HUFFPOST HILL - Cool Kids Don't Invite Pelosi To The Party.. 1985 Rick Perry: End Apartheid Later!.. Homer Simpson Gets Into Republican Politics
By Eliot Nelson, Ryan Grim & Arthur Delaney
PELOSI NOT INVITED TO MEETING ON SUPER COMMITTEE - Congressional leaders met with the deficit commission co-chairs this week to discuss the panel's work. Harry Reid was there. John Boehner was there. Mitch McConnell was there. Nancy Pelosi was ... not there. Apparently no one had sent Pelosi the deficit committee e-vite (we imagine a turquoise background with .gifs of cakes with the words "YOU'RE INVITED TO HELP US CUT THE PONZI SCHEME THAT IS SOCIAL SECURITY!!!" in comic sans while a .midi file plays). No one really knows what happened. We guess this means members of Congress aren't required to get EVERYONE a Valentine's Day card? [Roll Call]
The CLASS Act, which we REALLY hoped would be there in about 40 years, is already gone. Kathleen Sebelius told Congress today she couldn't fulfill the longterm care law's requirement that it be self-financing. [Politico]
FISHY FRIDAY FORECLOSURE DUMP - After holding at least two private conference calls with housing advocates to prep them on an upcoming report, the White House slipped it out on Friday with a blog post, followed by a Friday afternoon press release. If we were the White House, we wouldn't be drawing attention to our housing policy either. "It looks like they want advocates for the disenfranchised to feel like they're with us, but don't want to say it too loudly, and that's kind of disturbing," said one advocate for the said disenfranchised. The advocate, on why he wanted to stay anonymous: "As much it pains me, we have to try to maintain a kind of polite relationship with these folks."
BRAZEN WHITE HOUSE SPIN - As part of its "Creating Pathways to Opportunity" report released Friday, the White House says it "jumped started mortgage loan modifications" to the tune of 4 million permanent mods. The funny thing is that that is exactly the number of modifications Obama said he'd get us, but it's exactly the opposite of what happened. The administration's modification scheme has resulted in fewer than 700,000 permanent modifications and more than a million busted attempts. Starting last year, the Treasury Department started taking credit for modifications banks did outside of the government's programs, claiming the administration had set standards for the industry. "While many of these initiatives have been helpful to our communities, we're disappointed that the White House chose to gloss over its weak efforts to stem the foreclosure crisis that continues to drive millions of hard-working Americans out of the middle class while weighing down the entire economy," said Greenlining Institute director Orson Aguilar in a statement. [White House PDF]
WH REJOINDER - The modification numbers include the modifications in the administration's program, 1 million mods arranged by the Federal Housing Administration, and more than 2 million from the private sector. A spokeswoman pointed to congressional testimony from a Wells Fargo honcho who called the White House's efforts a catalyst and "a mobilizing event to push servicers to take broader actions at a more rapid pace."
Herman Cain told Fox News that he will have $1 million cash on hand and no debt when his campaign files its quarterly report this weekend. One dollar less would have made the haul much more Cain-appropriate.
@KellyO: Another staffer leaves @MicheleBachmann. Doug Sachtleben says "with nothing but the highest regard for Michele. ... continue to admire and appreciate her unwavering conservatism. "
Jon Huntsman is broke. CNN reports that the former Utah governor's campaign is $890,000 in debt and only has $327,000 in the bank. Someone close to the campaign tells the network that "after a fast start fundraising, the projections were far too high. Fundraising dried up in the summer and that accounts for the campaign reining in spending." This can only end with an urgent post on Craigslist: "MOTOCROSS BIKE FOR SALE, GOOD CONDITION, LOOKING TO SELL FAST." Sad. [CNN]
DAILY DELANEY DOWNER - Each recession since the 1980s has pushed the rate of teen participation in the labor force further down. The Great Recession pushed the the ratio from 23 percent to 15 percent, its lowest level ever. The Federal Reserve checked: Video games are officially not to blame. What's the culprit? Grownups taking all the crappy jobs. If it weren't for desperate adults, the teen employment rate coulda been 5 percent higher in 2010 (the jobless rate for kids 16-19 is currently 24.6 percent). "Much of the crowd-out from adults is likely due to polarization of the adult labor market, driven by the declining costs of computerization and automation which have displaced some less-educated adult workers into service sector jobs that teens tend to do." [Federal Reserve]
