginia Democrat Mark Warner a George Washington University T-shirt and a book on bicycling.  Aides say Enzi "refrained from getting him a book on freestyle BMX tricks because of the safety issues Sen. Enzi works on."
• Alaska Democrat Mark Begich presented a cookbook and wine from his home state to Missouri's Claire McCaskill.
• Nebraska Republican Mike Johanns gave Nebraska wine to Florida Democrat Bill Nelson.
• Johanns received a shirt for his undergraduate alma mater, St. Mary's University, from Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar.
• Montana Democrat Jon Tester gave home state chocolates to Ohio Republican Rob Portman.
• Portman gave Louisiana's Mary Landrieu a Cincinnati favorite, Graeter's Buckeye Blitz ice cream.
• Arkansas Republican John Boozman gave Georgia's Saxby Chambliss Mason jar wine glasses.

In 2011, the participation was a bit better, with 62 senators exchanging gifts. This year, with much year-end business left to complete, senators may spend more of the holiday season together as the “fiscal cliff” looms.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) sent a new offer on Tuesday afternoon to President Barack Obama in hopes of reaching a deal to resolve the impending fiscal cliff.

Specific details are scarce, but the proposal apparently was made as a counter-offer to something the White House had proposed over the last few days. A GOP aide said the White House plan offered $1.4 trillion in new revenue, but the GOP still not moved from offering $800 billion in revenue.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told NBC News the following:

"We sent the White House a counter-offer that would achieve tax and entitlement reform to solve our looming debt crisis and create more American jobs.  As the Speaker said today, we're still waiting for the White House to identify what spending cuts the president is willing to make as part of the "balanced approach" he promised the American people.  The longer the White House slow-walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff."

Since this is a new offer, it’s assumed to be different from the one put forward last week by the GOP that called for $800 billion dollars in new revenue through closing tax loopholes and deductions, along with an additional $600 billion in savings through cuts to entitlements.

A GOP aide opined to NBC News that the president must move more quickly on “the spending side” before any deal could hope to be accomplished. A major sticking point to date has involved how much ground Republicans would give on tax rates for the wealthy.

Updated at 6:05 p.m. ET -- Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder called himself "one tough nerd" in his 2010 gubernatorial campaign, fashioning himself as a pragmatic problem-solver who wouldn't delve into the divisive partisanship that had come to define some of his fellow Republicans.

Related: Michigan House passes right-to-work legislation

But now that Snyder has signed historic legislation making Michigan the nation's 24th right-to-work state, detractors will likely lump the governor with those firebrand Republicans, a distinction that he had long sought to avoid.

“I didn’t do this to get into the politics of it,” Snyder said on MSNBC Tuesday afternoon of the fight. He said the issue reached a “critical mass” after organized labor unsuccessfully pushed a ballot initiative this November that would have established a right to collective bargaining in the Michigan constitution.

Snyder had previously said that pursuing this legislation was not on his agenda. But Republicans in the statehouse, whose majorities in the House and Senate will be narrower next year due to the 2012 elections, revived the long-dormant proposal with Snyder's eventual blessing.

"Once we had the support that we had, the next step was convincing the governor that this was a good thing," said state Republican Rep. Marty Knollenberg, a primary sponsor of the bill in the House. "It certainly started from the legislature, and then it was presented to the governor … I think he was sort of taking a wait-and-see attitude. It wasn’t on his priority list, as he indicated."

But Snyder did ultimately embrace the law, and signed it into law on Tuesday evening. Whether he would be able to preserve his reputation as a non-ideologue is an open question.

"I think he kind of decided he couldn’t string this out any longer. The idea that he had some sort of moment where he was converted in a blinding flash of light – I don’t think that’s the case," said Bill Ballenger, editor of the "Inside Michigan Politics" newsletter. "Here you’ve got Michigan looking, all of a sudden, far more extreme and aggressive that Scott Walker. Isn’t that ironic?"

Snyder enjoyed a 51 percent approval rating for Snyder in an early December EPIC-MRA poll; 48 percent of Michiganders said they had a negative impression of Snyder's performance as governor. The same poll found that Snyder had an edge over a generic Democratic challenger in 2014.

