Last Call

If there is going to be a fiscal cliff deal before January 1, it's quite possible that the late Sen. Daniel Inouye's seat will have to be filled in order to have someone on hand to help break a guaranteed GOP filibuster. 

In his last wishes, Sen. Inouye expressed his desire to have current Rep. Colleen Hanabusa replace him by sending a personal deathbed letter to Gov. Neil Abercrombie, but that's apparently causing something of a stir in Sensible Centrist circles, who are apparently arguing that Abercrombie should fight back against Hawaii's old guard political machine and appoint somebody else.

Political analyst and University of Hawaii political science professor emeritus Neal Milner said Inouye knew exactly what he was doing when sent the letter to Abercrombie. It was meant to put the governor on the spot.

“What’s pretty elegant about this is how straightforward this is,” Milner said. “It’s about as straightforward as it can be and it’s about as dramatic as it can be. It certainly does raise the ante.”

It had been assumed that Hanabusa would be Inouye’s successor when the senator eventually left office, and over the years it appeared the senator had taken a liking to the congresswoman, according to political experts. The two even had lunch just before he entered the hospital.

Milner said it’s also likely that when the senator looked around at his options that he saw a “thin bench” of replacement candidates.

“If you put yourself in his position and looked around to see who was qualified to take his position there’s not much to look at,” Milner said. “The pool gets narrowed very quickly if you look at it through the eyes of the senator. He’s not interested in pulling someone out of nowhere and giving him or her the seat. That just wouldn’t register with him.”

It's also political maneuvering, something Inouye knew a lot about.

Whoever Abercrombie does appoint will most likely serve out until the end of their days in the seat, given the state's politics. 

Abercrombie is said by several close to him to prefer other candidates over Hanabusa. They include Blake Oshiro, his deputy chief of staff, Brian Schatz, his lieutenant governor — even Ed Case, with whom he served with in Congress. Case, 60, announced Sunday he was applying for the job.

Age may also be a consideration. Oshiro and Schatz are in their early 40s, meaning they could theoretically serve longer in the Senate and build up greater seniority. Hanabusa is 61 and Hirono is 65.

Harry Reid wants Abercrombie to make up his mind pretty quickly, regardless.  We'll see what happens.  This flap seems to be all about getting somebody other than Hanabusa in the office, and again a lot of that favors moderate Ed Case.  Frankly, I've got no problem with Hanabusa in the office, and I'd take Ed Case in Kentucky in a microsecond, but I think this is meddling with the Hawaii Democratic Party, plain and simple.

I think Abercrombie will go with Hanabusa.

Season's Greetings!

Merry Christmas from Bon and an elk named Fred!

Insert Your Own Crapo Joke Here

Idaho GOP Sen. Mike Crapo had a bit of a rough weekend, being arrested for a DUI early Sunday morning in Virginia while, you know, being a supposedly devout and tee-totaling Mormon.

Sen. Michael Crapo (R-ID) apologized late Sunday in a written statement released by his office following his arrest on suspicion of drunken driving.

In an email to TPM, Crapo’s spokesman Lindsay Nothern said the senator was charged with a misdemeanor of drunken driving early Sunday after being pulled over in Alexandria, Va. for running a red light. Crapo was released from custody upon posting $1,000 bond, according to Nothern. The senator is scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 4.

"I am deeply sorry for the actions that resulted in this circumstance," Crapo said in the statement. "I made a mistake for which I apologize to my family, my Idaho constituents and any others who have put their trust in me. I accept total responsibility and will deal with whatever penalty comes my way in this matter. I will also undertake measures to ensure that this circumstance is never repeated."

Virginia is pretty tough on DUIs.  Crapo is facing a mandatory $250 fine and a year long license suspension, plus the installation of a dashboard breath test device on his car for that year.  Crapo was re-elected to a third term two years ago.  I don't expect any political fallout from this, but the people of Idaho may surprise me.

We'll see where Crapo's dice roll.

Even More Mitten-freude

The Boston Globe gives their version of how the Romney campaign blew it:

To this day, Romney’s aides wonder how it all went so wrong.