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SCOTT BROWN: THE INTERN DID IT - News broke this week that Scott Brown's website biography featured a passage lifted entirely from a speech delivered by Elizabeth Dole. Team Brown first blamed the plagiarism on a technical error, because, as everyone well knows, if you don't properly close out your "a href"s, a passage from an Elizabeth Dole speech will suddenly appear on your website. It's a standard 404 error message. Only n00bs don't know that. Today, Brown blamed the intern. "It was a summer intern that put together the site, we corrected it once we found out," he told The Boston Globe. That's an easy out, and maybe an intern did, in fact, copy the passage. Still, to be fair, does anyone actually think that Brown himself had anything to do with the biography? Do you honestly believe Brown took time out of reading coffee table books about beer cans or eating microwavable sloppy joes or retreating to his basement to watch The Best of Thunder and Destruction - NFL's Hardest Hits on VHS or whatever it is he does in his free time to actually write something? [Boston Globe]
@PaulBlu: Does the Clinton/Gore 96 committee really still need to exist?: bit.ly/oelkq9
WHY THE MOVE YOUR MONEY CAMPAIGN HAS LEGS - A handful of POed Bank of America customers, organized by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, showed up outside a Bank of America in Portland yesterday, vowing to move their money from the big bank after a $5 debit fee was announced. They got covered by every local news outlet. [One clip]
RICK PERRY WAS OK WITH APARTHEID - Jason Cherkis reports that in 1985, then-state Rep. Rick Perry voted against two measures that would have prohibited the Texas government from investing in South African enterprises. "I wish I could say Perry was unique," Peck Young, former political consultant and director of Austin Community College's Center for Public Policy and Political Studies, said. "The conservative Democrats weren't going to vote for that stuff because for one thing Texas had major financial activities in South Africa and Texas in terms of its business attitudes was a conservative state...He was voting like every other right-wing Democrat and Republican." Someone needs to scour Rick Perry's hunting ranch for the words "NelsonMandelaWasADangerousTerroristHead" written on a rock.
We're going to use this opportunity to share this screen capture of Mel Gibson from Lethal Weapon 2 holding a misspelled "END APARTHIED NOW" poster.
ROMNEY RAISES $14 MILLION IN Q3 - Paul Blumenthal: "The presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced a haul of $14 million in the third quarter of 2011, after raising $18 million in the second quarter.The Romney campaign also announced $14 million cash on hand. The campaign ended the second quarter with $12 million on hand, indicating that the campaign spent that $12 million in the third quarter, burning through $130,000 per day from July through September...there are some troubles lurking in the details. While the campaign saw a 73 percent increase in the total number of donors in the third quarter, it only raised contributions from 55,000 individual donors. By comparison, Romney's primary opponent Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) announced donations from 100,000 individual donors in the third quarter alone, and the campaign of President Barack Obama is nearing the 1 million donor mark for the year. Romney continues to have one of the lowest percentages of small-dollar donors among candidates in the Republican primary." [HuffPost]
A new Mitt Romney web ad portrays the Obama White House as obsessed with the former Massachusetts governor. The ad begins with some very large type flashed on the screen: "WHAT IS THE WHITE HOUSE WORRIED ABOUT? JOBS? THE ECONOMY? HOME FORECLOSURES? SPENDING? ACTUALLY. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE IS WORRIED ABOUT. MOST." Then a slew of video and audio clips of President Obama, David Axelrod and Jay Carney referencing Romney are splashed on the screen. The editors behind the ad applied some sort of weird effect to make everything shake and oscillate rapidly. It looks like someone put the White House in a microwave. There are also Taiko drums. It's all tremendously irritating. [GOP12]
Tim Pawlenty, who in classic fashion quit right before Republicans got so desperate that they started liking Herman Cain, still has $400,000 in campaign debt. Some people have the worst luck! "The debt has grown substantially from the time the campaign ended," a campaign aide told HuffPost. "We were told by treasury that we were $170,000 in debt. But then bills on track came in and that number has grown." Pawlenty has reportedly asked Mitt Romney -- a man he could QUITE POSSIBLY BE BEATING RIGHT NOW IF HE DIDN'T QUIT -- for assistance. Somewhere, Tim Pawlenty read the campaign debt report, slipped on a banana peel, and then had a bucket fall on his head. [HuffPost's Sam Stein]