Recommended: Boehner demands Obama 'get serious' and offer new plan

But the state was much more divided on the question of whether the legislature should pursue right-to-work laws. While the EPIC-MRA poll found that Michiganders were generally supportive of the concept of those laws, they were evenly divided – 47 percent in favor, 46 percent against – on the question of whether Michigan should adopt such a law.

Dale G. Young / AP

Governor Rick Snyder presents his views on Michigan's future energy plans and how they merge with environmental and resource management issues at MSU's WK Kellogg Biological Station, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012 near Hickory Corners, Mich.

Indeed, Snyder's decision to move forward with this proposal will inevitably invite parallels with GOP Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's work to push legislation that stripped public employees of their collective bargaining rights in early 2011. Like Michigan, Wisconsin is an industrial Midwestern state with a long tradition of unionism. And as with Wisconsin, Democrats and labor activists stormed the state capitol with unmet hopes of halting the changes to labor law.

“I think it’s important to make a distinction with Wisconsin and Ohio,” Snyder said on MSNBC. “That was about collective bargaining. That was about the relationship between employers and unions. This has nothing to do with that. Right-to-work has to do with the relationship between unions and workers.”

The bigger distinction might be the extent to which Michigan's fight was relatively bloodless. The fight in Wisconsin dragged out for days as Democrats in the state Senate went into hiding in Illinois to try to prevent a vote. And labor fought for months to recall Walker, an election which the Wisconsin governor survived this past June.

The right-to-work law moved much more quickly through Michigan's state government, giving opponents of the law barely any time to stop the bill. Even President Barack Obama's criticism of the law during a stop Monday in Detroit did little to halt the legislation's progress.

That sort of criticism could threaten to erode the reputation Snyder had built for himself during two years in office. Snyder, a former CEO of Gateway Computers, emerged from relative obscurity in 2010 to beat two well-known Republican challengers, Rep. Pete Hoekstra and Attorney General Mike Cox, in the primary on the strengths of his plain-spoken, jobs-oriented message.

Snyder tried to burnish his bipartisan bona fides upon taking office by appointing former State House Speaker Andy Dillon, a Democrat who'd unsuccessfully sought his party's gubernatorial nomination in 2010, as his state treasurer. He had sought to build a new bridge between Detroit and Canada over the opposition of some Republicans, and resisted a GOP initiative to ban domestic partnership benefits for gay and lesbian couples before relenting.

Democrats and their allies in organized labor are sure now to redouble their efforts to beat Snyder in 2014, despite a relatively thin bench of challengers. More voters (40 percent) said they would be less likely to give Snyder a second term if he pursued right-to-work than those who said they would be more likely to re-elect the Republican. 

Gov. Rick Snyder intimated on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports that he would now sign 'right-to-work' legislation, after previously saying it was too “divisive,” because labor leaders defied him earlier this year.

This “goes back to last summer,” the Republican Michigan governor said, adding that Labor was proposing a ballot amendment that he believed went too far.

Proposal 2 would have amended the state constitution to expand union rights and collective bargaining and even override existing state laws that conflict with those agreements.

“I believe in collective bargaining,” Snyder said on Andrea Mitchell Reports. But “this is over the top.”

The proposal made it onto the ballot and failed, 57%-42% in November.

“Voters spoke in November,” Snyder said. Now, “it’s on the table. It’s a hot issue. Let’s show some leadership.”

In 2011, despite Republicans working on right-to-work legislation, Snyder said he didn't think it was "appropriate" and that the state had "higher priorities."

“I don't think it's an appropriate subject for us to be dealing with today, because we have higher priorities that need to be addressed in our state," Snyder told a radio program nearly a year ago to the day, Dec. 12, 2011. He added, "We need to come together as Michiganders and show some solid results on things we can agree on first before we have any discussion along those lines. As a practical matter, the other things I'd mention to you is that we do have to be more competitive, we do have to be more proactive, but I want to see how we can worth together. So I'd just as soon work with labor on being proactive.

Snyder's tone has significantly changed. He contended Tuesday on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports that signing this law is “about being pro-worker.”

He added that since Indiana passed a similar law, “They’ve gotten thousands of jobs. … This is about moving Michigan forward, about more Michigan jobs, and worker choice.”

