The Commentariat -- Dec. 22, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is titled "Predicting David Brooks," & compares Real David Brooks' column in today's New York Times with Fake David Brooks' syllabus, which I "found" yesterday.

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here.

Cliff Notes

President Obama's statement late this afternoon on "fiscal cliff" negotiations:

Carrie Brown & Manu Raju of Politico: "The scope of a potential fiscal cliff deal narrowed dramatically Friday as President Barack Obama called on Congress to at least pass a scaled-down agreement that preserves the middle-class tax cuts and unemployment insurance.... Twenty-six Republicans [in the House] would need to back the bill for passage if every Democrat voted in favor." Plus, Senate Republicans would have to agree not to filibuster the bill. The good news: no chained CPI is envisioned in the proposal. So far.

LaTourette's Syndrome. [The idea that this episode has hurt Boehner's speakership is] like saying the superintendent of an insane asylum should be discharged because he couldn't control the crazy people. I mean that's nuts. -- Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio), "who is close to Speaker Boehner

CW: It's encouraging that some Republican members of the House realize that their own caucus is best compared to the "crazy people" in an "insane asylum," even if "crazy people" and "insane asylum" are not the most politically correct term. Unfortunately, it definitely appears to be the case that the inmates are running this particular asylum. ...

... Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "Disarray is a word much overused in politics. But it barely begins to describe the current state of chaos and incoherence as Republicans come to terms with electoral defeat and try to regroup against a year-end deadline to avert a fiscal crisis." ...

LaTourette, Part 2. [The collapse of Boehner's tax effort] weakens the entire Republican Party. It's the continuing dumbing down of the Republican Party, and we are going to be seen more and more as a bunch of extremists that can't even get a majority of our own people to support policies that we're putting forward. If you're not a governing majority, you're not going to be a majority very long. -- Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio), who is retiring ...

... Charles Babington of the AP: "The uncompromising conservatives who blocked Speaker John Boehner's tax bill were merely sticking to policies that Boehner and nearly all other GOP leaders have pushed, without reservation, for years: It's always wrong to raise tax rates on anyone, no matter how rich. The nation's big deficit is entirely 'a spending problem, not a revenue problem.' And in any deficit-reduction plan, spending cuts must overwhelm new revenues, by 10-to-1 if not more." CW: I hope every newspaper in the country prints this AP piece. Babington pulls no punches.

... Gail Collins: "We have seen the future, and everything involves negotiating with loony people." CW: Collins should not have picked on the seer (or seeer, as contributor Ken Winkes prefers) warning of the "dairy cliff." No, there will not be eggnog. There will be $8/gallon milk. I am stocking up on powdered milk, as any loony person would.

Instead of offering solutions to a problem they have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe. -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City, on Wayne LaPierre's statement ...

... Tracy Connor of NBC News: "Gun-control advocates responded with outrage and disbelief Friday after the National Rifle Association called for armed guards in every school and blamed the music, movies and video games for firearms violence." ...

... Here's the transcript of NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre's statement, should you care to read it. ...

... Josh Barro of Bloomberg News: LaPierre's "colleague Asa Hutchinson, a former U.S. representative and Drug Enforcement Agency head, suggested the armed guards could be volunteers, to save money.... Schools are already safe, and increases in physical security should not be a policy priority.... We should find approaches to combating violence that don't send the message that school is a scary place where you need a cadre of men with guns to protect you -- because that's just not true." ...

... Jamelle Bouie in Salon: "In other words, the small-government NRA -- which shouts whenever politicians discuss the most modest new rules and regulations on firearms -- wants a new program of armed guards in every public school -- all 100,000 of them.... Watching the press conference, it's hard to understand why the NRA is so influential. LaPierre's statement -- his diagnosis of gun violence, his prognosis for solving the problem -- bears little relation to the world as it exists.... If there's anything to take away from this press conference, it's that politicians should not be afraid of the NRA." ...

... New York Times Editors: "... we were stunned by Mr. LaPierre’s mendacious, delusional, almost deranged rant. Mr. LaPierre looked wild-eyed at times as he said the killing was the fault of the media, songwriters and singers and the people who listen to them, movie and TV scriptwriters and the people who watch their work, advocates of gun control, video game makers and video game players.... A sheriff's deputy was at Columbine High School in 1999 and fired at one of the two killers while 11 of their 13 victims were still alive. He missed four times." ...

... Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon: "... there was an armed sheriff's deputy at Columbine High School the day of the shooting. There was an armed citizen in the Clackamas Mall in Oregon during a shooting earlier this month. There was an armed citizen at the Gabby Giffords shooting -- and he almost shot the unarmed hero who tackled shooter Jared Loughner. Virtually every university in the county already has its own police force. Virginia Tech had its own SWAT-like team. As James Brady, Ronald Reagan's former press secretary cum gun control advocate, often notes, he was shot along with the president, despite the fact that they were surrounded by dozens of heavily armed and well-trained Secret Service agents and police." Read the whole post. ...

... Charles Blow: "An analysis this year from the Violence Policy Center found that 'states with low gun ownership rates and strong gun laws have the lowest rates of gun death.' The report continued, 'by contrast, states with weak gun laws and higher rates of gun ownership had far higher rates of firearm-related death.' ... Another report this year by the Violence Policy Center, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that while gun deaths remained relatively flat from 2000 to 2008, the total number of people shot went up nearly 20 percent since 2001." ...

** Prof. Robert Spitzer in the Washington Post: "Five myths about gun control."

... Alec MacGillis of The New Republic: "LaPierre's rambling statement on the shootings wasn't really any more more far-out than anything else he's been saying the past few years.... But this was the first time many in Washington and across the country had actually focused squarely on him and his organization in a long time, and this newfound focus, combined with the post-Newtown context in which LaPierre was speaking, was enough to make the NRA seem utterly, surreally amateurish and out of touch.... [Democrats] simply ceded the field to the gun lobby, assuming a level of influence, savvy and popular support far greater than what it possessed in reality. Today, that reality was exposed for all to see, and it was hard to watch. Not least because it was, in a way, an indictment of us all." ...

... Case in Point. Jonathan Tamari of the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Sen. Bob Casey [D-Penn.], who has long opposed new gun laws, said Wednesday that he had changed his views in the aftermath of last week's shootings in Newtown, Conn., and would support bills to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips." ...

... AND Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM: Rep. Mike Thompson, a pro-gun Democrat from California who has been asked by "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to lead a Democratic task force on gun violence" favors a strong assault weapons ban, which he said would be good for law-abiding, "mentally-stable" gun owners because assault weapons give gun owners a bad rep. ...

... PLUS Anna Palmer & Ginger Gibson of Politico: "The National Rifle Association didn't win many friends on Capitol Hill.... Democratic lawmakers, including some from Connecticut, condemned the idea outright. Republicans, meanwhile, were quiet Friday afternoon." CW: Palmer & Gibson quote half-a-dozen Democrats; no Republicans. ...

Dorothy Wickenden of the New Yorker talks with Jill LePore & Patrick Keefe about the possibility of gun control legislation:

... Joe Nocera has a very good column on "Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm run by the secretive financier Steven Feinberg," which owns Freedom Group, "a motley collection of gun and ammunition firms it had gathered together under one umbrella company." ...

... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker: "This is where gun advocacy ends: not with a right to bear arms, but with an insistence that the rest of us have an obligation to do so. In the name of a misreading of the Second Amendment, teachers and children are conscripted in a gunfight."

... Katie Zezima of the AP: "... new details emerged Friday about the [Newtown] gunman, Adam Lanza, who acquaintances said was able to take apart and reassemble a computer in a matter of minutes but rarely spoke to anyone."

Mike Allen of Politico: "Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, seeking to preserve his viability for nomination as secretary of Defense, on Friday issued a strong apology for a gay slur in 1998 that turned some top Democratic activists against his potential selection. Hagel's statement is part of an extremely unusual campaign to bolster a candidate for a top job who has not yet been nominated. The White House this week took the extraordinary step of publicly defending Hagel against attacks by backers of Israel." ...

... Greg Sargent: "But in an interview this afternoon, the target of the 1998 slur, leading gay philanthropist James Hormel, told me he never received an apology from Hagel himself, questioned the sincerity of the apology, and said the incident should still raise questions about whether Hagel is the right man to oversee the repeal of don't ask don't tell."

Nate Silver looks at Sen. Scott Brown's (R-Mass.) chances of winning a special election now that Sen. John Kerry is almost certain to become Secretary of State. "One thing is certain: if Mr. Brown is the senator from Massachusetts in January 2015, he will have earned it, having run for office four times in less than five years."

Gen. Eric Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans' Affairs, remembers Sen. Daniel Inouye (this takes a few seconds to load, but it's worth it):

Call Her "Irresistible" -- and Unemployed. AP: "The Iowa Supreme Court says a dentist did not commit sex discrimination when he fired an attractive female assistant he viewed as a threat to his marriage. The court ruled Friday that a boss can fire an employee he considers an 'irresistible attraction,' even if the employee has done nothing wrong. The decision is the first in Iowa, but in line with rulings elsewhere."