APPEALS COURT HALTS PART OF ALABAMA IMMIGRATION LAW - "A federal appeals court on Friday blocked a key part of Alabama's law that requires schools to check the immigration status of students, temporarily weakening what was considered the toughest immigration law in the nation. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also blocked a part of the law that allows authorities to charge immigrants who do not carry documents proving their legal status. The three-judge panel let stand a provision that allows police to detain immigrants that are suspected of being in the country illegally. The ruling was only temporary. A final decision on the law won't likely be made for months." [AP]
BUDDY ROEMER WINNING CRUCIAL FICTIONAL YELLOW CARTOON CHARACTER PRIMARY - Buddy Roemer continues to coast toward the Republican nomination for president. As the former Louisiana governor finalizes his date with destiny, his thousands of campaign staffers sort through the flood of campaign contributions that flow in each day. However, one contribution for $25.00 (out of a staggering $138,000 total in the third quarter) is raising some eyebrows. The donation is listed as originating from "Homer Simpson" who lives on "742 Evergreeen Terace [sic]" and is listed as a "Nuclear Safety Inspector." Odd, we figured that Roemer would be more in the pocket of Big Oil than Big Nuclear. "We'll call them. We have all their information, so we'll reach out to them and see what's going on, because we do not accept anonymous donations," Roemer campaign manager Carlos Sierra said. "I will be personally calling him to look into that." [HuffPost's Mike McAuliff]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Squirrel in a peanut butter jar. Banjo music.
Today in "and now, thanks to you, we have Ben Quayle": "George H.W. Bush, trailing Democrat Michael Dukakis in the heat of the 1988 presidential campaign, briefly but seriously considered Hollywood renaissance man Clint Eastwood to be his running mate, says a former Bush aide." [ABC News]
COMFORT FOOD
- Child tears up at the first bars of "Ave Maria." [http://huff.to/qiFVEJ]
- Once upon a time, Andy Warhol illustrated a children's book called "Little Red Hen." No, the book doesn't feature a collection of Campbell's chicken noodle soup cans paintings. There are actually drawings that are appealing to children. [http://huff.to/qewNrw]
- We don't trust this Japanese shampoo robot. It's just a 21st century Sweeney Todd waiting to happen. [http://huff.to/r0C7B8]
- Leave it to Radiolab to commission an UBER PRECIOUS video about the decaying of a whale carcass. Really. It's actually touching. [http://huff.to/pau2nD]
- We usually don't post wipe-out videos here, it's not really our thing. However, when the wipe-out video features a stoner in pink Hawaiian board shorts yelling "LADDERS ARE WILD" right before jumping off a ladder, we feel compelled to share. It's poetry, really. And Darwin. [http://huff.to/plD7f0]
- Baby monkey falls asleep. [http://huff.to/rcAck0]
[http://huff.to/rcAck0]
- The startling evolution of Nicolas Cage's hair. Heh, The Sorcerer's Apprentice. [http://huff.to/p6KXbp]
TWITTERAMA
@bradplumer: Still sad that my 24-1,867-pi plan never caught on.
@ddayen: Can't wait to announce my 10-10-220 plan to confiscate everyone's money #ATandThumor
@FakePewResearch: Every 19 seconds someone is arrested for drug possession. That dude seriously needs to clean up his act.
ON TAP
Tonight: Harry Reid visits Shawnee, Kansas -- the San Francisco of the Midwest -- for a fundraiser. We are so tired of these Democrats with their Swanee values. Real Americans want candidates who can understand them. [Shawnee, KS]
Tomorrow, 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm: Jeff Flake pulls in some dough for his Senate campaign with a dinner in Scottsdale. Paul Ryan is scheduled to make an appearance. It's at a resort/spa, so we can't help but conjure the image of Paul Ryan luxuriating in some spa room with a towel tied over his head and cucumbers placed on his eyes. Heh. [JW Marriot Camelback Reort & Spa, 5402 E Lincoln Dr, Scottsdale]
Tomorrow, 6:30 pm: Brian Bilbray lands THE BIG ORANGE. He is the guest of honor at a home state fundraiser hosted by none other than John Boehner. [1045 Loma Avenue, Coronado, CA]
Sunday - Monday: Bob Corker seems made for golf pants. He realizes his sartorial destiny at two-day golf outing fundraiser. [Honors Course Golf Course, 9603 Lee Hwy, Ooltewah, TN]
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