From Michigan, outside the state capitol, Bob King, president of the United Auto Workers union, responded bluntly.

“Bunch of malarkey, really,” he said, adding, “This has got to be seen as part of a right-wing agenda. … They’re attacking everything that’s good for working families.”

He continued: “That’s baloney. ‘Right-to-work’ lowers wages, lowers benefits; it lowers health care. ‘Right-to-work is bad for working families.”

There is evidence that wages in right-to-work states are lower. The Detroit Free Press’ Gallagher, for example, wrote: “The data on wages tell a fairly clear story. Of the top 10 states in per capita income in 2011, seven were not right-to work states. Of the bottom 10 states with the lowest per capital income, seven were right to work states.”

Civil rights activist Jesse Jesse Jackson, standing next to King, called for a “major one-day strike” and “march on Washington.”

“These workers have been pushed over the cliff,” Jackson said, adding, “I’m  convinced workers must fight back in measure. … We must fight wholesale.”

He added of Republicans, “They fought to suppress the vote in the Fall; they’re fighting to suppress the wages now.”

Echoing President Obama, Jackson said, “It’s the right to work for less.” And of helping to organize the protests in Michigan, a state long known for its strong unions, “I never thought it would metastasize and go this far North,” Jackson said.

NBC's Kyle Inskeep contributed to this report.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, took to the House floor Tuesday to urge President Barack Obama to “get serious” and offer a plan to resolve the impending fiscal cliff.

Following a weekend meeting between the president and Capitol Hill’s top Republican, Boehner said that a deal to address the combination of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts set for the end of this month continued to elude lawmakers.

Boehner placed the blame squarely with Obama, whom the speaker again demanded produce a new version of his plan.

“If the president doesn’t agree with our approach, he’s got an obligation to put forward a plan that can pass both chambers of the Congress,” Boehner said. “Because right now, the American people have to be scratching their heads and wondering: When is the president going to get serious?”

The main sticking point involves taxes, and the question of whether tax rates should be allowed to go up for the wealthiest of Americans. Obama has demanded that tax rates go up on high earners, possibly to the levels they were at during President Bill Clinton’s administration. Republicans argue that they should instead raise revenue through eliminating tax deductions and loopholes, thereby sparing some small-business owners whose revenue is taxed as income.

But there’s also the broader question of whether an extension of the debt limit should be included in the deal, along with Republicans’ demand that Obama specify the areas in which he’s willing to make cuts.

“A lot of people know that the president and I met on Sunday. It was a nice meeting, it was cordial. But we’re still waiting for the White House to identify what spending cuts the president is willing to make as part of the ‘balanced’ approach that he promised the American people,” Boehner said.

The Ohio Republican added: “Where are the president’s spending cuts? And the longer the White House slow-walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff.”

Still, Boehner expressed optimism that Republicans could still reach an agreement with Obama before the Dec. 31 deadline.

Michigan will become the nation’s 24th right-to-work state after Republicans in the state legislature approved historic changes to the state’s labor laws over the strenuous objections of Democrats and union members.

The state House, which is controlled by Republicans, voted to bar workplaces from making union membership a condition of employment. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, has said he would sign the law – a symbolically important strike at the organized labor movement in Michigan, a traditional union stronghold.

Paul Sancya / AP

Protesters gather for a rally at the State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012. The crowd is protesting right-to-work legislation passed last week. Michigan could become the 24th state with a right-to-work law next week.

The House voted 58-41, largely upon party lines, to approve a Senate version of the right-to-work law. The bill will head to Synder for signature.

Related: Michigan passes anti-union measure amid protests

As state lawmakers debated and voted upon the new law, thousands of union members rallied outside the state capitol in Lansing in an ultimately futile show of opposition to the proposal.

Michigan joins Ohio and Wisconsin – two other industrial Midwestern strongholds governed by Republicans in the statehouse – in advancing laws intended to weaken labor rights over the past two years. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, R, led an effort in 2011 to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights, which prompted massive protests and a legislative standoff. It also prompted an effort to recall Walker, which the governor survived this past June. Ohio’s Republican governor, John Kasich, led the effort to pass similar legislation in his state, though it was undone by a subsequent ballot initiative.