Russia's Legislators Are as Bad as Our Legislators. New York Times Editors: "Russian legislators looking to retaliate against a new American human rights law have settled on an exceptionally vulnerable target: Russian orphans. The proposal would bar American citizens from adopting them."

News Ledes

AP: "Authorities in central Pennsylvania are trying to determine why a man fatally shot three people along a rural road before being killed in a gunfight with police." CW: the dateline is "Hollidaysburg."

Al Jazeera: "Polling stations opened in Egypt in the second and final round of a referendum on a new constitution that was drafted by an assembly dominated by Islamists and that the opposition says is polarising the nation. After a first round vote last week, polls opened on Saturday in areas analysts expected would give another 'yes' vote." ...

     ... AP Update: "Egypt's Islamist-backed constitution received a 'yes' majority in a final round of voting on a referendum that saw a low voter turnout, but the deep divisions it has opened up threaten to fuel continued turmoil."

Al Jazeera: "Two rival rebel groups in Mali have agreed to stop fighting, a day after the United Nations Security Council voted on a French-drafted resolution authorising full military intervention in the west African country.... The two groups, who took control of large swathes of northern Mali earlier this year, met in the Algerian capital Algiers, where representatives signed the agreement."

Reuters: "Rigorous new sanctions against Iran's banking, shipping and industrial sectors took effect on Saturday, as part of the European Union's effort to force Tehran to scale back its nuclear program. The sanctions, agreed in October, entered EU law with their publication in the European Union's Official Journal on Saturday."

AP: "President Barack Obama and his family have arrived in Honolulu to spend Christmas in Hawaii.... Air Force One touched down in Honolulu minutes after midnight local time on Saturday. The first family departed the plane and traveled quickly to their vacation house in the beach town of Kailua, a scenic, sleepy beach town on the east side of Oahu."

AP: "Pope Benedict XVI granted his former butler a Christmas pardon Saturday, forgiving him in person during a jailhouse meeting for stealing and leaking private papers in one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times. After the 15-minute meeting, Paolo Gabriele was freed and returned to his Vatican City apartment where he lives with his wife and three children. The Vatican said he couldn't continue living or working in the Vatican, but said it would find him housing and a job elsewhere soon."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 21, 2012

From yesterday afternoon's Commentariat: "My column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "Boola Boola, Professor Brooks." It's an "exclusive"!

Robert Ariail of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. Thanks to Julie L. for the link.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is fabulous:

Asawin Suebsaeng of Mother Jones tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the supposed Mayan Apocalypse -- like 12 percent of Americans think the end is upon us. Thanks to contributor Barbarossa for the link.

Alexandra Alper of Reuters: "Thousands of mystics, hippies and spiritual wanderers will descend on the ruins of Maya cities on Friday to celebrate a new cycle in the Maya calendar, ignoring fears in some quarters that it might instead herald the end of the world. Brightly dressed indigenous Mexican dancers whooped and invoked a serpent god near the ruins of Chichen Itza late on Thursday, while meditating westerners hoped for the start of a 'golden age' of humanity."

AND this is serious: Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "... the latest prophecy, tethered to the Mayan calendar and forecasting that the world will self-destruct on Friday, has prompted many rumors of violence, with a particular focus on school shootings or bomb threats."

Cliff Notes

Oh, for Pete's Sake. Andrew Taylor of the AP: "House Speaker John Boehner signaled on Friday he's still open to negotiations with President Barack Obama on avoiding across-the-board tax increases set to hit taxpayers Jan. 1.... In the aftermath, Boehner said any deal with the president to avoid the looming 'fiscal cliff' would require more compromise by Obama and greater involvement of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky."

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "With House Republicans' revolt over their leader's tax plan the evening before, President Obama on Friday faced the challenge of finding a new tax-and-spending solution -- perhaps working now with Senate Republicans -- to prevent a looming fiscal crisis in January. Yet ... officials at the White House remained as incredulous and bewildered as the rest of Washington after Speaker John A. Boehner, short of votes from his Republican majority, was forced to cancel Thursday's vote on what he called his 'Plan B.'" CW: not too sure why this is up to Obama. Seems to me Boner should come up with a Plan C, as in "capitulation."

