TPM Reader GH:
Enough! Yes, the Dems haven’t handled the tax-cut debate very well, starting with their decision to accept the frame of “partially extending the Bush tax cuts”, as opposed to declaring that the Bush tax cuts had failed, and Obama would be proposing his own plan. And not holding the vote before the election made them look weak.
But can we please dispense with the canard that all the tax cuts are being extended due to Democratic cowardice and/or disarray? There is one simple reason we are where we are: Because there was zero chance that any Republican senators would vote for any plan that raised anyone’s taxes. Not at a threshold of $250,000. Not at a threshold of $1 million. And if Dems had upped it to $1 billion, they still wouldn’t have gotten any GOP votes. And without those votes, it wasn’t going to get through the Senate.
Let’s be honest with each other here: Presidential press conferences are usually news voids into which a lot of ink and chatter are dumped.
But Obama’s press conference this afternoon will be seen as a turning point if not in his Presidency then in how we understand and perceive him and his approach to politics. I say that keenly aware of the press’ tendency to see itself at the center of the story and of TV’s tendency to view history as a series of moments caught on camera. So I’m having to overcome a lot of my built-in skepticism about over-reading these kinds of pseudo-events. Read More
Reports coming in now that Elizabeth Edwards has succumbed to cancer.
Edwards passed away at 10:15 a.m. ET, CNN reports.
The Gothic details of the final years of her life make her death more poignant, but that’s not what made my shoulders slump yesterday when we learned that she was in the final stages of the disease. I keep coming to back to the age of the Edwards’ two youngest children: 12 and 10. That’s the only detail that really matters.
The Minnesota Supreme Court has handed Republican nominee for governor Tom Emmer a significant legal setback in his effort to overtake Democrat Mark Dayton in the state’s recount — curtailing the legal options available to him to contest the election.
Word from Minnesota is that Emmer may throw in the towel this morning in an 11:30 ET press conference at his home. Caution: similar word came last week in advance of a separate Emmer press conference and turned out to be wrong.
The smart money gives DADT repeal no chance. I was talking last night to someone who follows this issue very closely and put the chances of repeal happening at 5 percent. It’s frankly less about the opposition to repeal than it is about the crowded legislative calendar, the short lame duck session, and the way the tax cut negotiating has played out. Which is to say it’s about priorities: DADT repeal is not at the top of the list for the White House or Senate Democrats.
But when I see someone like Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) come out in favor of repeal, it does make me wonder. Why expose himself on this issue if it’s not going to happen anyway?
NYT: No one is investigating us over Wikileaks .. that we know of.
The Senate today unanimously convicted federal district Judge Thomas Porteous of the Eastern District of Louisiana on all 4 impeachment charges against him, making Porteous just the eighth federal judge to be removed from office via the impeachment process.