Last Call

Meanwhile, some sobering perspective about the next four years.

A Jacksonville police officer has quit after admitting he told colleagues that he would volunteer to assassinate President Barack Obama.
Sam Koivisto told the Florida Times-Union on Wednesday that his comments had been blown out of proportion and that he'd planned to retire in five months anyway.

The 57-year-old retired earlier this month while facing an internal investigation into his comments to other officers after the election. He told them that if an order came to kill Obama, he "wouldn't mind being the guy."

So there's that.  You knows, because cops threatened to kill Dubya all the time.

A Big Orange Turkey

GOP House Speaker John Boehner takes to the friendly confines of the Cincy Enquirer to announce his theory on "compromise" for the fiscal cliff:  repealing Obamacare completely.

President Obama has won re-election, but his health care law is still driving up costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire workers. As was the case before the election, Obamacare has to go.

The tactics of our repeal efforts will have to change. But the strategic imperative remains the same. If we’re serious about getting our economy moving again, solving our debt and restoring prosperity for American families, we need to repeal Obamacare and enact common-sense, step-by-step reforms that start with lowering the cost of health care.

The president’s health care law adds a massive, expensive, unworkable government program at a time when our national debt already exceeds the size of our country’s entire economy. We can’t afford it, and we can’t afford to leave it intact. That’s why I’ve been clear that the law has to stay on the table as both parties discuss ways to solve our nation’s massive debt challenge.

Congress has a constitutional responsibility to conduct thorough oversight of the executive branch, and congressional oversight will play a critical role in repealing Obamacare going forward.

Surprise, absolutely nothing has changed about House GOP.  They're going to spend the next two years wasting America's time and trying to hold the country hostage in order get what they want.  Boehner's argument is also completely false:  Obamacare will lower the deficit, not raise it.

But that doesn't matter.  Another two years of hostage negotiations are ahead, folks. Don't expect anything to change in the least...even when the country's voters soundly rejected repealing the health care law.

The White House response?  As you probably expected.

The White House is shooting down House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) insistence that the Affordable Care Act must be on the chopping block in debt reduction talks.

A White House official told TPM on Wednesday afternoon that Obamacare will be off the table as leaders of the two parties negotiate a deal to avoid steep tax hikes and automatic spending cuts set to take effect in January.

So no, Boehner is wasting his time...but of course, that's the point.

StupidiNews, Thanksgiving Edition!

• Yesterday's Israeli/Gaza cease fire continues to hold, and border crossings in Gaza will open as a result.
• A man who took five hostages at knifepoint at a Japanese bank had an unusual demand:  the resignation of Japanese PM Yoshihiko Noda.
• Syria's eastern oilfields in the hands of the Free Syrian Army are turning into a lucrative source of cash and materiel as rebels are selling off crude.
• With mediation talks having failed, Hostess Brands is laying off 15,000 workers just in time for Thanksgiving.
• Hewlett-Packard continues to have serious financial problems, the freshest financial turkey is a nearly $9 billion quarterly loss.

Last Call

Pressure from President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has convinced Israel to try Egypt's brokered cease fire with Hamas today.  Mike Kelley at Business Insider believes Hamas got the better end of the deal, at least publicly. (Emphasis his):

An Egypt-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was announced today with both sides claiming victory, but it appears Hamas may have gotten the better deal.

Here's the key part of the agreement: "Opening the crossings and facilitating the movement of people and transfer of goods and refraining from restricting residents' free movements and targeting residents in border areas."

If the agreement opens all border crossings with the Gaza Strip, including the key Rafah crossing with Egypt, that is a big victory for Hamas government and the people of Gaza.

Which immediately makes me think that Israel got something behind the scenes from President Obama in exchange for agreeing to Egypt's deal.  I have no idea what it is, but it's probably something substantial.  Cynical side of me believes it has something to do with Iran.  Most likely, it's a serious upgrade to Iron Dome, or perhaps some new Pentagon toys for the IDF to make the people of Gaza particularly miserable with.

Not honestly sure, but then again I'm not sure this cease fire will last through the weekend, either.

Big Blue Marble (Mouth)

Slate's Daniel Engber tries to compare Marco Rubio's pitiful "How old is the Earth?" dodge this week to an earlier Senator Barack Obama statement from 2008, and declares both parties are just as awful on science.  No, really.  Slate pitch ahoy!

I've no doubt that these critiques of Rubio are sound. But I'm hesitant to let the crown prince of the Tea Party be singled out for blame. His shameless dodge and pander on the matter of the Earth's creation don't mark him as a radical, nor even as a soldier in the war on science. They mark him only as a mainstream politician.

Beware, for thou that judgest doest the same things: Members of both parties have had to squiggle through elections by appealing to a hazy sense of geo-history. In fact, the Antichrist himself—Barack Obama—has had a tendency to get a little soft with science. 

