As we noted last night, John Boehner has now abdicated his responsibility to do anything to negotiate some solution to the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ problem. He now says the Senate has to act first. And only then will the House review the Senate’s proposal. So what’s going on? The only reasonable explanation is that he’s unwilling to act until he’s reelected as Speaker, as Harry Reid just said.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) says he opposes legislation that would allow teachers to bring concealed weapons into schools.
And before you write in, I was born in Missouri.
Just to keep you up to date, Scott Brown’s announcement of an imminent offer from the White House to Senate Republicans seems to have been mainly in Scott Brown’s imagination … or perhaps better to say a significant over-interpretation of communication between the White House and the Senate GOP. Or perhaps it’s real but he wasn’t supposed to say anything?
CNN earlier also reported this based on two unnamed sources. And they appear to be sticking to their story. But over the last few minutes basically all the key players in the mix have shot down the Brown report.
Maybe something’s happening. But for now it looks like Brown jumped the gun.
Some fascinating findings from Pew’s on-going number crunching of the 2012 election. African-Americans, for the first time ever, may have voted at higher rates than American whites. Read More
As you’ve probably heard, there’s a growing furor about the decision of a suburban New York newspaper to publish a database of the names and addresses of registered gun owners in two New York counties (Rockland and Westchester) just north of New York City. The data is already in the public domain. You or I could have accessed it a week ago. But it’s a little different to have it in a fingertips-ready web 2.0 form. Read More
Anyone who knows me or has worked with me knows I’m a creature of tablets — old-fashioned, narrow-ruled, white paper tablets. I write out notes, sketches, lists. Like many of us, I think by writing things out. And unlike some people I keep the tablets. One part lapsed historian, one part pack-rat, I don’t like losing my record of the ideas and thoughts I put on paper. Read More
One of the great benign facts of today’s America is that crime of most sorts has dropped dramatically over the last two decades. There’s plenty of argument over causes. Some significant role goes to the end of the major crack wars of the 80s and early 90s. Different law enforcement strategies play a role. My own take is that the biggest factors are social trends we are only dimly able to understand or analyze. One day, certainly. For now we’re largely limited to measuring the effects rather than isolating causes.
But far all that, your chances of getting murdered remain wildly different in different parts of the country. Read More
Key Democratic Senate aide tells TPM Dems aren’t interested in a short term fiscal cliff deal.
From TPM Reader RG …
I’ve been reading and communicating with you for some years. I own a few small businesses, and earlier this morning I had a conversation with the woman who does our payroll, as I’m planning the coming week’s activity. I think that something that is simply not getting enough airtime is the really nitty gritty about the cost of this fiscal cliff insanity.