HUFFPOST HILL - I'll Be Home For Christmas (Unless I'm Held Indefinitely On Terrorism Charges).. Obama 2012 Rhodium Ball Ornaments Exist.. Get Ready For The Barney Frank Lecture Tour
By Eliot Nelson, Ryan Grim & Arthur Delaney
AMENDMENT REVISING DETAINEE POLICY FAILS IN SENATE - Mark Udall's "Hey, have you guys read 'Zeitoun?' 'Cause some of the stuff we're doing is pretty messed up" amendment to the Defense authorization bill failed today. And bad. The Senate voted 61 to 37 to kill Udall's proposal that would strip language allowing for the indefinite detention of American citizens held on terrorism charges, among other savory things. "Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham had countered that the provisions were necessary for a nation at war," reports the AP. "The Senate hopes to finish the bill by week's end." No word on when the Senate hopes to finish the war. [AP]
@jbendery: Cheney in Senate GOP lunch just to say hi, says GOP aide. He didn't talk; just coincidence Senate is debating detainee treatment today.
SHOW HER HOW MUCH YOU CARE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON WITH AN OBAMA 2012 SOY CANDLE - Hey, it's better than the Hess trucks offered during W's administration (hi-yoooo!). Sam Stein and Paul Blumenthal: "For $20 the Barack Obama reelection campaign will sell you a soy candle, a cutting board or a baby onesie. For five bucks more, you can get a pint glass or golf ball set, each with the Obama campaign insignia. For $35 you can buy yoga pants with a '2012' print down the right leg. For $65, there is the tailgate pack, replete with an apron bearing the message, 'Fired up and ready to grill.' And a 'limited-edition' rhodium ball ornament is being offered for $40, just in time for the holidays. The website declares that it will 'really stand out,' in addition to being 'a great companion to [the campaign's] glass ornament set.' For good measure, the campaign offered free shipping on Black Friday -- 'Skip the lines today,' the Obama for America email read -- and $5 purchases during Cyber Monday." [HuffPost]
S&P: WE'RE IN UR BANKS, DOWNGRADIN' - Standard & Poors Ratings Services is adjusting the ratings on 37 of the world's largest financial institutions, including downgrading the biggest banks in the U.S. Bank of America Corp. and its main subsidiaries were among those cut at least one notch on Tuesday, along with Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co. [AP]
FRANK SMACKS AROUND PRESS ONE MORE TIME - Barney Frank convened reporters in the Capitol today to explain his decision to leave and to drop a few one-liners on his way out. His basic explanation: He had planned to stick around one more term to protect Dodd-Frank, advance civil rights and make sure the Pentagon shared in the "sacrifice." But when he got a bunch of new voters in his district, he decided he'd have to spend so much time campaigning that he wouldn't get to work on the things that were keeping him there. He also says he's looking forward to making more money. "Not from lobbying, but from lecturing, writing, etc." he said. Maybe Freddie Mac is looking for an in-house man of letters? Actually, Frank said he's long wanted to write but hasn't been able to multitask, and apparently he's been browsing speakers bureau's websites and realized he can make 20 or 30 grand for delivering the same speech over and over. Getting berated will cost you $40k. "Frankly, lecture fees look good to me," Frank said. . "Frankly." Heh.
DAILY DELANEY DOWNER - Congressional Democrats are holding a press conference with hundreds of unemployed tomorrow, marking the start of the Third Annual December Class Warfare Festival over reauthorizing federal benefits for millions of people. Congress will answer the question: Do people laid off in the last six months deserve the same duration of benefits as people laid off over the previous three years? Key things to consider: The economy still sucks almost as much as ever, but Congress is incredibly bored of that problem.
DOUBLE DOWNER - California's Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board has estimated that with another $500 million from the federal government, it could avoid capping enrollment and provide insurance to some 11,247 Californians through 2014 in the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. With that chunk of money California's allotment would be $1.25 billion -- a quarter of the total $5 billion health care reform appropriated for the program nationwide. Yet the most recent state-by-state numbers released by HHS show California has just 10 percent of total enrollment... [HuffPost]
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HERMAN CAIN CONSIDERING LEAVING PRIMARY - Having now been party to a sexual harassment suit, assault charge or accusation of basic misconduct with every single woman in America (think of it as the Evil Census), Herman Cain is at long last considering whether it's best to just call it a day. "[T]his is cause for reassessment," Cain said on a conference call with supporters today. "As you know, during the summer we had to make some reassessments based upon our financial situation. We were able to hang in there; we reassessed the situation and kept on going...Now, with this latest one, we have to do an assessment as to whether or not this is going to create too much of a cloud, in some people's minds, as to whether or not they would be able to support us going forth...But if a decision is made, different than to plow ahead, you all will be the first to know...So until that time, I want to continue to thank you all for your support, thank you for your prayers. It's taken an emotional toll, but the people in the audience tonight will never know it." Yikes! [National Review]
@AndrewNBCNews: Just asked Cain if he had plans to leave race. Responded: "999, 999, we're doing fine."