Here's the Obama quote when he was asked what he would say to one of his daughters if they asked him if the Earth was really created in six days:

What I've said to them is that I believe that God created the universe and that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it … it may not be 24-hour days, and that's what I believe. I know there's always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don't, and I think it's a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I'm a part. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth on which we live—that is essentially true, that is fundamentally true. Now, whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible: That, I don't presume to know.

Please note that Barack Obama was asked a question about theology and specifically how he would respond to his young daughters.  Marco Rubio was asked a question about science and specifically what he himself believed about the age of the Earth.  Comparing the two are apples and allegories featuring talking foliage made of fire.

Here's what Obama said next:

Let me just make one last point on this. I do believe in evolution. I don't think that is incompatible with Christian faith, just as I don't think science generally is incompatible with Christian faith. I think that this is something that we get bogged down in. There are those who suggest that if you have a scientific bent of mind then somehow you should reject religion, and I fundamentally disagree with that. In fact, the more I learn about the world, the more I know about science, the more I am amazed about the mystery of this planet and this universe—and it strengthens my faith as opposed to weakens it.

Which is what a colossal number of Americans think.  Funny how that works.  The other major difference between the two men is Obama's second statement, an unapologetic and full-throated defense of evolution, which Marco Rubio won't give you either.

So no, not the same.  Go figure, Slate.

Snow White And Jon Huntsman

An interesting admission this week from Obama campaign head Jim Messina that while Mitt Romney was still formidable enough an opponent to really give Team O a run for their money up until the last week or so of the race, it was Jon Huntsman who Messina thought would have made a far more effective foe.

We were honest about our concerns about Huntsman,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said at a Politico breakfast event Tuesday. “I think Huntsman would have been a very tough candidate.”

As for the president, he liked Mr. Huntsman enough to appoint him ambassador to China in 2009. Mr. Messina, who was working in the White House at the time, said he helped Mr. Huntsman win Senate confirmation.

“As someone who helped manage his confirmation for Chinese ambassador, he’s a good guy,” Mr. Messina said. “We looked at his profile in a general election and thought he would have been” a formidable candidate.  Politico’s video of the remarks is here.

Mr. Huntsman’s candidacy never caught on. In 2011, he sent out a tweet affirming that he believed in evolution and trusted “scientists on global warming.”

“Call me crazy,” Mr. Huntsman said at the time.

But I don't think Huntsman would have fared any better.  Remember, Mitt Romney's problem (or one of them) was that evangelical whites stayed home.  Huntsman would have had the same problem, plus unlike Romney, he went out of his way to antagonize the base in order to get the middle.  And in a moment of rare clarity, even Katrina Trinko at the National Review admits Huntsman was even less of a moderate than Mitt pretended to be:

It fits into the whole tea-party narrative to depict Huntsman as a moderate who was banished by the wild GOP. But that ignores that Huntsman was in some ways to the right of Mitt Romney (Utah’s health-care system relied on exchanges, not an individual mandate, and Huntsman came out for the Ryan plan, as I recall, long before Romney did).

Particularly on economic issues, Huntsman is a Paul Ryan Austerian.  He would have had as hard a time capturing the center as Romney did, plus he would have come up even shorter on support from the base considering his stint as President Obama's Ambassador to China.

If anything, he has even less of a chance in 2016.

StupidiNews!

• Continued airstrikes and rocket attacks in Gaza shattered rumors of a possible cease fire as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Egypt to try to broker an end to violence.
• New Yorkers believe NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is doing a good job in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, but they like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie even more.
• Labor activists and business groups both say the major sticking point in any immigration deal is the status of guest and migrant workers in the US.
• European finance ministers have failed to come to an agreement on a new round of debt reduction for Greece, leaving the future of the country in the Eurozone up in the air.
• Microsoft's doomed Kin smartphone ran into very early issues according to newly released internal documents.

Last Call

Hey Republican big money donors?  Feel free to waste as much cash on Rand Paul's 2016 run as you want.  He doesn't have a chance in hell.

“I’m not going to deny that I’m interested” in a 2016 presidential run, the Republican told ABC News. “I am different than some in that I’m not going to deny that I’m interested. I’m not going to deny that I think we have to go a different direction because we’re not winning.”

The tea party favorite said the GOP can turn around its 2012 losing streak if it focuses on localizing issues to state governments instead of focusing of federal responses.

“I think we have to go a different direction because we’re just not winning and we have to think about some different ideas,” Paul said. “States should be allowed to make a lot of these decisions. I want things to be decided more at a local basis, with more compassion. I think it would make us as Republicans different.”

And this is why he's screwed.  He thinks taking programs away from the federal government and giving them to the states is "compassionate", programs like Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.  His idea of "compassion" is to throw people in the deep end and see if they can swim.