Ker-Plop. Lori Montgomery & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "The House called off a vote Thursday evening on House Speaker John A. Boehner's plan to extend tax cuts on income up to $1 million -- known as Plan B -- because he could not muster enough votes from fellow Republicans to pass the measure." Story has been updated; new lede: "House Speaker John A. Boehner threw efforts to avoid the year-end 'fiscal cliff' into chaos late Thursday, as he abruptly shuttered the House for the holidays after failing to win support from his fellow Republicans for a plan to let tax rates rise for millionaires." ...

... If this was a parliamentary system, tonight’s dissent on Plan B would be seen as a vote of no confidence in Boehner. The national GOP is now simply a collection of warring tribal factions. -- Craig Shirley, GOP strategist

Jake Sherman & John Bresnahan of Politico: "Things were so bad for Speaker John Boehner Thursday night, support for his Plan B tax bill so diminished, the limits of his power with his own party laid bare, that he stood in front of the House Republican Conference and recited the Serenity Prayer. 'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.' Boehner nearly cried." CW: note that, once again, Boner demonstrates that the only person he ever feels sorry for is himself. Boner's much-touted "sensitivity" applies only to Boner.

In his column, Paul Krugman expands on a blogpost linked here yesterday: "... earlier this week progressives suddenly had the sinking feeling that it was 2011 all over again, as the Obama administration made a budget offer that, while far better than the disastrous deal it was willing to make the last time around, still involved giving way on issues where it had promised to hold the line -- perpetuating a substantial portion of the high-income Bush tax cuts, effectively cutting Social Security benefits by changing the inflation adjustment. And this was an offer, not a deal. Are we about to see another round of the president negotiating with himself, snatching policy and political defeat from the jaws of victory? ... This is no time for a Grand Bargain, because the Republican Party, as now constituted, is just not an entity with which the president can make a serious deal."

The AFL-CIO Has Your Back. Greg Sargent. "The AFL-CIO wants Obama to pull back his proposal to raise the income threshold on the tax hikes to $400,000 and to rescind the offer of Chained CPI on Social Security.... Damon Silvers, the policy director for the AFL-CIO ... said Obama should reboot and get back to a set of proposals that is more in line with the policies he ran on -- the ones that got him reelected."

NEW. Totally Predictable (and Predicted). John Cushman of the New York Times: "The National Rifle Association on Friday called for schools to be protected by armed guards as the best way to protect children from gun violence.... Wayne LaPierre, the group’s executive vice president, read a statement at a news conference but did not take questions. He also criticized violent video games and spoke of the need to deal more effectively with the mentally ill.... During the news conference ... protesters repeatedly interrupted, raised a banner saying 'NRA killing our children' and shouting similar messages, such as 'N.R.A. has blood on its hands' and 'ban assault weapons now.'"

Tim Egan: "By threat and force, the gun and anti-tax extremists have been able to stop every sensible plea for reform.... Bullying is the favorite tactic of these political thugs in K Street suits, but as the last week has shown, they are also cowards." ...

... New York Times Editors: The NRA "presents itself as a grass-roots organization, but it has become increasingly clear in recent years that it represents gun makers. Its chief aim has been to help their businesses by increasing the spread of firearms throughout American society.... Sales of firearms and ammunition have grown 5.7 percent a year since 2007, to nearly $12 billion this year...." ...

... President Obama responds to We the People petitions related to gun violence:

     ... CW: Note that Constitutional scholar Barack Obama agrees with Nino Scalia's interpretation of the Second Amendment. Constitutional scholars who disagree with Nino & Barack? -- John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Stephen Breyer.

... Michael Schmidt & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Nearly two decades after lawmakers began requiring background checks for gun buyers, significant gaps in the F.B.I.'s database of criminal and mental health records allow thousands of people to buy firearms every year who should be barred from doing so. The database is incomplete because many states have not provided federal authorities with comprehensive records of people involuntarily committed or otherwise ruled mentally ill. Records are also spotty for several other categories of prohibited buyers.... The gaps exist because the system is voluntary; the Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the federal government cannot force state officials to participate in the federal background check system." ...

... ** Bloomberg News Editors on how the NRA/gun lobby have stymied law enforcement from identifying criminal gun purchasers & otherwise stifled gun safety efforts. CW: the NRA, et al., really are aiding & abetting criminal enterprises for their own gain. They might as well run the drugs or hold up the banks themselves; they're getting their cuts anyway.

