1/ The fiscal cliff - we all have some rudimentary idea what happened and what the spin from both sides is, but what does this "deal" really mean? Frank Rich tells us.......
Every week, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich talks with assistant editor Eric Benson about the biggest stories in politics and culture. This week: the end of the "Fiscal Cliff" crisis, Howard Schulz's bipartisanship fetish, and John Roberts's latest political play.
In the first hours of the new year, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a not-so-grand bargain to arrest our fall off the "fiscal cliff." The White House is hailing the deal as a big win. Many liberals, from the Iowa Senator Tom Harkin to our own Jonathan Chait, see it as Obama yet again snatching defeat (or at least partial defeat) from the jaws of victory. What's your take?
It is discouraging that Obama would retreat on what he had previously vowed to be a nonnegotiable line in the sand — refusing to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for income over $250,000 a year. (That line moved to $400,000 for individuals, $450,000 for couples.) He ran on this inviolate stand and won. It makes you wonder if he will hold to his other ostensibly firm position — refusing to let the nation’s debt ceiling be held hostage in the coming battle over budget cuts, due in March. That said, Obama did stave off cuts to Social Security and Medicare and extended unemployment insurance for a year. But in truth, for all the news-media hysteria over the “fiscal cliff,” the cliff may prove a molehill in the view of history anyway. It’s just another skirmish in an ideological war that promises far bloodier battles ahead.
The House passed the Senate bill late last night after much public bellyaching from the GOP. Only 85 Republicans supported the bill and the party's leadership was divided, with John Boehner and Paul Ryan voting "yea" and Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy voting "nay." Is this a one-time split or are we witnessing the crack-up of the current GOP?
There’s no split. Those 85 Republicans in the House who voted for the bill are the outliers; they were outnumbered nearly two-to-one by those Republicans who voted against it. This is still a party of Tea Party ideology, and it has no incentive to change.
2/ One of the many fiscal cliff headlines that came and went was this one.....which I found quite interesting......
The President's office sent over some concessions they wanted Harry Reid to make, and he threw this list in the fire!
Harry Reid Threw Obama Fiscal Cliff Proposal Into Burning Fireplace
WASHINGTON -- Shortly after 7:00 Saturday evening, the offices of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) were still trading offers. McConnell left the Senate for the night, and Reid's staff said they'd get back to him by mid-morning.
The White House sent Reid a list of suggested concessions as his staff debated what to send back to McConnell. Reid looked over the concessions the administration wanted to offer, crumpled up the paper and tossed it into his fireplace. The gesture was first reported by Politico and confirmed to HuffPost by sources with knowledge of it, who noted that Reid frequently keeps his fire going and is fond of feeding a variety of proposals to it.
Reid's staff then called McConnell's office with a simple message: Our last offer stands. There will be no further concessions. McConnell took to the Senate floor, complaining that he had no "dance partner" in Reid, and called Vice President Joe Biden, a man he assumed would be more willing to give. McConnell was right.
3/ The history of our world in 2 minutes… it's a project by a high school student, and I certainly hope he got an "A".......
http://marcbrecy.perso.neuf.
http://marcbrecy.perso.neuf.
4/ Paul Krugman has an excellent column today in the Times - what the political battles we will be having this year will mean to us all.......
The centrist fantasy of a Grand Bargain on the budget never had a chance. Even if some kind of bargain had supposedly been reached, key players would soon have reneged on the deal — probably the next time a Republican occupied the White House.
For the reality is that our two major political parties are engaged in a fierce struggle over the future shape of American society. Democrats want to preserve the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — and add to them what every other advanced country has: a more or less universal guarantee of essential health care. Republicans want to roll all of that back, making room for drastically lower taxes on the wealthy. Yes, it’s essentially a class war.
The fight over the fiscal cliff was just one battle in that war. It ended, arguably, in a tactical victory for Democrats. The question is whether it was a Pyrrhic victory that set the stage for a larger defeat.
Why do I say that it was a tactical victory? Mainly because of what didn’t happen: There were no benefit cuts.
This was by no means a foregone conclusion. In 2011, the Obama administration was reportedly willing to raise the age of Medicare eligibility, a terrible and cruel policy idea. This time around, it was willing to cut Social Security benefits by changing the formula for cost-of-living adjustments, a less terrible idea that would nonetheless have imposed a lot of hardship — and probably have been politically disastrous as well. In the end, however, it didn’t happen. And progressives, always worried that President Obama seems much too willing to compromise about fundamentals, breathed a sigh of relief.
There were also some actual positives from a progressive point of view.
5/ If you saw the "Hunger Games" [great movie by the way] you will be amused by this parody of what Katniss really meant to say.....3 good minutes.....