Republican lawmakers had sought to ward off a similar ballot initiative by attaching the bill to an appropriations measure, a procedural tactic making the right-to-work law ineligible from a direct challenge at the polls.

Recommended: Fiscal cliff deal likely to be a fragile one

But union members believe they might have a chance to put the right-to-work law before voters as soon as 2014, though the changes to the law would be allowed to take effect in the meanwhile. And opponents of the right-to-work law would have to also meet a higher-than-usual threshold of support to put the question on the ballot.

Democrats vocally criticized the law in the debate preceding the vote, one lawmaker, Douglass Geiss, said there would be “blood” as a result of the law. State Rep. Shanelle Jackson, D, said the law guaranteed Snyder’s defeat in 2014, when he would be up for re-election.

Tuesday’s action makes Michigan the 24th right-to-work state, but only the second state in the Industrial Midwest to pass such a law. Michigan follows Indiana, which passed its right-to-work law in early 2012. Most other right-to-work states are located in the South and Plains states. Proponents of the laws argue that right-to-work laws have allowed those states to attract new jobs and industries, while labor advocates argue that workers in those states are forced to accept lower wages than they might enjoy in states where union membership in workplaces is compulsory. 

If Obama and Boehner are able to strike a deal, it will more than likely be a fragile one… Labor battle in Michigan: right to work and right to protest… Labor takes another punch… But will it be another Pyrrhic victory for the GOP (at least in the short run)?... Will the RNC’s autopsy satisfy conservatives who are charging that establishment GOPers are simply making money off the party, win or lose?... Nikki Haley to hold news conference at noon ET (but isn’t expected to announce appointment)… And meet Sean Patrick Maloney.

*** A fragile deal? While there’s some optimism that President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner can strike a deal to avert the looming tax hikes and spending cuts -- no news is good news, after all – it’s important to point out how fragile any deal would likely be. If there will be serious tax and entitlement reform, you’ll have triggers to enforce them. So essentially, you’re solving this so-called fiscal cliff by creating new ones. Here are the reasons for optimism: Obama and Boehner met on Sunday; the president’s public schedule is mostly free today (suggesting that he’s busy working on this matter); and more and more Republicans are coming around to the idea that they’re probably going to have to cave on tax rates. But here’s the pessimism: raising the debt ceiling. We’re hearing that this issue might be the biggest obstacle right now. More than taxes or entitlements, that issue appears to be the one that GOP leaders might have the hardest time convincing the rank-and-file to hand over to the Obama White House and Democrats in any kind of deal. And the White House may not realize how important it is for Boehner to stick to his guns on this.

Bill Pugliano / Getty Images

President Barack Obama speaks about the economy at the Daimler Detroit Diesel engine plant Dec. 10, 2012 in Redford, Mi.

*** Right to work and right to protest: As NBC’s Mike O’Brien reported yesterday, “Republicans stand on the cusp of delivering a major blow to organized labor, as they prepare to vote Tuesday on legislation to make Michigan – a state linked to unions in the public conscious – a ‘right to work’ state.” And Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has said he would sign the legislation into law. The protests have already begun, the Detroit News adds. “Union members turned out early in the morning, dead set on protesting the controversial legislation… At 5 a.m. Tuesday, Michigan Laborers started to unload their supplies for the day. The union came prepared with tents and hand warmers to withstand the chilly 22-degree weather.” But it is worth noting a couple of reasons why labor and Democrats are losing this fight, even in Michigan. For one thing, the Democratic Party isn’t united on this issue; after all, there are several prominent Democratic politicians (Virginia’s Mark Warner and Tim Kaine come immediately to mind) who hail from right-to-work states. Also, labor lost the framing of this national debate. Despite the merits of compulsory union dues and membership -- if you’re going to receive the benefits from a collective-bargaining agreement, you’ve got to pay the dues -- Republicans and the businesses largely have succeeded in making this about choice.