That of course is completely different than Mitt Romney's "you're on your own" approach that help him lose earlier this month.  Rand Paul should evince a completely different result, yes?

Go for it, Rand.

Last Days Of The Wild Wild West

Allen West, the last guy in America to figure out that Allen West lost his bid for reelection, has finally admitted that he lost his bid for reelection.

After two weeks of battle with St. Lucie County elections officials — and a recount of early votes that wound up extending Murphy’s lead — West acknowledged that he couldn’t surmount his 1,904-vote, or 0.58 percent, deficit. That difference was just outside the 0.5 percent threshold to automatically trigger a recount of all votes.

So the brash conservative opted to bow out rather than wage a long and costly court battle he was unlikely to win.

“For two weeks since Election Day, we have been working to ensure every vote is counted accurately and fairly. We have made progress towards that goal, thanks to the dedication of our supporters and their unrelenting efforts to protect the integrity of the democratic process,” West said in a statement to POLITICO. “While many questions remain unanswered, today I am announcing that I will take no further action to contest the outcome of this election.”

West congratulated Murphy, saying, “I pray he will serve his constituents with honor and integrity, and put the interests of our nation before his own.”

Oh, I fully expect Allen West to be the first person to sign up for Murphy's job in 2014.  He's not done, folks, not by a long shot...just ask Alan Grayson what it means to be an unapologetic partisan House member from Florida voted out of a job, only to come roaring back two years later.

We'll see, but for now, I expect West to end up on FOX or some other wingnut welfare operation until he can get back to running to make Florida safe from socialist Kenyan Muslim Marxist everythings, or whatever he does.

Something tells me I'm going to continue to get use out of the tag as I will Grayson's (which is still true, guy has a spine, he paid for it, he came back.)

Back Off Man, I'm Not A Scientist!

Sen. Marco Rubio fails at science.  I'm so shocked.  His latest interview with GQ:

GQ: How old do you think the Earth is? 

Marco Rubio: I'm not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I'm not a scientist. I don't think I'm qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries.

And supposedly, this guy's running for President.  You think Marco sat out the 2012 Clown Car Invitational not because he expected Romney to blow it, but because he knew he himself had no chance?

This is today's Republican party, where "How old do you think the Earth is?" requires a 150 word dodge with about 4 caveats. Pathetic.

How is this guy going to handle our enemies and allies?

StupidiNews!

• As the US sends Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Israel to help broker peace, the US Navy is sending 3 amphibious warships in case they are needed to evacuate US citizens in the area.
• Nearly 100 House Republicans have signed a letter warning President Obama not to nominate UN Ambassador Susan Rice as Secretary of State.
• Washington DC's International Spy Museum celebrates 50 Years of James Bond with a new exhibit dedicated to 007's most dastardly villains.
• Moody's has cut France's AAA credit rating one notch in response to President Francois Hollande's tax plans, citing the country's "deteriorating economic prospects."
• A new study by the World Bank envisions the world after global warming of four degrees Celsius, which would cause planetary disaster by 2100.

Last Call

I don't always agree with Chris Hayes, but he's dead right about NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and why he's the last Democrat I would vote for in 2016.  Politicker:

Mr. Hayes blasted Mr. Cuomo’s “putative reason” for endorsing two Republican senators–their support for same sex marriage legislation–by asking why he declined to support a Democratic challenger in a race where the pro-gay marriage Republican had already been defeated in a primary. He also criticized the governor for not working to stop Democratic Senator-elect Simcha Felder from caucusing with the GOP, as Mr. Felder’s move may end up being decisive in helping the Republicans hold onto their majority, depending on one race that’s still too-close-to-call and more possible Democratic defections.

“Despite the fact that he’s the leader of the Democratic Party in the state, and wishes someday to be the Democratic nominee for President, Cuomo has refused to intervene with Felder, saying he won’t insert himself into the controversy,” My. Hayes argued. “Watching all this unfold, one can’t help but suspect Andrew Cuomo actually does not want a Democratic majority in the State Senate because a Republican majority gives him more of an opportunity to burnish his bipartisan compromiser bona fides before launching his presidential campaign. And much, much, much more insidiously, we suspect he doesn’t want a Democratic majority because said majority stands ready to pass a whole raft of incredibly important, ground-breaking progressive legislation, including public financing for elections, marijuana decriminalization and a minimum wage hike, among others. The governor says he favors all those policies, but in this case, he sure is not acting like it. We’re almost entirely sure that very soon Andrew Cuomo will be coming before many of the people watching this show, asking for your support in a Democratic primary race to be the next president. You should remember this remarkably cynical display when he does.”

