And the "Global Test" is back!

Obama, making the announcement as Kerry and his wife looked on, praised the senator's "extraordinarily distinguished Senate career" and military service "with valor" in the Vietnam War.

"Over these many years, John's earned the respect and confidence of leaders around the world. He is not going to need a lot of on-the-job-training," Obama said. "I think it is fair to say that few individuals know as many presidents and prime ministers or grasp our foreign policies as firmly as John Kerry, and this makes him a perfect choice to guide American diplomacy in the years ahead."

Kerry has traveled the globe on behalf of the Obama administration to mend frayed relationships. Most notably, he traveled to Pakistan after relations had been set back by a series of incidents, including the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"John's played a central role in every major foreign policy debate for nearly 30 years," Obama said. "As we turn the page on a decade of war, he understands that we have to harness all elements of American power and ensure that they're working together, diplomatic and development, economic and political, military and intelligence as well as the power of our values which inspires so many people around the world."

4 years of him and Obama is going to mighty tough to listen to.

Deval Patrick will make an interim appointment and then there will be a special election. Will Scott Brown go for it again?

Fun factoid: Kerry's nomination will have to be cleared by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The same committee he's chairman of at the moment.

As Chairman of Foreign Relations, Kerry helped sheppard Obama's START II deal with the Russians through the Senate. The treaty was too awful even for....Lindsay Graham.

Flexibility baby!

As you might expect, Kerry is no fan of missile defense. Obama is clearly transmitting information to Vladimir via this appointment.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:47 AM | Comments (362)
Post contains 343 words, total size 2 kb.

They called it a “press conference” but NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre read a statement (pdf) and then left.

The big takeaway people are talking about is the NRAÂ’s call to have a cop in every school. IÂ’ll get to that in a moment but first I want to run through a couple of the statements that I found to be problematic.

And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting
shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.

Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm,
Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And hereÂ’s one:
itÂ’s called Kindergarten Killers. ItÂ’s been online for 10 years. How come
my research department could find it and all of yours either couldnÂ’t or
didnÂ’t want anyone to know you had found it?

Then thereÂ’s the blood-soaked slasher films like "American Psycho"
and "Natural Born Killers" that are aired like propaganda loops on
"Splatterdays" and every day, and a thousand music videos that
portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life. And then they have
the nerve to call it "entertainment."

But is that what it really is? Isn't fantasizing about killing people as a
way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography?

In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one
another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized
society by bringing an ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and
criminal cruelty into our homes — every minute of every day of
every month of every year.

So guns donÂ’t kill people, video games and movies do?

The NRA has rightly fought back against the notion that guns and not people are the problem. To see them try and shift blame and undercut the logic of their own argument is disappointing and beneath them.

It’s always easy to say, “don’t take away my freedom, take away the other guy’s” but we shouldn’t even entertain ideas like that. It’s stupid when liberals set up a choice between 1st and 2nd Amendment rights and it’s not any better when the NRA does it. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 10:45 AM | Comments (364)
Post contains 1081 words, total size 7 kb.

Ya'll deserve a fresh thread. To kick it off, here's a supercut of the Worst Films of 2012 describing the Worst Films of 2012.

Go nuts.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:21 AM | Comments (155)
Post contains 39 words, total size 1 kb.

This is sort of a follow-up to Damn Dirty RINO's post about the life of a weekend bartender, but from the perspective on the other side of the bar.

Admittedly, these rules don't apply to all bars. One of my first regular stops when I was tall enough to look over the bar to order a drink was a place that taught me to order my beer, sit down, shut up and listen to the juke box. Anything else would jeopardize my health.

This is tailored to my local joint in the suburbs, so some of the behavior just doesn't exist in other places. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 03:25 PM | Comments (437)
Post contains 383 words, total size 2 kb.

Early in the week I wrote about the bloated Sandy relief bill working its way through the Senate. It'll be up for a vote this afternoon, but before that it'll need sixty votes for cloture. To get GOP crossovers, the Democrats have larded up the bill with extra spending items having nothing to do with Sandy.

A reminder of what's in the bill:

$5.3B to Army Corps of Engineers (that's more than their annual budget).
$150 million in fisheries disaster recovery in Alaska, Mississippi, and American Samoa.
$56.8 million for charting the debris from last year's Japanese tsunami.
$41 million for eight military bases including Guantanamo Bay.
$100 million for the federal Head Start day care program.
$188 million for new Amtrak lines (not repair, whole new lines).
$20 million for a nationwide "Water Resources Priorities Study".
$4 million for the Kennedy Space Center.

ABC News obtained a marked-up version of the bill that's been edited by hand to reflect the attempt to get Republican votes.