*** Labor takes another punch: Even though the last few decades generally haven’t been kind to America’s labor movement -- with union participation rates declining -- it still has remained a political force. The unions’ money and ground efforts matter. So, too, do their endorsements in Democratic primaries. But if there’s one theme to the labor battles we’ve seen over the past two years, with the latest one taking place in Michigan, it’s that Republican politicians have been more than willing to punch organized labor in the face, even in its own backyard. Yes, unions have been able to hit back. In 2011, they overturned Ohio’s anti-collective-bargaining effort. And they also were able to recall a handful of GOP state senators in Wisconsin. But they bet big on trying to oust Gov. Scott Walker (R) from office, and they lost.

*** Pyrrhic victories? All that said, it is worth noting that the anti-union efforts and other aggressive actions by the 2010 class of Republican governors -- Florida’s Rick Scott, Ohio’s John Kasich, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker -- have been Pyrrhic victories, at least in the short term. For starters, Obama again won in all of these states in 2012, proving that weakening labor in these states didn’t hurt the Democratic incumbent. Also consider that Kasich and Scott, in particular, aren’t sure bets for re-election in 2014. In fact, while a new Quinnipiac poll shows Kasich’s approval rating to be above water for the first time since taking office, a plurality of voters say he doesn’t deserve a second term in office. But for labor, there’s also no evidence they are going to be able to win this right-to-work battle -- or even future ones. How does labor regroup? Does it decide to concede on things like right-to-work in favor of collective bargaining?

*** Will the RNC’s autopsy satisfy conservatives? The Republican National Committee yesterday launched an effort -- dubbed the "Growth and Opportunity Project" -- to examine what worked and what didn't in the 2012 election. And five Republicans will chair the initiative: RNC member Henry Barbour of Mississippi, RNC member Zori Fonalledas of Puerto Rico, RNC member Glenn McCall of South Carolina, Florida political strategist (and Jeb Bush adviser) Sally Bradshaw, and former Bush 43 White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. The question we have is whether this autopsy effort will satisfy conservatives who believe that establishment Republicans are simply making money off the GOP, win or lose. As Breitbart columnist Michael Patrick Leahy recently wrote, “Federal Election Commission reports filed by the Republican National Committee on Thursday show that one-third of the $59.3 million it spent directly with vendors in the last five weeks of the election was paid to one telemarketing firm, FLS Connect, LLC,” which just happens to be co-founded by the RNC’s current chief of staff. Prominent conservative Erick Erickson has made a similar charge. And then there’s question whether these five chairs -- Barbour, Fonalledas, Bradshaw, McCall, Fleischer -- are too establishment. After all, there isn’t a single person from the conservative grassroots here. Say what you want about Howard Dean and the DNC from 2005-2008, but he was willing to break china to fix things. Can the same be said of the current RNC?

*** Haley to hold news conference: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) is holding a news conference at noon ET in North Charleston, SC. Per NBC’s Ali Weinberg, Haley isn’t expected to announce her appointment to fill Sen. Jim DeMint’s Senate seat. But yesterday, the governor said she WILL NOT appoint a placeholder, saying: "I believe South Carolina will be best served by a U.S. senator who will work hard day in and day out, and put him or herself before the voters at the soonest possible time," Haley said in a statement. "Accordingly, I reject the option of a 'placeholder.'"

*** Meet Sean Patrick Maloney: NBC’s Carrie Dann has profiled 10 new members to watch in the next Congress. Today’s profile: Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY). “A former senior adviser in President Bill Clinton's administration, Sean Patrick Maloney also worked as a staffer for New York governors Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson before mounting his own political run. Maloney unseated Republican Rep. Nan Hayworth in a New York's redrawn 18th District. The first openly gay New York congressman, Maloney and his partner Randy Florke have three adopted children together. Maloney once told New York Magazine that his hero is fictional lawyer Atticus Finch and came in third in New York's 2006 Democratic primary for attorney general. In addition to his career as a behind-the-scenes political aide, Maloney also made a name at two prestigious New York law firms. He was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP before moving to Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.”

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*** Tuesday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: MSNBC’s Chris Jansing talks to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Liz Sidoti and Matt Welch about the fiscal cliff negotiations; Kerry Kennedy looks at Secretary Clinton’s legacy with women’s and human rights and who will fill the void when she leaves; Chip Saltsman & Fmr. Gov. Ted Strickland on Speaker Boehner’s challenges within his caucus; and Nicholas Kristof looks at the unfortunate consequences of the social safety net.

