From KCRW in Santa Monica and PRI, Public Radio International, this is To the Point.

The president does lunch with Mitt Romney, but partisanship never dies.

Hello again, I'm Armin Alney, and this is To the Point from Public Radio International.

The daily look at the issues Americans care about most. Despite threats from Grover Norquist, Republicans are backing away from

their pledge of no new taxes. But after days of optimistic pronouncements about avoiding the fiscal

cliff, House Speaker John Boehner today effectively said not so fast. He dismissed the president's

very public campaign to raise tax rates on high earners

as a victory lap designed to avoid laying out spending cuts. Meantime, Senate Republicans are

escalating their opposition to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as the next Secretary of State.

Is there a hidden agenda? On reporter's notebook later on, a new ruling that tobacco companies

will have to admit to lying.

First, here's the news.

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Program Fund. Hello again, Warren Alney, back with To the Point. The deadline for avoiding

the fiscal cliff is just over a month away, and today there are new doubts about whether it's going to be met.

We'll hear about political lines in the sand being drawn just weeks after the president's re-election.

On reporters' notebook, six years after they were convicted of conspiring to hide the risks of smoking, tobacco companies,

...