6/ Charles Blow is a little less optimistic than Krugman - he is worried about the endless battles to come between the crazy Republicans in the House and the President......
And as he says the public is disgusted with Congress, and the media plays along by blaming the Republicans and Democrats equally.....but it's the GOP that are the dysfunctional ones......
Cliff After Cliff
By CHARLES M. BLOW
We have a deal. But please hold your applause, indefinitely.
We momentarily went over the fiscal cliff but clawed our way back up the rock face. Unfortunately, we are most likely in store for a never-ending series of cliffs for our economy, our government and indeed our country. Soon we’ll have to deal with the sequester, a debt-ceiling extension and possibly a budget, all of which hold the specter of revisiting the unresolvable conflicts and intransigence of the fiscal cliff. Imagine an M. C. Escher drawing of cliffs.
Be clear: there is no reason to celebrate. This is a mournful moment. We — and by we I mean Congress, and by Congress I mean the Republicans in Congress — have again demonstrated just how broken and paralyzed our government has become, how beholden to hostage-takers, how vulnerable to extremism.
A fiscal cliff deal was cut at the last possible minute, covering a minimal number of issues. It was far from perfect and barely palatable. It was a compromise, and compromises are inherently imperfect. No one likes the whole of it, but they balance the bad parts against the good and see beyond dissension.
As the fiscal cliff votes came down to the wire, many repeated the aphorism: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But sadly, we are beyond even that. Now the perfunctory has become the victim of the grueling.
The American people suffered through another moment of manufactured suspense brought on by political malpractice. There was no grand bargain. There was only a begrudging acquiescence.
Not only is the era of grand bargains “over,” as Jennifer Steinhauer wrote in The Times on Tuesday, I believe that the era of basic governance is screeching to a halt.
As Steinhauer pointed out in September:
“The 112th Congress is set to enter the Congressional record books as the least productive body in a generation, passing a mere 173 public laws as of last month. That was well below the 906 enacted from January 1947 through December 1948 by the body President Harry S. Truman referred to as the ‘do-nothing’ Congress, and far fewer than even a single session of many prior Congresses.”
7/ The wonderful Swan Lake performed by the Chinese State Circus.....you could call this ballet on steroids....an incredible five minutes......
8/ No big movies out today, so here is a list of returning TV shows and new ones starting this January......there are some excellent programs coming, but the trick is sorting through the chaff for the good ones you can set the DVR to record..........
"The Following" on Jan 21 looks interesting, as does "House of Cards" on Netflix starting Feb. 1. There are also some others that look intelligent ......one they don't mention is in my opinion one of the best cop shows ever made "Southland", which returns in February.......
Click on "fullscreen" and "show captions" for the slide show......
Yes, Downton Abbey is back: the beloved British period drama returns to PBS’sMasterpiece for a third season beginning on Jan. 6, but it’s not the only new or noteworthy show heading to television this winter.
Indeed, some of the most intriguing, dynamic, or plain interesting shows are launching in midseason this year, from Fox’s serial killer drama The Following and Sundance Channel’s Jane Campion-created murder mystery Top of the Lake to FX’s Soviet spy period drama The Americans (starring Keri Russell!), Netflix's American remake of political potboiler House of Cards, and the return of both NBC’s subversive comedy Community and HBO’s Girls.
Jace Lacob rounds up 18 new and returning television shows that will help keep you warm during these chilly winter months, from the intriguing to the sensational.
9/ And this Sunday we have a treat - season 3 of "Downton Abbey" starts, and as this review says it was worth waiting for.....set the DVR NOW!
‘Downton Abbey’ Season 3 Review: A Return to Form
Jan 3, 2013 4:45 AM EST
Which isn’t to say that Season 3 lacks surprises. Alternately humorous and heartbreaking, Downton’s stunning third season packs several narrative punches into PBS’s seven-week run.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/
10/ A comedian, Michael David Ford performs his very funny routine for Ronald Reagan and other pols in the 80's.....still current, damn good actually......9 minutes.....
11/ One of the things we all instinctively know was complete BS is the claim that your "electronic device" might interfere with a plane's controls.....it's a power thing - put away your phones 'cos we tell you to....
Over the last year, flying with phones and other devices has become increasingly dangerous.
In September, a passenger was arrested in El Paso after refusing to turn off his cellphone as the plane was landing. In October, a man in Chicago was arrested because he used his iPad during takeoff. In November, half a dozen police cars raced across the tarmac at La Guardia Airport in New York, surrounding a plane as if there were a terrorist on board. They arrested a 30-year-old man who had also refused to turn off his phone while on the runway.