Déjà vu All over Again. J. K. Trotter of the Atlantic. "The trio of senators who led the months-long wave of criticism against U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice are suddenly focusing their attention on Obama's potential pick for Secretary of Defense: Chuck Hagel, who's been widely reported as the nominee. Kelly Ayotte, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain -- whose problems with Rice ended with her withdrawal from consideration for Secretary of State last week -- all spoke out today against the former Nebraska senator," a Republican. Hagel was Cray Z. McCain's national campaign co-chair in 2008.

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Friends from both sides of the aisle stood shoulder-to-shoulder Thursday in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to remember the late Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), who became the first Asian-American afforded the honor of lying in state at the revered spot." ...

... Ken Burns interviews Sen. Inouye about his enlistment:

Ron Nixon of the New York Times: "Lost in the political standoff between the Obama administration and Congressional Republicans over the budget is a virtually forgotten impasse over a farm bill that covers billions of dollars in agriculture programs. Without last-minute Congressional action, the government would have to follow an antiquated 1949 farm law that would force Washington to buy milk at wildly inflated prices, creating higher prices in the dairy case." Milk prices could go to $6 to $8 a gallon.

Ethan Bronner of the New York Times: "Thirty-six years after the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, its use is waning, with prosecutors and juries preferring to sentence convicted murderers to life in prison without parole. New data for 2012 show that nine states executed inmates this year, the fewest in two decades, and the number of death sentences handed down this year -- 80 -- was about a third of the total in 2000."

** Laura Gottesdiener of AlterNet, in Salon: "More than 13 percent of the workforce is expected to face unemployment at some point in the New Year.... This means that one in every eight workers -- and their families -- will be forced to cope with the financial and emotional burden of temporary unemployment this coming year. While these numbers are disturbing, they shouldn't be surprising, given the considerable shift the private sector is making towards temporary and contract workers. In 2010, for example, more than one-quarter of the 1.17 million new private sector jobs added to the economy were temporary. Compared to past economic recoveries, this higher emphasis on temporary workers is unprecedented -- leading many to worry that the shift towards unstable part-time and contract work will become a dominant feature of our economic reality."

C. J. Chivers of the New York Times on Syrian use of cluster bombs, "... the deliberate targeting of civilians by President Bashar al-Assad's military, in this case with a weapon that is impossible to use precisely.... The munitions in question -- Soviet-era PTAB-2.5Ms -- were designed decades ago by Communist engineers to destroy battlefield formations of Western armored vehicles and tanks. They are ejected in dense bunches from free-falling dispensers dropped from aircraft. The bomblets then scatter and descend nose-down to land and explode almost at once over a wide area, often hundreds of yards across."

Alex Pareene of Salon: "This year, my annual list of the worst of political media highlights not just individuals, but the institutions that enable those individuals. The 2012 Hack List [is] counting down the 10 media outlets that are hurting America...." Top prize goes to Politico and its stars Mike Allen & Jim VandeHei. Natch. More here, here and here.) Coming in at No. 10 was the New York Times, with special mention of Tom Friedman & Nicholas Kristof -- an excellent takedown all around: "Friedman is certainly the worst actual human being employed by the New York Times. But his vileness often lets his colleagues off the hook.... While Thomas Friedman travels the globe attending conferences and making obscene amounts of money speaking to billionaires for an hour, Nick Kristof travels the globe rescuing sex workers by getting them arrested and then attempting to find them jobs in sweatshops to produce our cheap clothing."

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "President Obama will nominate John F. Kerry, the five-term senator from Massachusetts, to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State, White House sources confirmed, choosing a longtime political ally who shares much of his foreign policy worldview and is likely to sail through confirmation hearings." ...

     ... Politico Update: "President Barack Obama nominated Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to be the next Secretary of State on Friday." ...

     ... Update. The New York Times story is here.

Reuters: "Many Americans will remember the victims of the Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre with a moment of silence on Friday, just before a powerful U.S. gun rights lobbying group plunges into the national debate over gun control."

AP: "Admirers will bid farewell to Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye at a memorial service before a final trip home to his native Hawaii. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were to be among those offering tributes during the ceremony Friday at Washington National Cathedral, along with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Biden also spoke at a ceremony Thursday at the Capitol, where Inouye was given an honored resting place: beneath the dome."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 20, 2012 ...

... The Last Full Day in the History of the Earth. (Pay absolutely no attention to these pointy-headed NASA scientists.) ...

... NEW. Building on this theme, my column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "Boola Boola, Professor Brooks." It's an "exclusive"! ...

... Also NEW, you won't want to miss Matt Taibbi's take on David Brooks' ascension to the halls of academe.

