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moammar gadhafi's grip on libya appears to be ending. rebels say they control 80% of the libyan capital today, pockets of gadhafi fighters are holding out. they still control this hotel that's home base for foreign journalists. gadhafi's whereabouts are unknown. his loyalists continue to defend his compound. rebels keep rolling with no major resistance. they pour into the street to celebrate after they have taken much of tripoli. >> we were outside the windows screaming. everyone realized no one wants him. no one wants the dictator. most of us had our homes closed because there was f...

An absolute reduction from last year. not even a reduction from the president's baseline which was $40 billion more because we remain in a very dire economic situation. if you take it from the president's baseline if you are saying have the democrat comes over to the republican side of the table, they've actually reduced what their ask was by $70 billion. >> certainly. and so we've already moved a long way in the republicans' direction. >> jonathan, are you still there? >> yes, i am. >> you know, i want to ask you about this. it seems to me that there's one level at which you can look at the s...

December, even though the president had a good lame-duck question. we said he got some thing, don't ask, don't tell repealed, some stimulus money. why did he not at the moment he agreed to extend the bush tax cuts for the wealthiest in particular, why did he not at that point put some of these structural issues on the table so at least get paul ryan and the republican incoming leadership to concede some points about medicare, medicaid? then when the president theoretically had more a negotiating leverage. >> i don't know. but i thought he had two or three really good months of general leadersh...

New top income tax bracket, so an increase in income tax. that's not there now. there are other taxes from the senate bill to replace that that might or might not be more attractive to people? is that the zone where there might be people more willing to vote for the version who didn't vote for the house version before? >> that's exactly the zone. the big thing the blue dog said about the original version is it doesn't do enough on cost control. the senate bill has two more cost control measures. the independent medicare provision to do changes on medicare outside the congressional order and th...

That the best path forward is where they have the votes. i don't know if they quite know that yet. we are in a place now -- and you will remember this from when it went the first time -- where everybody gets hard line because this is where you maximize negotiating leverage and this is when you cut your deal. >> the senior member of the united states senate, robert byrd, is back in the news. he has a rule in reconciliation named after him, the byrd rule. republicans are talking about it a lot these days because what they are pointing out is through the byrd rule and other points of order that y...