They console each other with claims that the election was much closer than realized, saying that Romney would be president if roughly 370,000 people in swing states had voted differently. Romney himself blamed demographic shifts and Obama’s “gifts”: ­federal largesse targeted to Democratic constituencies.

But a reconstruction by the Globe of how the campaign unfolded shows that Romney’s problems went deeper than is widely understood. His campaign made a series of costly financial, strategic, and political mistakes that, in retrospect, all but assured the candidate’s defeat, given the revolutionary turnout tactics and tactical smarts of President Obama’s operation.

One of the gravest errors, many say, was the Romney team’s failure, until too late in the campaign, to sell voters on the candidate’s personal qualities and leadership gifts. The effect was to open the way for Obama to define Romney through an early blitz of negative advertising. Election Day polls showed that the vast majority of voters concluded that Romney did not really care about average people.

These failures are now the subject of scrutiny by national GOP ­officials who say they plan to “reverse engineer” the ­Romney effort to understand what went wrong. A number of Romney’s top aides stressed in interviews that, while they ­remain proud of their work, they feel an obligation to ­acknowledge their numerous mistakes so lessons are learned.

And yet we all know that if Team Romney had gotten those 370,000 votes and put the country into recount hell, or 500,000 votes and won the electoral college, we'd all be reading from our Village betters about how the Obama campaign was the largest failure in human history, and that despite these deeper problems in the Romney campaign, the Obama campaign must have been worse because after all, they still lost to the guy.  And the Romney campaign would have been "right all along".

So no, knowing how close the country came to abject disaster, knowing that Mitt Romney could have won the presidency and lost the popular vote by 3% and 4 million votes, I choose not to dance the dance of Loser Mitt, but to remember that despite every dirty trick in the book and a few new ones, it was only the Romney camp's massive incompetence that saved our country, and that 61 million Americans, less than 20% of the country, could have doomed us all.

They were close.  They needed but four states:  Florida, Ohio, Virginia and New Hampshire.  They almost got them.  We'd be wise to remember how close they were.

Merry Christmas.  We've still got a lot of work ahead.  Take the 2012 election as the warning it was.  Savor the victory, but stay vigilant.

StupidiNews!

• Law enforcement officials in New Delhi, India are cracking down to restore order after protests against a woman gang raped on a bus spilled over into a third day.
• The genetically engineered AquaVantage salmon, aka the "Frankenfish", is nearing final FDA approval for human consumption.
• A large survivalist group, The Citadel, plans to build a walled and heavily armed 7,000 family complex south of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
• UK housing prices continue to fall into 2013 as the country's housing market has yet to recover amid continued recession.
• Three Google executives have seen their 2010 conviction under Italy's internet privacy laws thrown out as the law faces legal challenges in court.

Last Call

My favorite Zombie Lie of the housing collapse is back again, Broke Ass Black People Caused The Recession.  Every six months or so we get another iteration of this idiocy that centers around the Community Reinvestment Act, which because of "racial quotas" forced banks to make subprime loans to unqualified brown people, which collapsed the housing sector and the economy.  No surprise, it's Investor's Business Daily again with this lie.

Democrats and the media insist the Community Reinvestment Act, the anti-redlining law beefed up by President Clinton, had nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis and recession.

But a new study by the respected National Bureau of Economic Research finds, "Yes, it did. We find that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks."

Added NBER: "There is a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam. Moreover, the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or predominantly low-income and minority areas."

Except as I've been saying for years now, the CRA's effect on the housing collapse was minimal because the banks that made the vast majority of bad subprime loans never made them under the CRA.  Investor's Business Daily has been pushing this outright falsehood for four years now.

 

And I've killed this lie again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

 

Once again, the mortgage brokers that made nearly all of the subprime loans that went bad were MORTGAGE BROKERS and NOT BANKS.   Because they WERE NOT BANKS, they were NOT SUBJECT TO THE COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT AT ALL.

This "study" doesn't prove anything, other than Investor's Business Daily is the NewsMax of the financial world.