Cliff Notes

David Espo & Ben Feller of the AP: "Fiscal cliff talks at a partisan standoff, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner swapped barbed political charges on Wednesday yet carefully left room for further negotiations on an elusive deal to head off year-end tax increases and spending cuts that threaten the national economy. Republicans should 'peel off the war paint' and take the deal he's offering, Obama said sharply at the White House.... But he drew a quick retort from Boehner when the White House threatened to veto a fallback bill drafted by House Republicans that would prevent tax increases for all but million-dollar earners. The president will bear responsibility for 'the largest tax increase in history' if he makes good on that threat, the Ohio Republican declared."

Tomorrow, the House will pass legislation to make permanent tax relief for nearly every American -- 99.81 percent of the American people. Then the president will have a decision to make. He can call on the Senate Democrats to pass that bill, or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history. -- House Speaker John Boehner

... Greg Sargent, and others, translate Boehner's remark as "Whee! It's over the cliff we go." ...

... ** Jonathan Chait: "What all this shows, again, is how much easier a deal gets in January. Once the Bush tax cuts for the rich have expired, then Obama doesn't need to bargain for the revenue, and Republicans don't need to vote to 'give' it to him.... In theory, this ought to be unnecessary. Everybody knows what happens in January.... But we are not dealing with rational people here. We are dealing with House Republicans." ...

... Markos Moulitsas: "You see, Obama had drawn a line in the sand, and then -- to no one's surprise -- ended up capitulating on everything he said he'd never capitulate on.... Not only is [conceding to Republicans] brain dead stupid..., but also betrays his own vice president and congressional caucus -- which had promised several times that Social Security (among other things) was off the table.... Obama wasn't elected to play nice with Republicans. He was elected to lead our nation and improve the lives of its citizens."

The Sociopath's Guide to Fiscal Policy. Zeke Miller of BuzzFeed: When the government owes less because of low interest rates, Republicans call that "savings" if it's in their proposed budget, but call it "not-savings" if it's in Obama's.

The other day, when Paul Krugman was waffling, I urged him to "go over the edge." He has: "... all of a sudden it's feeling a lot like 2011 again, with the president negotiating with himself while the other side enjoys the process. So Obama needs to draw a line right now: no further concessions. None. He's already given too much. Yes, this probably means going over the cliff. So be it: it's less bad than the alternative."

** Robert Kuttner of American Prospect: "Once again, President Obama seems to be on the verge of folding a winning hand.... Especially foolish is the cut in Social Security benefits, disguised as a change in the cost-of-living adjustment formula.... The proposed change will save only $122 billion over ten years, but it will significantly cut benefits for the elderly.... It's unconscionable to cut Social Security at all when then president is proposing to reduce the proposed taxes on the wealthiest by $400 billion -- more than three times the savings of the planned cuts in Social Security.... This promises to be an epic showdown. We will soon learn what Obama, the progressive community, and congressional Democrats are made of."

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "The White House has gone to great lengths to stress one thing in response to the backlash against the unforced error of throwing Social Security into the fiscal cliff curb: They'll just reduce benefits for some people on Social Security, not all of them.... This does some pretty damaging things.... First, it pits certain Social Security recipients against others.... Most of the people on Social Security are exceedingly vulnerable.... So how will the administration decide who's most vulnerable when almost half of Social Security recipients couldn't live without it? How do they decide which of these people deserve to be spared the cuts, and which don't?"

Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Religious leaders across the country this week vowed to mobilize their congregants to push for gun control legislation and provide the ground support for politicians willing to take on the gun lobby, saying the time has come for action beyond praying and comforting the families of those killed. A group of clergy members, representing mainline and evangelical Protestants, Catholics, Jews and Muslims, plans to lead off the campaign in front of the Washington National Cathedral at an event on Friday timed to mark the moment a week before when a young gunman opened fire in a school in Newtown, Conn." ...

... The Very Rev. Gary Hall, Dean of the National Cathedral, calls for gun control legislation. You can hear the whole sermon here:

... A Note from Right Wing World.* As contributor Jerry N. points out, not all clergy are getting with the program. Dr. Richard Land, head of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, a part of the Southern Baptist Convention, is all for arming grade school teachers. (It is worth noting that the ERLC found Dr. Ethics there guilty of plagiarism for lifting the writings of others & passing them off as his own thoughts on his nationally-syndicated ERLC radio show. The ERLC fired Land, but you'll be relieved to know he still has a gig on Fox Radio. *Right Wing World is a long-running comedy series. If by chance the world does not end tomorrow, the series will run in perpetuity.)

