Violent clashes continue in Cairo and spread to other cities; Congressional leaders concede that a sweeping deficit agreement is near failure; and Khmer Rouge leaders go on trial.

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TIMESCAST: TimesCast | November 21, 2011

Democrats on Friday rejected a last-ditch bid by Republicans to save the congressional supercommittee from failure, leaving the panel with no apparent path to compromise as the clock ticks toward a Thanksgiving deadline. Having concluded that agreement looks increasingly unlikely on a far-reaching plan to raise taxes and restrain social spending, Republican members of the supercommittee worked with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to develop a smaller “Plan B” that would stop far short of the panel’s goal of $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade. Read full article > >

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Debt supercommittee: Democrats reject last-ditch Republican offer

With just days remaining before their final deadline, members of a Congressional panel on deficit reduction reported no tangible progress towards an agreement.

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Congressional Deficit Panel Still at Loggerheads

Born during what is mistakenly called the debt-ceiling “debacle” last summer, the congressional supercommittee may die without agreeing to a 10-year, $1.2 trillion (at least) deficit-reduction plan. This is not properly labeled a failure. Committee Democrats demanded more revenue; Republicans offered $500 billion; Democrats responded with the one-syllable distillation of liberalism: “More!” So the committee’s work has been a clarifying event that presages a larger one — next November’s elections. Read full article > >

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Spending’s ascending — with or without a budget sequester

The Congressional deficit reduction panel is hoping to strike an accord on revenue levels but delay tough decisions on raising taxes until next year.

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Deficit Panel Seeks to Defer Details on Raising Taxes

For administration officials, the prospect of failure by a special Congressional committee on debt reduction reinforces the decision for President Obama to keep his distance.

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Deficit Reduction Panel at Impasse, but Obama Sees No Reason to Step In

GNAW BONE, Ind. — Meet the people of Indiana’s 9th Congressional District . If you want to blame somebody for what Washington has become, blame them. In the past decade, as mounting voter disaffection created an angry cycle of “wave elections” in American politics, nobody rode the waves harder than the people on the hill farms and courthouse towns south of Indianapolis. Read full article > >

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In Indiana’s 9th District, lawmakers change and only the anger endures

DAN SCHNUR Director of the University of Southern California’s Unruh Institute of Politics; communications director for John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. The difference between a movement and a large group of unhappy people is the ability to articulate specific policy goals. Those who held the earliest Tea Party rallies in 2009 had not yet developed legislative priorities to substantiate their slogans, but, over the course of several months, the congressional debate over deficit reduction and then the nation’s debt limit provided them the opportunity to directly influence policy in Washington. In an earlier era, the protesters who rallied public opinion against the Vietnam War underwent a similar evolution. Read full article > >

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What should Occupy Wall Street’s agenda be?

Sen. John McCain thinks there’s an obvious solution to the sweeping defense cuts that will be automatically triggered in 2013 if the congressional supercommittee fails to come to a deficit agreement: Congress should simply overturn them, and he’ll help lead the charge. On Thursday, a reporter asked the Arizona Republican to react to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s recent warning that the triggered cuts would do “catastrophic damage” to national security. Read full article > >

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McCain vows to nullify defense cuts if they’re triggered

New e-mails provided to Congressional investigators show White House officials expressed concern that Solyndra might collapse months before it did.

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E-Mails Reveal Early White House Worries Over Solyndra

If expectations were not low enough for the special Congressional committee charged with writing a deficit-reduction deal, they are falling by the day.

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Congressional Deficit-Cutting Group Faces an Uphill Fight

Movie director Robert Townsend and actress Vivica A. Fox stopped at Duke Ellington School of Arts with a message of hope. They were in town to promote the movie “In the Hive,” recently released, during Congressional Black Caucus week that officially begins on Wednesday. The movie is based on the real life story of Vivian Saunders, a cook at the Hive Academy, an alternative school in North Carolina. The academy helps mold young men into productive citizens. Read full article > >

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Director Robert Townsend promotes ‘In the Hive’

A congressman from a state with a university that could be harmed by realignment said Congressional involvement may be unavoidable.

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Pittsburgh and Syracuse Join A.C. C.

Bob Turner, who was to be sworn in as a 70-year-old Congressional freshman on Thursday, said he planned to fight to remain in Washington.

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Bob Turner, on Way to Congress, Speaks of Staying There

The president will seek to pressure a special Congressional committee to propose measures to promote job creation as well as larger long-term deficit cuts than mandated, aides said.

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Obama to Press Committee on Jobs