The Ledes

Friday, October 4, 2024

CNBC: “The U.S. economy added far more jobs than expected in September, pointing to a vital employment picture as the unemployment rate edged lower, the Labor Department reported Friday. Nonfarm payrolls surged by 254,000 for the month, up from a revised 159,000 in August and better than the 150,000 Dow Jones consensus forecast. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, down 0.1 percentage point.”

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Saturday
Dec222012

The Commentariat -- Dec. 23, 2012

An early holiday gift:

Paul Krugman: a citation in a Wall Street Journal story makes it appear "the president still believe[s] that failure to reach a Grand Bargain will cause an attack by the invisible bond vigilantes, and that this is the reason we should fear the fiscal cliff." Oh, dear. CW: it has been obvious for a long time that Obama listens to the Very Serious People. He is not good at choosing advisors. Tim Geithner. ...

... Brad DeLong: "If it is indeed the case that Obama does not understand the basics of the economic situation he is trying to manage, how likely is it that he can make good decisions? If, as Bob Woodward claims, Tim Geithner really is in there analogizing the U.S. to Greece, things are not good at all…" ...

When You Have a Bad Hand, Play It Badly. Ezra Klein: "... if Boehner had taken the White House's deal in 2011, he could've stopped the tax increase at $800 billion. If he took their most recent deal, he could stop it at $1.2 trillion. But if he insists on adding another round to the negotiations -- one that will likely come after the White House pockets $700 billion in tax increases -- then any deal in which gets the entitlement cuts he wants is going to mean a deal in which he accepts even more tax increases than the White House is currently demanding. Today, Boehner wishes he'd taken the deal the president offered him in 2011. A year from now, he might wish he'd taken the deal the president offered him in 2012." CW: poor people, seniors & anyone else who may rely on government safety-net programs should be mighty glad Boehner is such a poor poker player.

Sometimes Tom Friedman Is Right: "But if Republicans continue to be led around by, and live in fear of, a base that denies global warming after Hurricane Sandy and refuses to ban assault weapons after Sandy Hook -- a base that would rather see every American's taxes rise rather than increase taxes on millionaires -- the party has no future. It can't win with a base that is at war with math, physics, human biology, economics and common-sense gun laws all at the same time." (Italics original.) But Usually He Is Wrong: "... we could have had a grand bargain that would put the country on a sounder fiscal trajectory and signal to the markets, the world and ourselves that we can still do big hard things together."

Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "How [the] Party of Budget Restraint Shifted to 'No New Taxes,' Ever."

CW:contributor James S. recommends this excellent 20/20 segment which demonstrates how & why armed citizens are ineffective lines of defense against armed intruders.

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Thousands of criminal cases at the state and local level may have relied on exaggerated testimony or false forensic evidence to convict defendants of murder, rape and other felonies. The forensic experts in these cases were trained by the same elite FBI team whose members gave misleading court testimony about hair matches and later taught the local examiners to follow the same suspect practices, according to interviews and documents." CW: another reason the death penalty is morally criminal.

Molly Worthen, in a New York Times essay on the history of religious practice: "Rates of church attendance have never been as sterling as the Christian Right's fable of national decline suggests. Before the Civil War, regular attendance probably never exceeded 30 percent, rising to a high of 40 percent around 1965 and declining to under 30 percent in recent years -- even as 77 percent still identify as Christians and 69 percent say they are 'very' or 'moderately' religious, according to a 2012 Gallup survey."

News Lede

Al Jazeera: "Italy's president has dissolved parliament following Prime Minister Mario Monti's resignation. President Giorgio Napolitano signed the decree on Saturday after consulting with political leaders. The move formally sets the stage for general elections, now confirmed for February 24-25, in which Monti's participation remains unclear. The date of the election, widely expected to be February 24, will be decided by Monti's cabinet, which remains in office in a caretaker capacity."

Friday
Dec212012

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."

Thursday
Dec202012

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."