Politico: "Cain... needs voters to think it's possible his friend, Ginger White, was lying on camera Monday in claiming they carried on a 13-year consensual affair that ended when he jumped into the presidential race. He needs people to believe White was merely a friend who he texted or called 61 times from his personal cell phone over four months, including as early as 4:26 in the morning...He needs voters to believe it's possible Sharon Bialek was so publicity- and money-hungry a few weeks earlier that she made up her public, on-camera allegation that Cain tried to grab her genitals and then forced her head toward his crotch. He says it never happened and that he's never met her. That would mean that a Chicago talk-radio host who saw the two together at a tea party rally in Illinois this year is also lying...He needs voters to believe that Karen Kraushaar is a liar, too -- that she was so sensitive or so vindictive that she marched into the NRA's human resources department in 1999 to file a bogus sexual harassment complaint against Cain, then her boss... He also need voters to believe it's possible POLITICO, and NBC, and then the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal and many other media outlets, heard about her complaint -- and decided to conspire against the GOP frontrunner by running stories about it." [Politico]
JON HUNTSMAN: SMASH THE 1 PERCENT - Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman called Monday for a major financial overhaul that would break up too-big-to-fail banks and deliver justice to homeowners and investors harmed by rogue foreclosures. The proposal from the former Utah governor is the first Wall Street overhaul outlined by any candidate in the 2012 presidential field, and features some of the most aggressive reforms advocated in the aftermath of the Wall Street meltdown. Many of Huntsman's ideas were even left out of Dodd-Frank, the financial legislation President Barack Obama signed into law in the summer of 2010. Occupy! [HuffPost]
Rick Perry forgot that 18, 19 and 20-year-olds can vote.: "Those who are going to be over 21 on November 12th, I ask for your support," he said during an appearance in New Hampshire. Election day is November 6th, 2012 and the New Hampshire primary is being held on January 10th, 2012. --- Insert joke about a third thing that we can't remember here --- [WaPo]
NEWT GINGRICH WANTS OBAMA TO DENOUNCE NUMBERS, PERCENTAGES - Today in South Carolina: "I repudiate, and I call on the President to repudiate, the concept of the 99 and the 1. It is un-American, it is divisive, it is historically false...You are not going to get job creation when you engage in class warfare because you have to attack the very people you hope will create jobs." [ThinkProgress]
@AlexNBCNews: Romney's Iowa HQ starting to look less like a fmr. Blockbuster -- adds a sign! #decision2012 #iacaucus instagr.am/p/Wg3rv/
DEMS GIVING MIXED SIGNALS ABOUT AUTOMATIC DEFICIT CUTS - Jim Clyburn is OK ditching them in exchange for extending the payroll tax cut: "I don't think we're locked into sequester in its current format. ... I don't think that we should close out negotiating or trying to reach a compromise on anything. That is how our government has operated the past. That's how our country has gotten to be what it is," he said on MSNBC's "The Rundown" today. Steny Hoyer isn't so sure.
ISSA GOING AFTER CAFE STANDARDS - The interesting thing is that Fred Upton, the Energy and Commerce chair, isn't crazy about undoing CAFE. Also interesting is how Darrell Issa never cares about that sort of thing. The Hill: "House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is pressing the country's major automakers for information about a series of closed-door negotiations with Obama administration officials that yielded beefed-up vehicle fuel economy standards. Issa sent letters Monday to the CEOs of 15 major automakers -- including General Motors, Chrysler and Ford -- requesting information on their role in the negotiations. The automakers worked closely with the Obama administration for months in a series of high-stakes negotiations that resulted in tougher fuel economy standards for light-duty cars and trucks, as well as heavy-duty trucks. The administration ultimately won the support of many of the country's major automakers." [The Hill]
REPORT: IN 2008, HANK PAULSON NEEDED TO CHECK IN WITH MOM AND DAD... A LOT - Reuters: "Today we learn that the Goldman meeting [with Treasury Secretary Paulson] in Moscow was not some kind of aberration. A few weeks later, on July 28 2008, Paulson met with a who's who of the hedge-fund world in the headquarters of Eton Park Capital Management -- a fund founded by former Goldman superstar Eric Mindich. 'The secretary, then 62, went on to describe a possible scenario for placing Fannie and Freddie into 'conservatorship' -- a government seizure designed to allow the firms to continue operations despite heavy losses in the mortgage markets... Paulson explained that under this scenario, the common stock of the two government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, would be effectively wiped out...