Method To His Madness

Hey folks?  Listen up.  NRA executive VP and spokesman Wayne LaPierre is crazy.  Like a fox.

Gun enthusiasts thronged to shows around the country on Saturday to buy assault weapons they fear will soon be outlawed after a massacre of school children in Connecticut prompted calls for tighter controls on firearms.

Reuters reporters went to gun shows in Pennsylvania, Missouri and Texas, and found long lines to get in the door, crowds around the dealer booths, a rush to buy assault weapons even at higher prices and some dealers selling out.

The busiest table at the R.K. Gun & Knife show at an exposition center near the Kansas City, Missouri airport was offering assault weapons near the entrance.

West Plains, Missouri dealer Keith's Guns sold out of about 20 AR-15 style assault rifles in a little over an hour, owner Keith Gray said.

And NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo is doing everything he can to help the NRA sell more guns, more ammo, more everything.

In a radio interview on Thursday with Albany’s WGDJ-AM, New York governor Andrew Cuomo said that he plans to work with state legislators next month to submit a proposal for new gun-control laws; in particular, Cuomo said, “our focus is assault weapons,” because current state laws regulating the weapons “have more holes that Swiss cheese.”

“I don’t think legitimate sportsmen are going to say, ‘I need an assault weapon to go hunting,’” he said.

Cuomo continued, “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it.”

Boom.  The NRA is going to be using Cuomo's comments for years and the gun lobby will keep getting richer and richer and buy off more lawmakers.  The NRA's response as the nation's largest firearms manufacturer lobbyist group to the Newtown massacre could not have worked out any better for them, frankly.

So glad politicians on "our side" are happy to do all the lifting for them.

Maker's Mark Of Bad Taste

So depressingly expected that I haven't written about it, but this week details of a lawsuit versus the Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge in Louisville's 4th Street Live district became public.  Ian Boudreau has the deets:

The suit, filed in Jefferson County court by Andre Mulligan, alleges that he and his brother approached the Maker’s Mark Bourbon House and Lounge management in August this year to secure reservations for an event scheduled for Aug. 18. According to Mulligan’s suit, the restaurant management “demanded to know the ratio of ‘black people’ to ‘white people’” in the party, and then refused to grant a reservation when Mulligan explained that everyone attending the party would be black.

When the Mulligans and their party showed up anyway on Aug. 18, the complaint says the 4^th Street Live security personnel barred them from entry into the downtown area, which covers about two city blocks (the Baltimore-based Cordish Operating Ventures, which runs 4^th Street Live, is also named in the complaint).


This isn’t the first time 4^th Street Live and associated clubs have been accused of racism. In 2006, a Jefferson County judge ordered two clubs to visibly post the “dress codes” they had cited when barring two African-American men from entering The Red Cheetah and Parrot Bay. These dress codes had drawn a lot of local criticism at the time for being rather obviously targeted at African-American men – many felt as if Cordish’s ban on “gang-related” clothing was being used specifically to prevent young black men from entering the area at night, when the bars and clubs are busiest.

Living here in Kentucky, I've had friends of both races tell me 4th Street Live at night is not very friendly for groups of black folk.  People don't like to be reminded it seems that what few black folk live here are in the urban areas of Louisville and Lexington.  It's been a long time problem at 4th Street Live, and that's why I've only been there once two years ago (and during the day.)  Overpriced tourist trap area anyway, but the vibe I got there definitely made me not want to go back.

Which was the point, I guess.  Everyone acts surprised that this kind of thing still exists in 2013, but why should we be?  As Ian points out, we elected arguably the most racist senator in the country in Rand "The Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional" Paul.  What did you expect from Kentucky?

An Orange Julius Sunset?

Taking this with an entire salt mine, but Taegan Goddard notes the Breitbrats are reporting a concerted effort to get rid of John Boehner as Speaker of the House.

"Several conservative House Republican members are contemplating a plan to unseat Speaker John Boehner from his position on January 3," Breitbart News reports.

