AP - Amid soaring budget deficits, President Barack Obama is running into congressional qualms over how to pay for his troop buildup in Afghanistan. Military strategy aside, the $30 billion cost is causing concern on both sides of the aisle. Still, leaders in Congress predicted Wednesday that Obama would prevail in winning funding for the war escalation.
Politico - DeMint, darling of the Tea Party crowd, credits the movement with blocking health care reform.
AP - Senators debating health care legislation are headed for a clash over abortion, the issue that threatened to derail the bill in the House.
AP - With a Senate showdown looming, the politically potent AARP rode to the rescue of Democrats on Wednesday, supporting $460 billion in Medicare cuts to help pay for landmark health care legislation.
AP - The Supreme Court is weighing whether owners of beachfront homes in Florida must be compensated because a beach-widening project cost them their exclusive access to the Gulf of Mexico.
AP - Joint Chiefs chairman says in prepared remarks new Afghan strategy refines US focus there.
AP - A coffin containing the body of an Austrian billionaire has been returned to his family, more than a year after it was stolen from a graveyard by thieves who blackmailed the relatives for $150,000 (euro100,000), police said Wednesday.
McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — The broadest revamp of financial regulation in seven decades cleared a key congressional committee Wednesday and will move next week to debate on the floor of the House of Representatives.
CQPolitics.com - Kansas 3 Now More Competitive
Bloomberg - Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obamaâs announcement
that heâll send 30,000 more U.S. troops to fight in Afghanistan
had echoes of many of his predecessors whose ranks he has joined
– war presidents.
AP - Turns out those discredited rumors of a possible Chelsea Clinton wedding last summer were mostly just premature: The 29-year old daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has become engaged to her longtime boyfriend, 31-year old investment banker Marc Mezvinsky.
AP - After months of debate, President Barack Obama will spell out a costly Afghanistan war expansion to a skeptical public Tuesday night, coupling an infusion of as many as 35,000 more troops with a vow that there will be no endless U.S. commitment. His first orders have already been made: at least one group of Marines who will be in place by Christmas.