Who is to blame in these episodes? You can’t solely pin it on the passengers. Some of the responsibility falls on the Federal Aviation Administration, for continuing to uphold a rule that is based on the unproven idea that a phone or tablet can interfere with the operation of a plane.
These conflicts have been going on for several years. In 2010, a 68-year-old man punched a teenager because he didn’t turn off his phone. Lt. Kent Lipple of the Boise Police Department in Idaho, who arrested the puncher, said the man “felt he was protecting the entire plane and its occupants.” And let’s not forget Alec Baldwin, who was kicked off an American Airlines plane in 2011 for playing Words With Friends online while parked at the gate.
Dealing with the F.A.A. on this topic is like arguing with a stubborn teenager. The agency has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane’s avionics, but it still perpetuates such claims, spreading irrational fear among millions of fliers.
A year ago, when I first asked Les Dorr, a spokesman for the F.A.A., why the rule existed, he said the agency was being cautious because there was no proof that device use was completely safe. He also said it was because passengers needed to pay attention during takeoff.
When I asked why I can read a printed book but not a digital one, the agency changed its reasoning. I was told by another F.A.A. representative that it was because an iPad or Kindle could put out enough electromagnetic emissions to disrupt the flight. Yet a few weeks later, the F.A.A. proudly announced that pilots could now use iPads in the cockpit instead of paper flight manuals.
12/ Just in case you have started feeling less than disgusted with our horrible, corrupt and vicious Governor here is Rick Scott on Soledad O'Brien's show on CNN dancing around gun control. I forced myself to watch this asshole for for the four minutes, then I had to take a shower.....yech, what a scumbag.....
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) doggedly avoided CNN host Soledad O’Brien’s requests on Wednesday to take a definable position on gun laws after last week’s mass shooting in Connecticut.
“What would you support in terms of legislation, if it in fact comes with that?” O’Brien asked. “Do you believe in stricter gun laws. You’re well supported by the NRA, and historically they have not supported that. How far would you be willing to go?”
Scott, who has received an A rating from the National Rifle Association, dodged the question, instead beginning his answer by reaffirming his support for the Second Amendment.
13/ Live in Lake County, Fl.?
Great two-part column from Lauren Ritchie on our Lake County Commission under the "leadership" of Leslie Campione, chair of the Commission.....if you want to know what our County Government is doing and is likely to do in 2013, read this excellent and very professional article.........
Every year, Lake County commissioners elect a chair, who is expected to shape the future and lead the government. The chair for the coming year is to be Commissioner Leslie Campione, who also served in that capacity the past year.
In suggesting that Campione serve a second term in the leadership role, newly elected Commissioner Tim Sullivan said, "We're in tough times, and I believe some continuation is important."
The commissioner is wrong. Continuity is important only when a leader has been successful, not simply when times are tough. And Campione has not been successful.
She dealt the county an unnecessary financial blow when she threw aside months of meticulous budget planning and irresponsibly led the effort to balance the county budget using reserves.
Worse, she naively threatened the existence of the publicly owned ambulance service and made similar noises about taking over the jail from the sheriff. Result: Employees of Lake Emergency Medical Services unionized, and jail employees will be voting on a union in the next 60 days.
Lake will be feeling the financially painful effects of Campione's clumsy "leadership" for years to come.
By her own account, her successes are actions such as hosting meetings to talk about the economy, visiting businesses and creating zones for trade.
But she really made her mark with the public when it came to sorting out county spending priorities.
Let's look at Campione's role in the budget fiasco.
http://www.orlandosentinel.
Second column.......
Todays video - remember the hilly chase scene from "Bullitt" with Steve McQueen? Here it is.....wow......
Todays British joke
I was in a bar Saturday night, and had a few beers.
I noticed two very large women seated by themselves at the far end of the bar.
They both had pretty strong accents, so I asked, "Hey, are you two ladies from Ireland ?"
One of them snidely replied, "It's WALES, you friggin' idiot!"
So I immediately apologized and said, "I'm sorry. Are you two whales from Ireland ?"
That's pretty much the last thing I remember...."
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Todays intellectual joke
No dictionary has been able to explain adequately the difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED.
However, at a recent linguistics conference held in London, England , and attended by some of the best linguists in the world, Samsundar Balgobin, a Guyanese, was the clear winner.
His final challenge was this: Some say there is no difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED. Please explain the difference between COMPLETE and FINISHED in a way that is easy to understand.
Here is his astute answer : "When you marry the right woman, you are COMPLETE . But, when you marry the wrong woman, you are FINISHED . And when the right one catches you with the wrong one, you are COMPLETELY FINISHED !"
His answer was received with a standing ovation lasting over 5 minutes , and it entitled him to receive an invitation to dine with the Queen .
Todays senior cartoons
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