"Staffers have compiled a detailed action plan that, if executed, could make this a reality... Dissatisfaction with Boehner is growing in the House Republican conference, but until now there hasn't been a clear path forward."

If the unrest generated by Boehner's Plan B debacle has gotten to this point, it may actually be serious.  Unlike 2010, when Health Shuler and the Blue Dogs went after Nancy Pelosi (and that plan went nowhere, resulting in the remaining Blue Dogs getting thrown out of Congress in November) this assault on Orange Julius's job seems to be a much more serious prospect.

Still, I'll believe it when I see somebody step up to challenge him.  So far, it's nobody, officially.  John Stanton over at BuzzFeed points out that odds definitely remain in Boehner's favor for a good reason:  the Tea Party doesn't want to govern, nor do they have to if they control Boehner and he remains around to take the slings and arrows.

None of this is to say a coup, and a successful one, is impossible. Boehner is clearly weakened by the last week’s events, his conference has become more, not less, conservative. And there are a number of scenarios under which Boehner is forced out of leadership.

But consider this: a weakened Boehner in the speakership may be exactly what conservatives ultimately want. Having one of their own atop the House puts the burden on them to actually govern, find common ground with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama, and marshal an effective electoral strategy for the 2014 midterm elections.

Remaining on the outside of a leadership team that is not in firm control of the House conference gives movement leaders the freedom to operate and push their agenda with none of the responsibilities that come with actually being in charge.

Meanwhile, President Obama has reportedly told Orange Julius exactly where he can go with his Plan B (via Bob Cesca):

Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”

“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”

Like I said, right now I'm not seeing anyone step up for Boehner's head so until that happens, he stays Speaker.  But I'm betting that changes in the next week or two.  How far that challenge goes?  Stay tuned.

The Unbearable Lameness Of Being Bryan

It took Republicans losing two presidential contests and constantly getting played in the last two years especially by deals between the White House and the GOP, but Pajamas Media hack Bryan Preston finally, finally has realized with the scoreboard 67 to 14 or so that maybe the black guy isn't as stupid as all the smart white pundits thought.

President Obama comes out of last night’s debacle in a position of greater political strength, without having had to move an inch. The GOP leaders in the House will end up having to chase Democratic votes to get anything passed. The markets are reacting negatively to the near vote so far, dropping sharply in light pre-Christmas trading. A president who puts economic growth first would find this worrying, but Barack Obama is clearly putting politics first. Boehner’s Plan B was an attempt to expose that fact, but it instead exposed the fissures on the right. Obama’s priorities all along have been political, and he is well on the way to achieving all that he wants, while positioning himself to be able to blame Republicans for all the downsides. The media will amplify that.

Many of us on the right like to call Obama an amateur, but the fact is, he has won national election twice by hook or by crook, and right now he is poised to benefit from the threat of economic difficulty that he has helped engineer, again. The amateurs are those who think he is dealing in good faith, and those who think one stand on “principle” or “letting it burn” will end up hurting Obama. The fact that at this stage the Republicans have no good options left while the Democrats are set up to swoop in as saviors of the very middle class that their policies are destroying tells us who the real amateurs are.

Now of course, Preston's too much of an utter hack to realize just how bitter and resentful he sounds.  He's a card-carrying member of the "middle class must feel the pain" club, and at best his column grudgingly approaches consideration of President Obama as a human being.  Almost.

But as I've said time and time again, if Obama's supposedly so totally naive and/or stupid, how come he keeps beating the GOP?

Preston doesn't have an answer for that, of course.  Funny, that.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• NASA scientists say asteroid 2011 AG5, which had a very small chance of hitting the planet in the year 2040, will now completely miss the Earth by some 900,000 miles.
• NATO officials are accusing the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad of firing SCUD missiles at rebel positions near Damascus.
• Cuba is lashing out at the US for imposing multi-billion dollar fines on European banks that have violated economic sanctions against the island country.
• South Korean rapper Psy has now seen his hit "Gangnam Style" hit 1 billion views on YouTube.
• Google and Motorola are going back to the drawing board to plan a new "X Phone" project to go after Apple's share of the market.