THERE'S PROSE, THERE'S POETRY... AND THEN THERE'S AL SHARPTON'S MSNBC 'LEAN FORWARD' AD - This debuted over the holiday, so it's been out for a while. Just watch it if you haven't already. If there isn't an autotuned version of this called "Blueberry Pie" tearing up YouTube by next week, we don't know what has become of our nation's storied and sacred meme culture.
Speaking of Al Shaprton, he gets named checked in GQ's "Least Influential Person Alive" write-up of Tim Pawlenty: "Every election season produces a number of hilariously pointless candidates who have no chance of winning. Some of them have value as novelty items. Look! It's Alan Keyes, the token black Republican! And over there! It's David Duke! He's a racist! These are the fun, fringy candidates. The Sharpton Sector, if you will. Then there are folks like Pawlenty, who fail to register even as novelties. T-Paw (as he calls himself) spent much of 2011 as a six-foot-tall paperweight, an aggressively forgettable fellow perfectly suited to the role of debate filler. The $1 million he spent to lose the Iowa straw poll might as well have been burned in front of a group of orphans." [GQ]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Car blows cat's mind.
JEREMY'S WEATHER REPORT - Tonight: You like this cold front? Yeah, no one does. But, the rain is tapering off, but we may see showers later. Tomorrow: The sun comes back out, but with some cooler temperatures -- like today, low 50s. Thanks, JB!
COMFORT FOOD
By @bradjshannon
- Music videos for Bon Iver's latest album were released today as a youtube playlist. [http://bit.ly/w0iPNl]
- Like Star Wars? Dislike cancer? Oh boy, have we got the video for you. [http://bit.ly/vcXAAt]
- Related: Beware SaltVader. [http://bit.ly/uRB771]
- The latest from the guy who made Yeezy's Power music video. [http://bit.ly/vr763t]
- Old hotness: train dog to balance things on butt. New hotness: train dog to leave the house so you can watch animal videos on the internet. [http://bit.ly/su1lwH]
- Related: Bit.ly analyzes all the links ever, determines the internet's most popular animals. [http://bit.ly/sZCfjk]
- Seemingly obvious invention invented, finally. [http://bit.ly/tQSwry]
TWITTERAMA
@FakeJimVandeHei: "a portrait has emerged of...." -- what you say when you only have vague impressions of your subject and nothing really interesting to say
@EricKleefeld 18 year-olds got the right to vote way back in 1971. Rick Perry was...21 years old at the time.
@pourmecoffee: "Every kiss begins with Cain" stuck in my head.
ON TAP
By @tylerkingkade
5:00pm - 6:00pm: Rep. Bill Owens (D-N.Y.) will be gathering money at the Seasonal New York Apple Harvest Reception. A little late for Apple harvesting, isn't it? [40 Ivy Street SE]
6:00pm: Who sucks more? The we can't make the playoffs to save our lives St. Louis Blues or the despite having the rock star of the NHL we can't win a game Washington Capitals? Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) goes on a fact-finding fundraiser mission to find out. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) will also be there on his own fundraiser. [Verizon Center, 601 F Street NW]
6:00pm: Orrin Hatch and Richard Burr grab din-din at Charlie Palmer Steak. [101 Constitution Ave NW]
6:30pm: Mitch McConnell helps Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wy.) raise some cash over cocktails and dinner. [220 E Street NE]
TOMORROW
8:00am: For as little as $500, you can hear Chuck Grassley at the Monocle Restaurant. [107 D Street NE]
8:30am: A bunch of lawyers consider giving Scott Brown cash over breakfast. [1601 K Street NW]
8:30am: Mitch McConnell gets breakfast with his best friend
8:30am - 9:30am: House Progressive Caucus co-chair Keith Ellison holds fundraiser at the National Democratic Club. [30 Ivy Street SE]
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