You do realize that Christmas is just eight days away, right?

So How Bout Some Christmas Spirit

Here's Mr. Snow Miser from 1974's "The Year Without a Santa Claus". An early imagining of the Gore Effect.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:15 PM | Comments (532)
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Looks like it.

URGENT URGENT Sen Harry Reid (D-NV) says he won't force vote on earmark-filled Senate Omnibus budget bill

Full story here.

Various reports are now saying Reid is going to talk to McConnell about a short term Continuing Resolution (which is what McConnell demanded earlier today).

Reid says he had commitments from 9 Republicans to vote for Omnibus but they walked away from it.

Well, they may not be committed to fiscal discipline but it seems they are scared. That's good enough.

On the downside...Reid is filing cloture on DADT and DREAM Act. He's likely to get DADT passed.

On the floor now...McCain and Mark Kirk are gloating over the death of the Omnibus. Kirk asked McCain, "Did we win?" McCain said yes in an oblique, not rub it in kind of way.

Apparently the GOP put together another letter that they all signed saying, 'no'. And so it died.

Now McCaskill is whining about how the GOP is taking all the credit for this. Heh. This is delicious.

I didn't see what McConnell said but it's got Democrats pissed off, so that's a good thing.

You have to give McConnell credit, he's held the caucus together on taxes and the budget.

Conservatives will probably lose on DADT repeal, so the big fight is DREAM Act.

Related: House passes rule and is now debating tax cut deal. It sounds like there will be no change except to perhaps allow a separate vote on the Death Tax and the overall package.

It will pass later tonight.

Added: As Mr. Wolf would say, let's not partake of the sodomy just yet.

It's great to kill earmarks but as a budget matter they aren't even a rounding error. Now that big spending decisions will be pushed over until the GOP has the House and more votes in the Senate, we need to do more...CUT SPENDING.

Posted by: DrewM at 04:05 PM | Comments (279)
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Ron Wyden of Oregon will be missing votes for the next month.

In a strictly – and callously – political sense, Wyden’s absence from the Senate for the remainder of this year could prove problematic for Democrats, who are set to take up a slew of high-profile measures where every vote will likely be crucial. In the Senate – where partisan rhetoric has escalated in recent days as the end of the lame-duck session approaches – Democrats are expected to need every vote they can get on the START treaty, the omnibus spending bill, the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal, and more.

According to Dave Wiegel (scan down), Wyden will be missing votes tomorrow and next week, and has surgery scheduled for December 20th.

Thanks to rdbrewer.

Posted by: Ace at 02:00 PM | Comments (233)
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Almost president, you know.

He is talking specifically about the reading of the bill, aloud, on the Senate floor that DeMint is going to force, but that is really a chance to read it for the first time.

I can't believe the whining here about "wasting time," by which he means wasting vacation time -- the sooner he's done with work, he gets to go to Cape Cod or wherever.

If you don't want to take the time to read the bill, pass a stupid one-month continuing resolution as Mitch McConnell proposed and then you get to go home early. Okay?

Posted by: Ace at 01:02 PM | Comments (184)
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The Department of Labor released the initial unemployment claims data this morning. You all may recall a couple of months ago when I noted that we were seeing a sudden, dramatic shift in the behavior of initial unemployment claims. From Nov '09 through July '10 they showed no improvement at all, but in mid-August something changed. And ever since then it's continued on a new course. Here's what I mean (click on the graph for the legible version):

Then, thankfully, something kicked the claims rate back onto its original glide path, and improvement resumed. My theory, as I shared with you last month, was that the catalyst for this improvement was industry's response to the news that the GOP was likely to take control of the House. I'm willing to entertain other theories, but the timing is awfully good for mine.

In any case, take heart, for industry is showing signs of life. The financial and real estate pictures are not so rosy, but at least industry is starting to get back on its feet.

Now that it's got some stable ground to stand on.

Posted by: Geoff at 12:12 PM | Comments (114)
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"The Brothers Mario." A story of two mobsters collecting coins and fighting the rival Goombas gang.

Shit just got real. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:36 AM | Comments (48)
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Drew just mentioned this, and Bennett (Appropriator, UT) attempting to get all the sweet sweet pork he can before leaving office.

Coburn's database has all the pork for your inspection.

Here are two that Slublog has called out so far:

$500,000: Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, Boston, MA, for educational program development, including an endowment

Requested by Marky in the House and Kerry in the Senate.

From Debbie Stabenow:

$800,000: Crim Fitness Foundation, Flint, MI for a youth program to combat obesity in Flint school

But a little funnier, this from Senatrix Kay Hagan of North Carolina:

$750,000: Bennett College for Women, Greensboro, NC to establish a Center for Women

Slublog asks increduously: A college for women needs a special federal grant to establish a center for women? Really?