Last Call

John Kerry is officially President Obama's choice for SecState, but the real fight would be on for Kerry's seat, and whether or not Scott Brown could take another swing at it.  Nate Silver runs the numbers:

If voters saw something extraordinary in Ms. Warren, then Mr. Brown might be expected to prevail against a mediocre opponent, as he did in 2010 against the Democratic state attorney general, Martha Coakley. If instead it was something intrinsic to the problem that any Republican faces in Massachusetts, then even a lesser-known Democrat could win. 

Ms. Warren’s favorability rating — 56 percent among Election Day voters — was perfectly adequate but not extraordinary. And 37 percent of voters said they thought Ms. Warren was too liberal, even in Massachusetts. 

But such is the intrinsic advantage that Democrats hold in Massachusetts that Ms. Warren won the election anyway. A “generic” Democrat who avoided the mistakes that Ms. Coakley made (like insulting the former Boston Red Sox star pitcher Curt Schilling) would thus seem to stand a reasonably good chance. 

And I agree with Nate:  Martha Coakley was an unusually terrible candidate.  But Brown still has a shot:

There are other circumstances, however, that could work in Mr. Brown’s favor. Most important is the abbreviated schedule for a special election. 

In a special election campaign that lasts only a few months, the Democratic candidate would not have the luxury of overcoming early errors, as Ms. Warren did. That is especially true because the Democrat would probably face a competitive primary, while Mr. Brown would probably not. 

The overall political environment is not likely to be as favorable to Democrats in a special election as it was in November (although it also will probably not be as unfavorable to them as in 2010). And there could be an element of sympathy for Mr. Brown among some swing voters. 

So what's the bottom line, Nate?

Despite all that, it is difficult to view Mr. Brown as much better than even money: he is a Republican in Massachusetts who lost an election by a reasonably clear margin just last month. And if Mr. Brown won, he could well face another competitive election in November 2014, when Democrats will have more of a chance to gear up — and when Deval Patrick will have finished his second term as governor and might be more likely to run for the Senate.

A lot depends on who Democrats decide to run against Brown, too.  Ben Affleck has been mentioned as an unlikely choice, while better political money has Barney Frank in the seat (he's not saying no, should he be appointed by Gov. Patrick.)  We'll see who runs, after all, Scott Brown hasn't announced much of anything, and running for Senate is expensive, folks.

Bunker Mentaility

A full week after the Newtown, Connecticut massacre, the Nantional Rifle Association finally got around to a response.  And by "response", I mean NRA Executive VP Wayne LaPierre's spectacular self-immolation on national television at a "press conference" where the NRA refused to take any questions.  LaPierre's partial statement:

Now, I can imagine the headlines, the shocking headlines you’ll print tomorrow. “More guns,” you’ll claim, “are the NRA’s answer to everything.” Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools.

But since when did “gun” automatically become a bad word? A gun in the hands of a Secret Service agent protecting our president isn’t a bad word. A gun in the hands of a soldier protecting the United States of America isn’t a bad word. And when you hear your glass breaking at three a.m. and you call 9/11, you won’t be able to pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you.

So, why is the idea of a gun good when it’s used to protect the president of our country or our police, but bad when it’s used to protect our children in our schools? They’re our kids. They’re our responsibility. And it’s not just our duty to protect them, it’s our right to protect them.

You know, five years ago after the Virginia Tech tragedy, when I said we should put armed security in every school, the media called me crazy. But what if -- what if when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, he’d been confronted by qualified armed security? Will you at least admit it’s possible that 26 little kids, that 26 innocent lives might have been spared that day? Is it so important to you (inaudible) would rather continue to risk the alternative? Is the press and the political class here in Washington D.C. so consumed by fear and hatred of the NRA and American gun owners, that you’re willing to accept the world, where real resistance to evil monsters is alone, unarmed school principal left to surrender her life, her life, to shield those children in her care.

No one. No one, regardless of personal, political prejudice has the right to impose that sacrifice. 