Both the Club for Growth and Heritage Action are urging Senators to vote against the bill and promising to include it in their annual "scorecard" of votes. I hadn't noticed the Corps of Engineers shenanigans until Heritage Action pointed it out:

For example, of the $5.35 billion requested for the Corps of Engineers, just $1.838 billion – or 34% – is for “disaster recovery.” The remaining $3.512 billion is for mitigation efforts, which the Obama administration request says would be used to address “impacts associated with a changing climate.”

According to Politico, that CoE pork is directed at GOP senators in Louisiana and North Dakota. You can guess that the "fisheries relief" is to woo Senators from Mississippi and Alaska. If the Dems get those votes, the bill will pass.

If you're the type to call or email your Senator, now's the time. This will be voted on today, probably around 2pm.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:08 AM | Comments (227)
Post contains 338 words, total size 2 kb.

Let me say I'm not writing this from a Let It Burn perspective, I'm just looking at the actual state of play. Let me also say in looking at it from a GOP perspective, Plan B was probably the best play Boehner had left after screwing things up from the start.

That said nothing but some PR points were lost.

Supporters of Plan B like Gabe correctly point out that killing the bill does nothing to advance the cause of saving all the current tax rates. That's simply not on the table.

But supporters, again like Gabe, are also wrong when they say

Plan B prevents tax hikes for 99.81% of taxpayers, has permanent death tax relief, a permanent AMT fix, and permanent reforms to the marriage penalty.

Well it would have done all of that but only if Senate Democrats passed it and Obama signed it. That's a fanciful notion equal to the one they mock their opponents for.

Why in the world having won the White House and expanded their Senate majority would the Democrats simply cave into what the House GOP passes? This is especially unlikely considering it's not just a clean tax hike on millionaires but includes things they hate like the current death tax rate AND $242 Billion in cuts ABOVE the sequestration cuts.

I'm sure Democrats were just salivating at the chance to pass all that stuff they hate.

But wait! There's LESS!

Not only did Plan B include a ton of things the Democrats hate, it also offered nothing they like such as the payroll tax "holiday" or expansion of tax credits or new spending.

Why it's so obvious they would have jumped at that deal!

Passing it in the House alone was simply a public offer of good faith designed to have something to point to when Obama pushes the country over the cliff.

Now the GOP will take a greater publicity hit because they tried to do something and failed. They'd have been better off doing what the Senate did...nothing. The only difference between Harry Reid and John Boehner is that Reid didn't look like an ineffective jackass in the process of accomplishing nothing.

Speaking of Speaker Boehner, let's remember we have him to thank for a lot of this mess. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 08:11 AM | Comments (271)
Post contains 835 words, total size 5 kb.

Transcript (pdf)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:07 AM | Comments (165)
Post contains 8 words, total size 1 kb.

I don't get the hand-wringing over Boehner's latest episode of stepping on his own dick. He's an ineffectual and therefore inconsequential Speaker, and I have no idea why anyone held out hope he'd come up with a political "win" here.

As if the passage of plan B was going to ever provide any significant political cover.

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:46 PM | Comments (491)
Post contains 408 words, total size 2 kb.

• Remember When The Left Scoffed At People Concerned About Our Culture?
  
• Piers Morgan's Argument For Gun Control
  
• UN Backs Mali Intervention Force
  
• US Marine Convicted Of Urinating On Corpses Of Taliban Insurgents
  
• France Declares Victory In Afghanistan And Brings Their Troops Home
  
• In Case You Missed Andy's Link To It, Here Is A Great Piece On Gun Control
  
• Corey Booker Decides Not To Challenge Christie
  
• Guns Out Of Stock At Many Walmarts
  
• VDH: Unchecked Racial Tribalism
  
• Charlie Rose Settles Class Action Lawsuit With Underpaid Interns
  
• Jake Tapper Leaves ABC For CNN
  
• The Media Just Want Some Kind Of Gun Banned. They're Not To Picky. They Just Want A Victory
  
• US Olympian Admits To Living A Double Life As A 600 Dollar An Hour Escort
  
• ATF Raids Gun Shop Where CT Shooter's Mother Bought Gun Used In Massacre
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:28 AM | Comments (107)
Post contains 149 words, total size 2 kb.

Stephen Bainbridge is a well-respected law professor and blogger who is a strong advocate of property rights. He writes here about the conflict between our right to bear arms and other's rights to control over their property. In Korb v. Voith Industrial Servs., Inc., 12CV0222 (W.D. Ky Nov. 28, 2012), a corporation terminated an employee for violating the company policy prohibiting weapons on company property.

I think he is perfectly correct, and the court made the right decision. And lest you think I am not a 2nd Amendment absolutist, ponder this: the virtual ban on full-auto is a ridiculous infringement on our rights. The founders didn't add the 2nd Amendment to protect our right to hunt or target shoot....they had bigger game in mind.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:29 AM | Comments (165)
Post contains 136 words, total size 1 kb.