In an interview to be broadcast this Friday night, ABC’s Barbara Walters asked the President about the possibility of raising the Medicare eligibility retirement age, and he did not dismiss it as unacceptable.

Since returning to the control of Republicans, the House has returned to the “Hastert rule,” (named for the former House Speaker, Denny Hastert) where only legislation that has a majority of votes among the majority, rather than a majority of votes overall, will get a vote on the floor. The Senate’s tax bill, which extends the Bush-era tax rates only on the first $250,000 of income, fits into this sweet spot. It probably has enough votes to pass but not enough to capture a majority of Republicans. Therefore, John Boehner rejects bringing it to the floor.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi laid out a bright line this weekend, echoing many other Democrats in saying that merely cutting loopholes to raise revenues would not be sufficient for a deal.

Congressional leaders left the White House after a one-hour meeting today on the fiscal slope. And their post-meeting comments could be best described as conciliatory, enough to send the stock market spiking.

It’s clear that Democrats need the pressure.

Backed by a larger caucus, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will stay on in the post for another two years. She will make the announcement at this hour. Nobody will challenge her for the Democratic leadership position.

Even though Democrats picked up at least 8 seats, they still came up 17 seats short or retaking the House. They face the prospect of an unfavorable map bedeviling them from returning to the majority, potentially for the next four cycles. So it’s only natural that Nancy Pelosi, who after all is 72, would consider stepping down.

The Department of Homeland Security today announced a change to immigration rules, saying that they would consider same-sex couples as “family relationships” for the purposes of immigration policy. Specifically, the written guidance reads, “In an effort to make clear the definition of the phrase ‘family relationships,’ I have directed ICE to disseminate written guidance to the field that the interpretation of the phrase ‘family relationships’ includes long-term, same-sex partners.” This means that same-sex couples in binational relationships would have their coupling considered as part of any immigration proceedings. There are roughly 36,000 such couples today.

Fatster rounds up news articles from all over, including links to stories about VP Biden, Nancy Pelosi, no water bottles in, poor people, Wisconsin jobless, war on women, Secret Service U-haul, are you better off?, Romney’s deferments, Apple vs consumers, state tax revenues, Greece out of Euro, David Cameron, George Osborn is Paul Ryan, Kruds vs Turks, Syria, Egypt vs women, and much more.

The letter from Bank of America Home Loans got right to the point. “We are pleased to inform you that we have approved your Home Equity Account for participation in a principal forgiveness program offered as a result of the Department of Justice and State Attorneys General global settlement with major mortgage servicers.” In the letter, which I obtained from an anti-foreclosure activist, Bank of America offered the homeowner full forgiveness of their entire home equity loan balance of over $177,000. But then Paragraph 5 came with an ominous warning: “Please be aware that we are required to report the amount of your cancelled principal debt to the Internal Revenue Service.”