And for a good 25 minutes or so (when he wasn't being protested by Code Pink in the middle of his gobsmackingly stupid tirade) LaPierre went on to blame video games, the media, the President, movies, television, liberals, parents, teachers, and everyone who wasn't a card-carrying member of the NRA for the deaths of 26 people last Friday.

On top of advocating for an armed militia of American volunteers to indoctrinate guard America's schools, LaPierre called for a national database registry of "the mentally ill", and demanded that students and teachers in schools be taught in firearm safety along with other educational courses.

Now, the National Rifle Association knows there are millions of qualified and active retired police, active, Reserve, and retired military, security professionals, certified firefighters, security professionals, rescue personnel, an extraordinary corps of patriotic, trained, qualified citizens to join with local school officials and police in devising a protection plan for every single school.

We could deploy them to protect our kids now. We can immediately make America’s schools safer, relying on the brave men and women in America’s police forces. The budgets -- and you all know this, everyone in the country knows this -- of our local police departments are strained, and the resources are severely limited, but their dedication and courage is second to none. And, they can be deployed right now.

I call on Congress today, to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation. And, to do it now to make sure that blanket safety is in place when our kids return to school in January.

In other words, the guy wants us to put an army of cops in schools in the next two weeks.   All carrying guns, of course.  I'm sure Xe or Triple Canopy would love to get that contract.

Your freedom, of course, means turning America into a series of armed camps with a bunch of people ready to do violence at a moment's notice.  Don't you want that for your kids in your school?

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with this plan, right?

Will Orange Julius Leave By The Door Or The Window?

As I predicted yesterday, the GOP has indeed left House Speaker John Boehner out to dry as his last shreds of political clout have been stripped from him in the embarrassing collapse of his own Plan B fiscal cliff slope bill last night in the House.

In a stunning defeat, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) called off a vote Thursday night on his Plan B to avert the fiscal cliff, citing a lack of support from his own party. Boehner issued the following statement as an emergency meeting of the House Republican Conference was ending:

The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass.  Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff.  The House has already passed legislation to stop all of the January 1 tax rate increases and replace the sequester with responsible spending cuts that will begin to address our nation's crippling debt.  The Senate must now act.

Eric Cantor then adjourned the House for Christmas break.   As BooMan points out, Boehner's days as Speaker are now most likely numbered as a result:

The president has no incentive to bargain with Boehner anymore. Why make concessions to someone who can't deliver on his promises? The administration has now been through this process twice with Boehner. If they are going to cut a deal now, it is going to have to be on Nancy Pelosi's terms and designed to win with only a sliver of Republican votes. That would cost Boehner his speakership. 

I agree.  Boehner has shown that his own party will never sign off on a large bipartisan deal that will get 350 or 400 votes in the House.  I could have told you that on November 7th.

So now, President Obama looks like a genius.  He's broken John Boehner's back on this, and most likely Republicans will have a new Speaker in January.  It also means that the Democrats will put a deal that heavily favors them on the table, and it will most likely squeak through the Senate and House sometime late next week, and the President will sign it on the 31st.

The Republicans will eat their crap sandwich, and then they will take John Boehner out back and ask him if he wants to leave the Speaker's chair by the door or the window...unless you think the GOP can keep more than a handful of defectors from taking the deal.  That kind of leadership power is gone now, broken.  Cantor, most likely, will replace him.  But maybe Cantor will like being the majority leader too much and let the rabble appoint a winger nutjob as Speaker.  That'll be the person who takes the fall in 2014.

But if somehow that doesn't happen and the Republicans decide they'll go over the cliff, they'll get an even worse deal and then they'll take it anyway.  Another door or window choice, again only a handful of defectors needed.  Again, no unity.

And if they somehow don't take that deal, then they'll get every ounce of scorn and blame from the American people, and the GOP will get the door or window choice from the voters.  The choice will be taken from them by that point, it will be the window.

No matter what happens now, President Obama wins.  Republicans have the opportunity to limit further damage here.  They've not been intelligent enough to take it so far.

