Press pool reports on President Obama's vacation time in Hawaii are essential to full news coverage, if often not newsy and, in fact, boring. The report for the day after Christmas read, in part: "POTUS has finished playing five-and-a-half hours of golf at the Royal Hawaiian Golf Club. Pool did not see POTUS except briefly at 4:38 pm when he headed towards the men's room, past the pro shop ..." blah, blah, blah ...

Conservatives might be glad that indigents in a Central Texas county are expected to bear a share of the burden of paying taxes. The downside is that they are allowed to hire defense attorneys at taxpayer expense.

The nomination of investment banker Antonio Weiss to a top post in the Treasury Department is drawing opposition from both left and right sides of the political spectrum because if he's approved for the job he'll receive a $20 million-plus bonus from his bank. Foes of big spending object on principle. Liberals charge it's Wall Street's attempt to buy off someone who's regulating them.