*** Tuesday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts interviews Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI), and RNC Nat’l Committeeman from SC Glenn McCall. Today’s Power Panel includes: Time Magazine’s Rana Faroohar, MSNBC Contributor Ron Reagan and Republican Strategist John Brabender.

*** Tuesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviews UAW President Bob King, Democratic strategist Debbie Dingell, former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius, Ruth Marcus and Jonathan Capehart, NBC’s Ron Mott, Politico’s Maggie Haberman and documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki.

*** Tuesday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews Rep. Sander Levin, Politico's Lois Romano, Dem strategist Chris Kofinis, Michael Smerconish, Mississippi RNC member Henry Barbour who is part of the RNC's "growth and opportunity" project, and Bill Ballenger from "Inside Michigan Politics."

“President Barack Obama says right-to-work legislation in Michigan is more about politics than economics. He is criticizing a measure that would prevent requiring non-union employees to financially support unions at their workplace,” AP writes. “Obama received loud applause at a Michigan engine plant when he said we shouldn’t be ‘taking away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions.’ The president says that the right-to-work bills are more about ‘giving you the right to work for less money.’”

How big is the right-to-work story in Michigan? The Detroit Free Press is liveblogging it.

“Evidence of Congress’ plummeting popularity is everywhere,” AP writes. “From New Hampshire diners to Colorado coffee shops, weary residents report widespread concern. They relate the debate in Washington over their tax dollars with their own lives: average Americans who are struggling every day to make ends meet. And already distracted by the holidays and tired of politics after a bitter presidential campaign, they are calling on Washington to get its act together.”

Obama and Biden will lunch today.

The president now has an extinct lizard named after him, the Obamadon.

How much would you pay to hear Jim Messina talk about the Obama campaign’s winning 2012 efforts?

“Aides to President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner say they're talking about a debt deal — they just want the other guy to be a little more specific,” USA Today reports. “Obama's team called on Boehner and other Republicans Monday to be more precise about higher taxes on wealthy Americans; Boehner's office said they await more details from the president on spending cuts.”

Politico: “The Oklahoma senator and obstetrician known as ‘Dr. No’ has taken on the most unlikely of roles: getting Republicans to say ‘yes’ to tax hikes. Tom Coburn, who has blocked dozens of bills, infuriated Democratic leaders and been on the lopsided end of some 96-3 votes, has been encouraging fellow Republicans both publicly and behind the scenes to break with the anti-tax orthodoxy that has come to define — some say hamstring — the modern GOP.”

Said Coburn: “I’m for raising revenue because we have to — it’s not because we should but because we have to.” Coburn called tax hikes “inevitable.” “It’s still going to happen. That’s what the law is.”

National Journal: “In the negotiations to avoid a year-end fiscal crisis, Republicans may be playing with fire. The GOP's biggest piece of leverage—whether to increase the limit on how much money the nation can borrow—is also one fraught with political and economic risk, experts and analysts say. If they don’t tread carefully, Republicans risk alienating allies on Wall Street or, worse, hurting the nation's credit rating and economy.”

Christmas may not be the end date… “If they miss Christmas, negotiators then have to aim for Jan. 1 -- the start of the year of the ‘fiscal cliff,’ a series of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that kick in if the parties are unable to reach a debt reduction deal,” USA Today writes. “If negotiators fail -- if they go over the cliff -- then they face yet another key date: Jan. 3, the day a new Congress is sworn in, and most of the process starts all over again.”

Immigration is the next battle. Politico outlines five Republicans to watch on the issue – Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador (Puerto Rico native who practiced immigration law), Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (has teamed up with Rep. Gutierrez in the past), Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, and Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte (incoming chairman of Judiciary).

Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is the only member of Congress that still wants “lunatic” on the books.

“U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday found himself defending his legal writings that some find offensive and anti-gay,” AP writes. Speaking at Princeton University, Scalia was asked by a gay student why he equates laws banning sodomy with those barring bestiality and murder. ‘I don't think it's necessary, but I think it's effective,’ Scalia said, adding that legislative bodies can ban what they believe to be immoral.”

He added, “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?"