The door or the window, boys?  Your choice.  But you're leaving.

StupidiNews!

• Disgraced former SC GOP Gov. Mark Sanford is reportedly beginning his political comeback by running for the Congressional seat vacated by now Sen. Tim Scott.
• The federal Appeals Court in DC will not revisit the court's decision allowing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as manufacturers now look to the Supreme Court to block the ruling.
• Additional State Department officials have resigned in the wake of the death of a US Ambassador in Libya as hearings on Capitol Hill blame "systemic failure".
• Vice President Joe Biden is vowing to move quickly on the new task force designed to come up with new gun control regulations in the wake of the Newtown shooting.
• New Zealand has delayed the extradition of internet mogul Kim Dotcom to the US again, moving the copyright fraud trial until August of next year.

Last Call

Cory Booker is running for Senate in 2014, probably eliciting a sigh of relief from Gov. Chris Christie.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker will not challenge New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in next year's gubernatorial race and will instead run for U.S. Senate in 2014, political sources familiar with his decision tell NBC 4 New York.

 

Booker will seek the seat held by fellow Democrat Frank Lautenberg when his term is up in 2014, those sources tell NBC 4 New York. Lautenberg, 88, is the oldest current senator. He first served in the U.S. Senate from 1982 to 2001 and has served since his re-election in 2003.

Booker's decision not to challenge Christie comes as the Republican incumbent enjoys record-high approval ratings in polls taken since Sandy hit the Garden State.

Considering Lautenberg will be 90 in 2014, I think it's a pretty safe bet he'll be retiring.   Can Booker win the primary?

Well...I guess.  But nothing in New Jersey politics is a safe bet.  We'll see.

Asked And Answered On Gun Control

Having slept on it and looking again at yesterday's POTUS presser on gun control, Jake Tapper's question (as Emily Hauser says) was a fair one when the subject is announced to be gun control legislation:  Where's the President been on gun control up until now?  President Obama's answer, as James Joyner correctly assesses, is a worthy one:

The tone of the question borders on the smug but the substance is absolutely fair. And White House reporters, in particular, have tended to shy away from such pointed questions in recent years. But Obama’s answer struck me as pretty powerful, too:

“Well, here’s where I’ve been, Jake,” Obama replied. “I’ve been president of the United States dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, an auto industry on the verge of collapse, two wars. I don’t think I’ve been on vacation. And so, you know, I think all of us have to do some reflection on how we prioritize what we do here in Washington.”

Obama added that there was more involved in keeping children safe beyond dealing only with guns and reiterated his confidence in Biden and his task force.

“And as I said on Sunday, you know, this should be a wake-up call for all of us to say that if we are not getting right the need to keep our children safe, then nothing else matters,” he continued. “It’s my commitment to make sure we do everything we can to keep our children safe. A lot of things are involved in that, Jake. So making sure they have decent health care, making sure they got a good education, making sure that their parents have jobs — those are all relevant as well. Those aren’t just sort of side issues. But there’s no doubt that this has to be a central issue. And that’s exactly why I’m confident that Joe [Biden] is going to take this so seriously over the next couple months.”

Presumably, the president was expecting the question and was well prepared; otherwise, this is some world class thinking on his feet on display.

Once again I'm glad the guy in the White House is not Mitt Romney, because his answer would have been completely self-serving gobbledegook.    But the current President got this one right.

The B Stands For "Blown Up In His Face"

House Speaker John Boehner has boxed himself into a corner on the fiscal slope, trying to checkmate the President with a "plan B" bill that his own party will most likely walk away from.

In response to President Obama’s extensive comments about the fiscal cliff at the White House Wednesday afternoon, House Speaker John Boehner left himself little if any room to continue negotiations.

Here’s the key piece of Boehner’s brief comments from his appearance before reporters in the Capitol:

“Tomorrow the House will pass legislation to make permanent tax relief for nearly every American — 99.81 percent of the American people,” he said, referring to his own so-called Plan B. “Then the President will have a decision to make. He can call on Senate Democrats to pass that bill, or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history.”