Now that's pretty damn hardcore for Chris Hayes, practically displaying bloody brass knuckles and a promise to get them even messier.  But he's absolutely right.  If New York state got serious about progressive legislation, particularly monitoring Wall Street, it would be a massive victory for liberalism as a whole int he United States.  Let's not forget, Cuomo as the state's Attorney General ran on a platform of doing just that.  When he was easily elected two years ago, he promised to get tough on Wall Street.  What happened was Cuomo finding himself saying "Oh well, sorry guys, Republicans are stopping me from getting this legislation" and then helicoptering off to the Hamptons.

Cuomo basically didn't lift a finger to help NY Senate Dems regain control of the state's upper chamber, because then he'd have to be the bad guy.  Chris Hayes has him pegged 100%.

So no, Andrew Cuomo is by no means a good guy.  Should he take a crack at 2016, he needs to be sent home unless he comes around.

A Different Kind Of Cliff

Lost in the “fiscal cliff slope” negotiations are federal jobless benefits.

As Senate Democrats and House Republicans try to bang out some sort of compromise, it’s important to know that President Obama is fighting for more than just tax fairness, but for the millions of long-term unemployed out there still facing a rough winter ahead.  Yes, the economy is improving and the jobless rate is going down, but there’s still over two million Americans out there facing a real cliff if benefits are cut off on December 29.

Groups backing an extension of unemployment benefits have launched a new round of lobbying to convince Congress to extend federal benefits to the long-term jobless.

A coalition of advocates including the National Employment Law Project (NELP) held more than 40 meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill during the first week of the lame-duck session to make their pitch for a $30 billion extension of the program.

The assorted labor union, civil rights and anti-poverty groups face a tough path to winning the extension at a time when lawmakers are looking for ways to reduce the budget deficit. Lawmakers started talks at the White House on Friday to prevent the nation from going over a so-called “fiscal cliff.”

But the groups are hopeful they can win another extension, and received a shot of confidence this week when Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said stimulus measures should be included in any deficit-reduction package.

“People get it, understand why it’s important and why it could be so bad for their states,” Judy Conti, federal advocacy coordinator with NELP, told The Hill on Friday.

“We’re sensing a lot of support.”

So that’s a good thing.  At least the Democrats are reminded that it’s on the table, and that while going over the deadline may be a pretty hefty part of the President’s leverage in getting the wealthy to pay higher taxes, the payroll tax cut and the unemployment benefits are still up in the air.  If those are allowed to expire, a lot of working class and unemployed Americans are going to take an immediate hit come January.

We’ll see what comes of it all.  Republicans know they can do a lot of damage here by blocking these measures.  The President cut a deal when he needed to two years ago to preserve these.  Democrats will make sure these get spared again, from the President on down.

No Defense Of The Indefensible

There's a huge difference between Israel's right to defend itself (which Palestinians in Gaza never seem to be entitled to) and what the son of former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon wants to do.  Maj. Gilad Sharon took to the Jerusalem Post with this missive:

The desire to prevent harm to innocent civilians in Gaza will ultimately lead to harming the truly innocent: the residents of southern Israel. The residents of Gaza are not innocent, they elected Hamas. The Gazans aren’t hostages; they chose this freely, and must live with the consequences.
[...]
… We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.

There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire.

Were this to happen, the images from Gaza might be unpleasant – but victory would be swift, and the lives of our soldiers and civilians spared.

If the government isn’t prepared to go all the way on this, it will mean reoccupying the entire Gaza Strip. Not a few neighborhoods in the suburbs, as with Cast Lead, but the entire Strip, like in Defensive Shield, so that rockets can no longer be fired.

There is no middle path here – either the Gazans and their infrastructure are made to pay the price, or we reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip.

There's a term for what Gilad Sharon wants to do here.  It's called "genocide".  That it is coming from an Israeli Jew is no small amount of irony.  When I said in yesterday's podcast that I feared this time would be different, that this time Israel would "go all the way on this" as Sharon so ghoulishly remarks without pity or remorse, this is why I believe it is coming unless there's a surprising and breathtaking turn of events that leads to a cease fire.

I hope for the latter.  I fully expect the former, except this time it will be tens of thousands of Palestinians who will die, along with hundreds of Israelis, before the fighting dies down for a bit.

We'll see.  I am not very optimistic.

StupidiNews!

• UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon is calling for an end to violence in Gaza through a brokered peace by Egypt.
• President Obama is in Myanmar today, visiting with democracy activist and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and praising reforms in the country.
• After years of campaigning for it, the statue of abolitionist icon Frederick Douglass will represent the District of Columbia in the Capitol Building's Statuary Hall.
• Regulators now say the size of the "shadow banking system" of derivatives and money market funds now tops some $67 trillion.
• A new University of Texas Medical Center study finds hardcore gamers are just as deft at manipulating robotic surgery tools as surgeons are.