Your must-read of the morning is today's WSJ editorial.

Here's a taste, but click over and read the whole frustrating thing:

GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest.

The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play.

Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.

House Republicans yesterday voted down the Senate's two-month extension of the two-percentage-point payroll tax holiday to 4.2% from 6.2%. They say the short extension makes no economic sense, but then neither does a one-year extension. No employer is going to hire a worker based on such a small and temporary decrease in employment costs, as this year's tax holiday has demonstrated. The entire exercise is political, but Republicans have thoroughly botched the politics.

You will recall that on Friday and Saturday we were doing a victory dance at having forced Democrats to accept an accelerated schedule for Keystone XL in exchange for a two-month extension of the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits. Unfortunately, the Tea Party-led rank-and-file in the House immediately revolted.

After opposing the payroll tax holiday for the past year (and thereby handing Obama the bludgeon which he used to beat us for the year), the House GOP had finally, grudgingly agreed to a one-year extension just to get the issue off the table. Democrats, however, sensing an opportunity, took only two months instead. Anybody want to guess what the State of the Union will be about?

Now, of course, the House GOP members are emphasizing the industry reports that say implementing a two-month payroll tax holiday is impractical and disruptive. But let's be clear: House GOP jumped ugly before these reports came out. They're only using it as cover for their real beef, which is that Obama and the Democrats were mean to them and they're tired of it. And nobody, absolutely nobody, expects the payroll tax holiday to last only two more months, anyway. Congress was going to come back after the holidays and negotiate for the rest of the year.

Or, I should say, Congress was going to do that. I can't see why Democrats would sign on to that now, though. Democrats are on top of the world. The House GOP has given Democrats the absolute best Christmas present ever: the opportunity to blame Republicans for a tax increase at Christmas and then a second opportunity to blame us at the State of the Union. Does anybody think the Democrats in the Senate are eager to rush back to D.C. to change that?

House GOP members are protesting that they passed a full one-year extension and nobody's paying attention to that. In fairness, they also say their extension had better features than the Senate version. They're not blocking the tax cut, they screech. Except they did. The deal was struck; it was time to sign on the line. They balked. They could have had their longer extension two months from now---and possibly with more Keystone XL-sized concessions from Democrats. Instead the President is having his best week in months. Merry Christmas, Mr. President.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:02 AM | Comments (241)
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The HD trailer for next year's The Hobbit was just released. It comes out in December of 2012, unfortunately.

Embedded below the fold. more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 06:36 PM | Comments (160)
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Let's Get To 51%

This year's Black Friday gun sales broke a record set in 2008 by nearly a third, and while fears about President Obama outlawing some types of firearms are thought to be behind 2008's record, analysts say this year's surge in sales is part of a long-term trend. Gun ownership was "politically incorrect" five years ago, but "what seems to be changing is social acceptance," an analyst at investment firm Avondale Partners tells MSNBC. "I think there might be a changing view of firearms."

Every state except Illinois now allows residents to carry concealed weapons, and a recent Gallup poll found that 47% of American households own a gun, up from 41% just a year ago.

Some see that 47% of Americans own guns and ask why - while I ask why not 51%?

So let's all resolve to make America a gun-owner majority nation in 2012. We can DO this.

And not to put any pressure on you...but even the Democrats are doing their part - how about you?

Bonus: They also make good investments.

Added bonus: NPR commentators will wring their hands and Euroweenies will cry their sweet sweet tears of vexation and bewilderment. Plus you'll have a gun to shoot stuff with. Win win baby!

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:11 PM | Comments (719)
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The weekly run-down, only 2 more weeks to go.

One bazillion Russkies with Tanks

MuleTrain2016 126
Scott: 123
Aristomenes from da 54301: 123
Country Blumpkins 121
FMG: 119
Roll Tide Roll 119
Purity Republican 119
Lord Nazh 119

Paulus' 6th Army

rd brewer: 116
Russ from Winter set: 113
DrewM 112
Gabe Malor 111
Ben 106
Andy 106
DiT 99

Thanks to Ben and CDR M, who's feeling a little under the weather.

And since this is going around, Bad FedEx Delivery Guy

Like scott up there at 123 would say, if you can't throw it from a 2nd floor window, you packed it wrong.

BONUS: Insider Advantage Iowa Poll puts Perry up over Gingrich by 3. [Viv Lee]

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:27 PM | Comments (67)
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Gerald Baker has a really fun read over at the Wall Street Journal today about his conversion from an English football fan to a hardcore American football fan. He describes it in a way only an Englishman can - by referencing Hobbes and Locke, of course.

Baseball fans will have to forgive me here, but the answer, I think, is that football is the quintessential American sport. It's no accident it hasn't really caught on elsewhere (the annual NFL game in London notwithstanding) whereas baseball and basketball have at least a claim to a global following and participation.