That sounds like he’s giving Obama a choice between Plan B or the fiscal cliff. No more negotiations over a broader deficit reduction plan. 

I agree.  It very much sounds like Boehner is telling the President to accept his Plan B or else.   The stock market certainly thought that's what Boehner's message was as stocks dropped 75 points directly after Orange Julius opened his yap.

The problem for Boehner is that even if he can get enough votes to pass his scheme, President Obama has already promised to veto it, because he knows he wins in January.

He can then make the Republicans an offer they can't and won't refuse.  And Obama wins again.

StupidiNews!

• A new snag in the fiscal cliff slope talks:  without a deal to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, some 100 million Americans could see their tax returns delayed for months.
• House Republicans are vowing that despite the President's call for a new assault weapons ban that new gun control legislation will not pass the House.
• The US Army is seeking the death penalty for the soldier charged with the deaths of 16 Afghan civilians, including 9 children.
• The Justice Department wants UBS trader Tom Hayes extradited, calling him the "kingpin" of the Swiss bank's three year campaign to manipulate the key global Libor interest rate.
• Scientists say a habitable planet may be only 12 light years away in the Tau Ceti system.

Low Prices, High Body Count, Every Day

As if you needed yet another reason to despise Wal-Mart, it turns out they're the country's largest semi-automatic rifle and ammunition dealer too, capitalizing on the NRA's anti-Obama paranoia and riding it to big profits.

In April 2011, Walmart began stocking guns in more and more stores, expanding the sales to 1,750 outlets nationwide. By the end of that year, the FBI received 16.4 million background check requests; the number is 16.8 million this year. Overall Walmart sales figures are back on track after the 2011 slump, and executive vice president Duncan Mac Naughton told shareholders at a meeting in October 2012 that gun sales in particular are a staple of the chain’s strategy to continue boosting its numbers. He said that over the past twenty-six months, gun sales at Walmart stores open for a year or more were up an astonishing 76 percent, while ammunition sales were up 30 percent. Walmart is now the biggest seller of firearms and ammunition in America.

“This gun thing, it’s really just a nightmare,” says Bertha Lewis, president of the Black Institute, which has been organizing Walmart workers this year to protest wages and working conditions. Given its aggressive gun sales, Walmart’s logo “shouldn’t be a smiley face; it should be an automatic weapon,” she adds.

Nearly 400 guns are available in Walmart’s catalog. And even if your local store doesn’t sell a particular model, you can special-order it (assuming you pay half the cost ahead of time). With the exception of its stores in Alaska, Walmart doesn’t sell handguns, though it does sell ammunition for them, along with a wide variety of semiautomatic long-barrel weapons. For example, at half the Walmarts in America, you can buy a semiautomatic Colt M4 OPS .22 rifle; it carries a thirty-round magazine, which you can also purchase in the store. Or perhaps a Sig Sauer M400 semiautomatic assault rifle, advertised on Walmart’s website as “designed for use in law enforcement, military operations…as well as competitive shooting,” which is just one of several AR-15 assault rifles for sale.

In keeping with the store’s pitch as a one-stop destination for shoppers, with everything from gas to groceries, gun enthusiasts can also obtain a wide range of gun accessories—including the 360 types of ammunition listed on Walmart’s website. You can buy a 555-pack of Winchester hollow-point bullets, which the website advertises as “great for plinking and varmints,” but which would cause extensive damage should they enter a human body and expand, as they are designed to do. There are full clips of ammunition for assault rifles, including “quiet ammo” that makes only a quarter of the noise of regular bullets. Laser-pointing sights for handguns are also available, as are belts for holding shotgun shells (only $4.97 at select stores).

So, you can't get a handgun in Wal-Mart (except in Alaska, natch.)  But you can get a semi-automatic rifle "for hunting" and all the ammo you can buy.  In a Wal-Mart.  Need to methodically plot out your mass murder suicide rampage?  Head to Wallyworld!

Or you could choose not to buy anything from there ever again, which seems like a really, really good idea right now.