The Pursuit of Happiness

It’s very stress relieving. Some people crochet, some people shop, some people shoot guns. -- Chad Knox of Marietta, Ohio, speaking of his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle

I don't want to shoot holes in pieces of paper, I want to watch a watermelon be destroyed.... It's fun and it makes you smile but it's a skill, its own art form. I don't want to make it sound weird, but it's almost like holding a live animal. You've fired the thing, and it's kicked around, and there's the smell.... When I put 20 rounds downrange, I'm like, man, I need a burger, yes! -- Patrick Mason of Las Vegas, Nevada

And some people want to deprive these American citizens of the only way they can think of to have 'stress-relieving' 'fun' and 'smiles' for the sole purpose of saving innocent lives. -- Constant Weader ...

... Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "... many owners of military-style semiautomatic rifles ... reject the term 'assault weapon.' ... They use their guns for target practice and hunting small game like rabbits, squirrels and coyotes. They also say that as a self-defense weapon, the AR-15, which is based on the military's M-16 and M-4, has its limits: It cannot be carried in public, and in the home it is potentially less accurate than a shotgun."

Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker: "Those who fight against gun control, actively or passively, with a shrug of helplessness, are dooming more kids to horrible deaths and more parents to unspeakable grief just as surely as are those who fight against pediatric medicine or childhood vaccination."

Enough with Abstractions; It's the Guns. New York Times Editors: "Republicans say they want to end the violence, but have been mostly trying to end the discussion.... Mr. Obama played into [the Republican] argument on Wednesday, talking about the 'culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence' and saying that any actions should begin 'inside the home and inside our hearts.' It is tempting to blame abstractions, and to give in to fatalism...." ...

... President Obama's remarks in the Brady Briefing Room yesterday (that's "Brady" as in the "Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act" a/k/a the Brady bill, named for Jim Brady, President Ronald Reagan's press secretary who was severely wounded in an assassination attempt on President Reagan, also shot in the assault):

The Stupidest Thing the President Said Yesterday: I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms.

... ** Fareed Zakaria: other developed countries have the same level as mental illness the U.S. does, and they have cultures that encompass a similar level of violence. Yet they have far fewer gun deaths. "The U.S. gun homicide rate is 30 times that of France or Australia.... The data in social science are rarely this clear. They strongly suggest that we have so much more gun violence than other countries because we have far more permissive laws than others regarding the sale and possession of guns. With 5 percent of the world's population, the United States has 50 percent of the guns.... We do not lack for answers. What we lack in America today is courage."

Peter Wallsten & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "While the NRA devoted most of its national campaign efforts this year to supporting Republicans and opposing President Obama, the group has historically gained its clout in Washington by nurturing close ties to lawmakers in both parties, particularly those from rural areas.... But several recent factors have altered that calculus.... Political battlegrounds have also shifted away from those rural areas to the suburbs, where the NRA holds less sway and there is more appetite for restrictions on guns. And Democrats are looking increasingly at the NRA as an arm of the Republican Party...."

Greg Roumeliotis & Ross Kerber of Reuters: "The $150.1 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund is reviewing its investments in firearm manufacturers.... New York City's pension funds are also reviewing investments and may sell nearly $18 million worth of stock in four companies that manufacture guns and ammunition...."

From the Brady Campaign:

How Low Can You Go? Scam Artists Exploit Newtown Families. Christina Rexrode & Robert Ray of the AP: "The family of Noah Pozner was mourning the 6-year-old, killed in the Newtown school massacre, when outrage compounded their sorrow. Someone they didn't know was soliciting donations in Noah's memory, claiming that they'd send any cards, packages and money collected to his parents and siblings. An official-looking website had been set up, with Noah's name as the address, even including petitions on gun control."

Bryan Jones, in a Monkey Cage post, explains the socio-political dynamics that might make gun control legislation possible now: "If the problem is reconceived, government solutions are within the pale. Just what policy solution might be attached to the problem is unclear, but the lowest hanging fruit (where the gun lobby's policy victories have exceeded the bounds of common sense) include an assault weapons ban, a high-capacity magazine ban, and improved background check procedures for gun purchases."

Robert Rizzuto of The Republican: "Although he once said banning so-called assault weapons fell under the category of issues best left to the states, Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown told The Republican/MassLive.com in an exclusive interview Wednesday that he now supports federal action." Via Jonathan Bernstein.

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, [and] writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government. -- Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), 1981, speaking on the floor of the Senate during Bork's confirmation proceedings ...

