The compromise tax package has passed the House after earlier passing the Senate. This means, among other things, that we will not see a tax increase next year. Charles Krauthammer is amazed at how quickly President Obama has come back from defeat. If he keeps it up, he will have a far easier time getting re-elected in 2012 than most anyone thinks right now.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was forced to retreat on a massive $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill after losing several Republicans he thought might vote with him. In a nice piece of Senate theatrics, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed replacing the bill with a one-page piece of legislation. This is all about avoiding a shutdown of government operations, of course. The GOP learned from its experiences in the mid-1990s that forcing a shutdown is bad politics, but they also seem to understand that the public hates the idea of these big, catch-all bills that spend huge sums of money. McConnell's suggestion, which is to do just the minimum to keep the government running for a couple of months until lawmakers can properly construct another bill, is a political winner.

Here is a cool story about how back in 1969 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stopped the water flowing over the American side of the Niagara Falls. Cool pictures, too.

Caroline Glick writes about how Western feminists are blind to the repression of women in Muslim societies.

Victor Davis Hanson writes about the parts of California that look like the Third World.

Paul Krugman thinks a commission appointed to look into the reasons for the financial collapse in 2008 has hopelessly missed the bus on the reasons for the collapse, because their GOP members are the evil minions of the evil bankers.