Jon Stewart: “Since when does the Republican Party make 9/11 first responders stand over in the corner with the gays and Mexicans?” Watch.
An unhappy Al Franken blames Obama for having “punted on first down” but will vote for the temporary extension of tax cuts for the wealthy: “I am taking the President at his word that he will fight harder to put an end to these wasteful tax breaks in 2012 than he did in 2010.”
The House will take up DADT repeal yet again tomorrow. This time it’s the standalone repeal bill after the previous defense bill failed in the Senate. The House is expected to pass it, clearing the way for a Senate vote — if the Senate can manage to get the bill onto its calendar.
I was thinking it had been a while since one of our top politicians here in New York had been hit with a major felony indictment. And sure enough, the Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Pedro Espada Jr (D-Bronx) and his son were just charged with stealing more than half a million dollars from clients of their nonprofit health care network.
Sen. Kyl (R) accuses Sen. Reid (D) of disrespecting Christians by scheduling Senate business between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
It’s flying a bit under the radar, but there’s an interesting power play underway in the House. With Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) set to become chairman of the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee — and promising to move aggressively to investigate the Obama Administration — Democrats in the House and the White House were worried that the outgoing chairman, Rep. Ed Towns (D-NY), was not up to the task of standing up to Issa and fending off runaway investigations. So there’s been a move afoot since Election Day to replace Towns as ranking member. Read More
Another internal Fox News email via Media Matters, this one from vice president of news Bill Sammon on the network’s policy on global warming:
Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data … we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.
The backstory here.
Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) makes a good point about how the Obama tax plan creates a potential future political pitfall for Social Security.
Supporters of that birther Army doc being court-martialed are sticking by him after his guilty plea to one of the charges against him.