Roll the videotape:

... CW: I generally prefer not to speak ill of the dead before the family has had a chance to mourn (or in this case, even bury him). Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker obviously holds to a different standard: "Robert Bork, who died Wednesday, was an unrepentant reactionary who was on the wrong side of every major legal controversy of the twentieth century. The fifty-eight senators who voted against Bork for confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1987 honored themselves, and the Constitution. In the subsequent quarter-century, Bork devoted himself to proving that his critics were right about him all along." ...

     ... Update. Like me, Paul Waldman of the American Prospect was rather taken aback by Toobin's lusty attack. "I think it's possible to talk honestly about someone's contributions, and your criticisms of them, without getting needlessly uncivil."

Maggie Haberman of Politico: "The [winger] William Kristol-founded conservative Emergency Committee for Israel says it's launching cable ads starting Thursday slamming Chuck Hagel, the latest in a spate of criticism over the man who's said to top President Barack Obama's list for Secretary of Defense. The spot, which hits Hagel for voting against sanctions on Iran, is an indication of the next phase of attacks on the former lawmaker, whose past stands on Israel have gotten the most attention."

Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post: Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, a husband-and-wife team of hawkish military analysts, put their jobs at influential Washington think tanks on hold for almost a year to work for Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Provided desks, e-mail accounts and top-level security clearances in Kabul, they pored through classified intelligence reports, participated in senior-level strategy sessions and probed the assessments of field officers in order to advise Petraeus about how to fight the war differently." ...

... Charles Pierce: "We have the wandering Little Petraeus to thank for many things. The fact that this guy clearly had national ambitions, and that only the wandering Little Petraeus may have saved us from a national security apparatus helmed by the half-bright chickenhawk denizens of Neocon Dogpatch, is definitely one of them."

You're Still Paying for Willard. Katy Steinmetz of Time: "One of the less scintillating milestones of the 2012 election was marked by the General Services Administration, when Mitt Romney became the first candidate to take advantage of the Presidential Transition Act of 2010.... The law stipulates that the federal government will provide certain resources to non-incumbent candidates after their nominating convention. The GSA says final costs are still being tabulated, but the initial estimated cost for Romney's pre-transition phase is around $8.9 million."

Inside Job. Ian Austin of the New York Times: on arrests in The Great Maple Syrup Heist & the OPEC-like Canadian cartel the Maple Syrup Gang burglarized.

Boola, Boola, Professor Brooks. Joe Coscarelli of New York: New York Times columnist David Brooks "will be teaching a class [at Yale] in the spring titled just plain 'Humility.' According to its description, the course promises to explore 'The premise that human beings are blessed with many talents but are also burdened by sinfulness, ignorance, and weakness,' as demonstrated by men such as Moses, Homer, and 'others,' like maybe Paul Krugman.... And if pleasing one's parents with a brand-name professor isn't reason enough to sign up, the class is listed as having 'no regular final examination.'"

News Ledes

New York Times: "Bernard L. Madoff's brother, Peter B. Madoff, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday for his role in enabling the extensive fraud that swindled investors out of billions of dollars."

Market Watch: "The U.S. economy grew more quickly than previously stated in the July-to-September quarter due to stronger trade, faster health-care spending and increased local government construction, the Commerce Department estimated Thursday. The Commerce Department said third-quarter gross domestic product grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.1% in the third quarter...."

Reuters: "The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid rose last week, putting them back at the lower end of their pre-storm range and suggesting job growth remains moderate. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 361,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week's figure was revised to show 1,000 more applications than previously reported."

AP: "Members of the Senate and House foreign affairs committees on Thursday were to question Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, who is in charge of policy, and Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, who is in charge of management, at back-to-back congressional hearings on the September 11 Benghazi attack on four Americans." CW: the Washington Post has live coverage of the hearings on its front page. At about 8:30 am ET, Committee Chairman John Kerry was droning away. C-SPAN live coverage is here. At 8:35 am, Nides is testifying. ...

... AP: "The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- and possibly the next secretary of state -- says mistakes were made at the State Department in the deadly Sept. 11 assault in Libya, but Congress shares some of the blame." CW: the Grammar Prize for Earliest Delivery of the Classic "Past Exonerative Tense" Clause "Mistakes Were Made" goes to John Kerry (or AP writer Donna Cassata -- it isn't a direct quote.)

New York Times: "The owner of the venerable New York Stock Exchange is in talks to be acquired by an upstart commodities and derivatives trading platform...." CW: and the award for writing Today's Most Artless Sentence goes to the NYT: "... is in talks to be acquired by...."