In its energy and complexity, football captures the spirit of America better than any other cultural creation on this continent, and I don't mean because it features long breaks in which advertisers get to sell beer and treatments for erectile dysfunction. It sits at the intersection of pioneering aggression and impossibly complex strategic planning. It is a collision of Hobbes and Locke; violent, primal force tempered by the most complex set of rules, regulations, procedures and systems ever conceived in an athletic framework.

Soccer is called the beautiful game. But football is chess, played with real pieces that try to knock each other's brains out. It doesn't get any more beautiful than that.

Read the full article here.

Posted by: JohnE. at 03:47 PM | Comments (157)
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Over at amateur webzine Slate, a writer frets about "ultrarealistic" Nerf dart guns, and what impact these "ultrarealistic" toys might have on an impressionable young mind.

I mean, could such "ultrarealistic" firearm simulacra encourage a child to commit murder?

Pictured: An "ultrarealistic" Nerf assault weapon replica

I know what you're sayin'. You're sayin', "Ace, you confounded bonehead! You accidentally posted a picture of a Hecker & Koch MP5 when you meant to post a picture of a Nerf toy that shoots foam darts!"

But no, your eyes deceive you -- the brightly-colored daffodil-yellow low-impact-plastic object above is actually not a genuine automatic weapon at all, but rather an "ultrarealistic" Nerf version of same!!!

You have been bewildered by a stunningly-accurate copy.

Look carefully, my friends: Those are not Smith & Wesson .40 FMJ rounds beside the weapon. Those are actually carefully-disguised pink foam slugs which could nearly bruise a marshmallow.

And notice the cheap, painted-on silver flair, which are intended to look like widgets and doodads on a space laser, which of course are factory-standard on all genuine MP-5s.

Now, even though you were primed to look out for close simulations of a carbine, you actually were misled into thinking this virtual duplicate was actually a Machine of Death.

What hope would a policeman on a dark night have to tell the genuine article from its crafty counterfeit?

Now: What if a child were armed with this mirror-image War Toy, and were further dressed in the ultrarealistic criminal costumes available due to today's technology?

Ah. You finally begin to understand the scope of the problem. Children could be killed, and/or play with a Nerf gun.

Anyway, Bryan Preston is duly alarmed, as well he should be.

Thanks to @stickeenotes and @vermontaigne

slate magazine

For when you're done with all the interesting stuff on the internet.

Posted by: Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (262)
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Damn fine steno pool they have at the New York Times. But I'm linking BigJournalism.

But Mr. Holder contended that many of his other critics — not only elected Republicans but also a broader universe of conservative commentators and bloggers — were instead playing “Washington gotcha” games, portraying them as frequently “conflating things, conveniently leaving some stuff out, construing things to make it seem not quite what it was” to paint him and other department figures in the worst possible light.

There's a great Arrested Development where the family hires a PR adviser.

Michael gets a call from his delinquent brother GOB (pronounced like the Bible's Job).

"I need your PR person to spin something for me," GOB says in his deep, raspy voice.

"What do you need spun?"

"Murder," GOB gravels.

Murder is a "gotcha"?

Jeffrey Dahmer Arrested On Eight Counts of Mispeaking, Aggravated Gaffes

300 people murdered, and Holder is sitting here saying "let's not bicker and argue about 'oo killed 'oo."

It's kind of hard to cover up 300 dead bodies.

Oh, I know what can cover them up.

Of that group of critics, Mr. Holder said he believed that a few — the “more extreme segment” — were motivated by animus against Mr. Obama and that he served as a stand-in for him. “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” he said, “both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”

Only racists care about 300 dead Mexicans. (And two Americans, but it sounds odder just noting the Mexican bodycount.)

Posted by: Ace at 01:13 PM | Comments (235)
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Another hero, I'm thinking.

"You have two choices: either hijra (emigration) or jihad (holy war)," Awlaki said in the video, which was posted on Islamist websites.

"I specifically invite the youth to either fight in the West or join their brothers in the fronts of jihad: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.

"I invite them to join us in our new front, Yemen, the base from which the great jihad of the Arabian Peninsula will begin, the base from which the greatest army of Islam will march forth," said Awlaki, a cleric of Yemeni descent, speaking in English.

My "another hero" line wasn't pure snark; Ron Paul, of course, opposed the assassination of this key Al Qaeda recruiting officer and propagandist.

US presidential candidate Ron Paul has condemned the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki as an “assassination” because, as an American citizen, the Islamic terror leader needed to be put on trial and convicted before being killed.

“If the American people accept this blindly and casually, we now have an accepted practice of the president assassinating people who he thinks are ‘bad guys,’” the Texas Congressman told reporters at a campaign stop Friday at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. “I think it’s sad.”

As he had fled to Yemen, where he set up shop, we couldn't arrest him. We'd have had to send in troops to capture him -- which Ron Paul also opposes.

So when he postulates he's just in favor of doing it another way, he's lying.

