1. On Republican cowardice on the United Nations disabilities treaty: Read this one, from James Downie.
2. How to reduce inequality without using the tax code, from Dylan Matthews.
3, Good item about President Obama’s use of his own wealth in how he sells tax increases from Irin Carmon, who also talks about how Bill Clinton pioneered the tactic. Worth mentioning, however, is that when he was running for president Clinton emphasized his working-class background, the better to knock down the idea that he was a Yale-educated elitist, while Obama seems to want to sell a more upscale version of himself than he could.
4. Could we be near an agreement on renewing the Violence Against Women Act? Jennifer Bendery reports that House Majority Leader and Vice President Biden are negotiating over the final details and hope to move it before the end of the year.
5. Insiders share their legislative priorities for the next Congress with the National Journal. Taxes, mostly.
6. Jordan Ragusa analyzes the outlook for South Carolina politics in 2014: What does Jim DeMint’s resignation mean for a primary against Lindsey Graham?
7. While Tim Noah has a very nice piece on DeMint in the Senate.
8. Yes, what Republicans were actually committing to on revenue in the Boehner letter this week is at the very least totally vague and ambiguous. Kevin Drum is correct about that. Note, however, that it doesn’t change anything; either there will be a deal, or tax increases will take effect.
9. Does Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal actually know what the fiscal cliff is about? As Jonathan Chait notes, you wouldn’t think so from reading Jindal’s op-ed today.
10. And Paul Krugman nails it: yup, this is yet another example of that conservative closed information loop.
11. How Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell filibustered his own proposal, reported by Sahil Kapur.
12. If you’re more interested in substance: why a statutory debt limit is a really bad idea, from Ethan Pollack.
13. And Peter Orszag at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on why deductions caps are “artificially attractive.”