And a cool million for La Raza, thanks to Jeff Bingaman:

$1,000,000: National Council of La Raza, Washington, DC, for the Institute of Hispanic Health

Oh wait, another million for La Raza:

$1,000,000: Capitalization of a Revolving Loan Fund to be Used for Nationwide Community Development Activities (La Raza is the actual recipient)

That's requested by two Congressmen, Gutierrez and Hinojosa.

Funny how so many of those voting to "ban" earmarks are requesting millions of dollars' worth of them.

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, requested nearly $86.1 million for Kentucky, including $18 million for a railroad upgrade at Fort Knox, $1 million to build a Kentucky Blood Bank Center and $1 million for waterfront development in Paducah.

Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, one of seven Democrats who voted with Republicans to ban earmarks, had $30 million in requests, including $8 million to move the main gate of Patrick Air Force Base and $400,000 to create a research park in Sebring.

The spending bill also contained dozens of earmarks for projects in the home states of Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, and Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, who appeared at a news conference Wednesday to criticize Democrats for what they called a pork-laden spending bill.

Mr. Cornyn requested nearly $93.5 million, including $1 million for a National Wind Resource Center. Along with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, another Texas Republican, he asked for $2 million for the Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program, which transfers the knowledge and technology of the space program to small businesses, according to the groupÂ’s Web site.

Mr. Thune requested nearly $38.5 million, most of it with his fellow South Dakota senator, Tim Johnson, a Democrat. About $25 million was for construction at military installations.

It's a pet theory of mine that if a culture supports a particular kind of corruption, wars on corruption are the wrong way to go, because the culture doesn't support it, and will undermine it at every turn.

And the way you have to deal with that is to create a safe-harbor for corruption, and allowable level, and the escalating penalties and reductions regarding what's permitted by the safe-harbor, over time, so that you give the culture time to adapt, and actually adopt the new rules as real rules. So, if the police are corrupt, first you really start cracking down on the big stuff, while continuing to let the small stuff slide. Then you start going after the medium stuff. Then finally you really start going after all sorts of corruption.

This is based on the idea that only 10% of the population is truly, incorruptibly good, and only 10% truly, incorrigibly bad, and that the other 80% will be either good or bad depending on what it seems they can get away with, what the culture will allow. You can't prosecute the 90% of cops who will be corrupt in a corrupt system, so you escalate enforcement slowly, so that the 80% ethical swingers catch up and begin behaving like the 10% who are always good behave. Now that you've cleaved between the situationally-bad and innately-bad, and gotten the situationally-bad to begin acting situationally-good, you start throwing the book at everyone you catch.

Something like that might be needed with earmarks. A flat ban just seems unacceptable to these jerkoffs. Maybe some cap, based on state size, which is reduced every year until it's a very small little slush fund.

Posted by: Ace at 10:06 AM | Comments (277)
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Skip ahead to 2:10 for the Muppet.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:46 AM | Comments (33)
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Via Michelle Malkin, the Democrats have pulled the rule that would have allowed the debate on the tax deal.

RT @jamiedupree: URGENT URGENT URGENT - House Democrats just pulled the rule off the floor for the tax deal - must be short on votes

They've moved onto a list of mundane bills that they are simply postponing final action on. It's just time filler at this point.

Sounds like big trouble for the deal.

Update: House leader says it's just "a bump" but that at the moment, they have no idea what they are going to do about it. Yeah, they've got some real issues here.

One of the big sticking points is Democrats in the House really want to up the Death Tax but the Senate GOP has made it clear this is a take it or leave offer. Basically, it's the House Democrats (and some Republicans) against the 81 members of the Senate who voted for the deal in a game of chicken.

UPDATE 2: Gabe sends along links to NRO's Daniel Foster who thinks Nancy may have boxed herself in with the procedure she used to bring the bill to the floor. Basically it would mean Democrats could vote for a hike in the Death Tax but even if that failed (which it would), they'd be passing the underlying tax deal. Seems liberals want to vote on them separately but can't under the proposed rule.

Somewhat related: Mitch McConnell says no to porked up Omnibus spending bill.

"Today IÂ’m introducing this: a clean, one-page continuing resolution that keeps government funded through February 18th at current spending levels. Once the new Congress is sworn in, weÂ’ll have a chance to pass a less expensive bill free of wasteful spending."

Why Republicans would agree to anything else is beyond me. Their position will be so much stronger in a few weeks, it's idiotic to consider anything else. Of course the real issue is it might be tougher for some pork addicted Senators to get what they want in a few weeks, so they might sell everyone else out for their own "goodies" (Princes Lisa comes to mind).

So far the only Republican yes vote is Robert Bennett (Appropriator, UT), who was denied renomination over his appetite for pork. A spender to the end.

Meanwhile, Jim DeMint is sticking to his threat to make the clerks read all 1,924 pages of the bill. It took 2 days to print the damn thing, so it will likely take at least that long to read it.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:59 AM | Comments (215)
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First, the newer one, Thor. more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 AM | Comments (74)
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