Of course, that shouldn't be big news. He also opposed the "assassination" of bin Ladin.

Rep. Ron Paul took an interesting position for a likely presidential candidate Tuesday – he explained to a Iowa radio station why he would not have ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The answer seemed to catch Iowa radio host Simon Conway off guard; he asked Paul to repeat it.

Paul was unequivocal: “No, not the way it took place,” Paul said of the killing of bin Laden.

Why?

“It was absolutely not necessary and I think respect for the rule of law, international law – what if he’d been in a hotel in London?" Paul asked. "We wanted to keep it secret. Would we have sent the helicopters into London? Because they were afraid the information would get out. No you don’t want to do that.”

As both John Tant and @jstrevino observed, if the election comes down to one man who ordered the killing of bin Ladin, and one man who gets the vapors considering such uncouth behavior, I think I'd favor the former.

I knocked Obama for taking credit for a "Gutsy Call" which any Republican would have made-- but I always asterisked that, "with the possible exception of Ron Paul."

Well, he's officially against killing bin Ladin. Quick, let's nominate him before the Democrats beat us to it.

Ron Paul seems to have flip-flopped on this issue. Immediately after the death of bin Ladin, he seemed to speak in favor it (or at least conceded the result was a good thing).

Two odd things from that speech:

Second, he says that we should now pull all of our troops out of the area, which is what he was also saying before bin Ladin was killed. He notes we must pull out our troops -- unless it all really was about oil.

He tosses that out there. Maybe it was all about oil.

But First (yes, these are out of order, but this one's bigger), he says bin Ladin deserved to be killed, because he "applauded" the 9/11 attacks.

Not that he planned them, or directed them, or facilitated them. Merely that he "applauded" them.

Why is that important?

Well, Truthers cannot deny that bin Ladin at least enjoyed 9/11. It is a fact that Al Qaeda "applauded" the action.

But what they can deny is that Al Qaeda actually caused 9/11. Full on Truthers deny this, flatly, and forthrightly; closet Truthers merely won't say who perpetrated 9/11. They just have some questions, you see. They want "investigations."

Ron Paul hints about his Truther sympathies. He always appears on Truther Alex Jones' show. He speaks darkly about "Gulf of Tonkin scenarios" (wink) and the Bush Administration having "glee" in its eyes after 9/11 (wink wink wink).

Can't wait to hear Ann Coulter wax rhapsodic about what real conservative he is again. Unlike that lunatic Newt Gingrich, who can't be trusted with the office of President.

And then sometimes he'll answer a Truther in this way:

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (213)
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Bradley Manning gave all the sensitive intelligence he could to WikiLeaks, which of course outed it all, in stages. The last bit outing -- of the real names of our agents working in hostile countries, against their own governments or terrorist groups which have the favor of the government -- was supposedly an "accident," but that information was outed all the same.

People have been killed, obviously.

Because Bradley Manning was all butthurt or something.

Bradley Manning is a narcissistic, sociopathic coward and traitor with the blood of murder on his delicate little hands.

But that's not the Bradley Manning Ron Paul knows.

No, Ron Paul sees the "hero" and "patriot" in him.

Paul has called Manning, a crossdresser with acknowledged mental problems, a “hero” and “patriot” for stealing government secrets and providing them to WikiLeaks.

Manning, who served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, is charged with one of the most spectacular and damaging leaks of classified information in this countryÂ’s history. The death penalty has been strangely ruled out in his case, but he could still face life in prison.

Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the “irresponsible posting of stolen classified documents by WikiLeaks puts lives at risk and gives adversaries valuable information.”

The Ron Paul 2012 website shows a young Ron Paul in a military uniform and as someone who would pursue a “pro-America foreign policy.” It says, “As an Air Force veteran, Ron Paul believes national defense is the single most important responsibility the Constitution entrusts to the federal government.”

It says nothing about the CongressmanÂ’s support for accused Army traitor Bradley Manning.

However, speaking at a campaign rally, Paul said that while Manning may have “technically” broken the law against releasing classified information to WikiLeaks, he did so for the purpose of exposing the “horrible things” being carried out by the U.S. Government.

Referring to Manning’s detention before trial, Paul said, “Should he be locked up and imprisoned?” Manning should be seen as a “political hero” and “true patriot who reveals what’s going on,” Paul said.

The Bradley Manning Support Network published an article saying that Paul believes that Manning is a “whistleblower” and his actions “are essential to the country.”

Video below. Via this site, thanks to Jonathan Philbec's twitter feed.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:48 AM | Comments (293)
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I assume he won't take questions as usual. He just dropped the Truth Bomb that, get this, Republicans are refusing to sign off on the two-month payroll tax cut reduction in order to wring concessions out of Democrats on "extraneous matters."

Extraneous, like the Keystone XL pipeline. Things that really create jobs.

Posted by: Ace at 10:04 AM | Comments (272)
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