Out next week for the Kindle: The End of the Line: Romney vs. Obama: The 34 days that Decided the Election by Glenn Thrush and Jonathan Martin.
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Fiscal Cliff Talks Stalled
Reuters reports that negotiations on averting the “fiscal cliff” are at an apparent impasse.
The AP notes that not getting a deal before December 31 “would immediately change the political dynamics, making
it easier for many lawmakers – especially Republicans – to agree to a
second-chance compromise in the new year.”
“This scenario strikes a good number of Washington insiders as
irresponsible and improbable – who knows how the markets will react? But
others argue it will be easier to round up the congressional votes
needed for a big compromise if the deadline passes and lawmakers rush
back to Washington next month under a starkly new political reality.”
Financial Times: “No deal” tax stance suggests many Republicans are willing to go over the fiscal cliff.
Rove Says Obama is Trying to Split Republican Party
Karl Rove writes in the Wall Street Journal that President Obama is pushing for a “civil war” within the Republican Party by not negotiating fairly to avoid the fiscal cliff.
Said Rove: “He apparently believes that Republicans, in a weakened state and defending an unpopular position, might buckle on a central GOP tenet, opposition to any increase in marginal rates. That might kick off a Republican civil war, resulting in divisive party primaries in 2014 that leave the president’s opposition even more weakened and produce more subpar candidates like this year’s Republican Senate candidates in Indiana and Missouri.”
Jonathan Chait: “The psychology on display here is familiar to anybody who has seen a petulant teenager, who assumes that any restriction that causes them to feel anger must have been intended to produce that emotion. Republicans are feeling humiliated and divided, so Obama’s goal must have been to humiliate and divide them.”
The Week: Is the conservative dream in its death throes?
Rove Promised IRS Limited Activity in Elections
ProPublica obtained Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS’ confidential 2010 application for tax-exempt stautus and finds that while the group told the IRS it would spend some money to influence elections, it said “any such activity will be limited in amount, and will not constitute the organization’s primary purpose.”
Patrick Already Looking at Kerry Replacement
Jonathan Karl: “The President has not made a choice on his next nominee for Secretary of
State yet, but Governor Deval Patrick is already making plans to fill
presumptive SecState nominee John Kerry’s Senate seat. Knowledgeable
sources tell me Governor Patrick has already had a discussion with one
potential replacement for Senator Kerry: Vicki Kennedy. The sources
say the governor talked to Kennedy, the widow of Senator Ted Kennedy,
about the possibility of replacing Kerry in the Senate and that she did
not rule it out.”
“If Kerry is nominated and confirmed as Secretary of State,
Governor Patrick would appoint somebody to replace Kerry and, under
Massachusetts law, a special election would be held no later than 180
days (and no earlier than 160 days) after Kerry leaves the Senate.”
Why Obama Didn’t Fight for Susan Rice
First Read: “To explain why U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice pulled out of consideration
for the secretary of state post, it’s important to remember this: A
president only gets a finite number of fights with Congress, especially
in the first year of a second term (which may be the last BIG year a
president can win fights with Congress). And appointing Rice as
secretary of state was going to be a fight, no doubt about it. So if
you’re a White House with a big upcoming agenda (resolving the
fiscal-cliff situation, passing comprehensive immigration reform, maybe
tackling energy or education) and if you’re split on the top choice on
the secretary of state (our reporting indicates that Rice was never the
clear-cut favorite), sometimes the path of least resistance is the smart
play.”
The Week: Should Obama have fought harder for Rice?
Obama Not Going After Pot Smokers
President Obama told ABC News that the federal government has better things to do than prosecute marijuana users in Colorado and Washington where voters chose to legalized in the last election.
Said Obama: “We’ve got bigger fish to fry. It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it’s legal.”
Jindal Seeks to Blunt Birth Control Politics
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) writes in the Wall Street Journal that birth control should be sold without prescription.
“As a conservative Republican, I believe that we have been stupid to let the Democrats demagogue the contraceptives issue and pretend, during debates about health-care insurance, that Republicans are somehow against birth control. It’s a disingenuous political argument they make. As an unapologetic pro-life Republican, I also believe that every adult (18 years old and over) who wants contraception should be able to purchase it.”
Report Unmasks Tax Evasion in Pakistan
A new study finds that more than 60% of Pakistan’s cabinet and two thirds of its federal lawmakers paid no taxes last year, AFP reports.
“Pakistan has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world, estimated at 9.2%. Only 260,000 out of 180 million citizens have paid tax consecutively for the last three years.”
Assange Explores Senate Run in Australia
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange has confirmed his intention to run as a Senate candidate in the 2013 election in Australia “and will announce the formation of a WikiLeaks political party early next year.”
But since Assange is currently living in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, he could be unable to return to Australia if elected — in which case a nominee would fill the seat.
Obamadon
A new prehistoric lizard species has been named Obamadon Gracilis after President Obama, Sky News reports.
Democrats Declare Checkmate in Fiscal Cliff Negotiations
National Journal: “In the ongoing fiscal cliff chess match playing out on Capitol Hill, Democrats have a message for Republicans: checkmate.”
“Democrats look at the political landscape and see a win whether a deal gets cut now or after the country goes over the cliff. Worst-case scenario, they say, the House will approve legislation the Senate passed in July extending Bush-era tax cuts for everyone but the rich, an idea that Republican House Speaker John Boehner has flatly rejected.”
“If Boehner refuses to pass the Senate bill before the end of the year, Democrats say their hand only gets stronger in the new year when the Senate will have 55 Democrats and at least five Republicans who have signaled they could vote to extend the middle-class tax cuts.”
Philip Klein: “The time for Republicans to win the tax debate
was during the 2012 election. They lost. That doesn’t mean they need to
give away the store, but it does mean that they’ll have to make some
accommodation for reality.”
National Memo: 5 reasons Republicans are getting clobbered on the fiscal cliff.
Rice Drops Bid for Secretary of State
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice told NBC News she is dropping out of the running to be the next secretary of state after months of criticism over her Benghazi comments.
Said Rice: “If nominated, I am now convinced that the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive and costly – to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities.”
The Week: Why Susan Rice dropped her bid.
Latinos Didn’t Cost Romney the Election
The Fix: “Republicans have a major Latino problem, but it didn’t cost them the 2012 election… Mitt Romney would have needed to carry as much as 51 percent of the Hispanic vote in order to win the Electoral College — a number no Republican presidential candidate on record has been able to attain and isn’t really within the realm of possibility these days.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“January 1st is not the end of the fight. It’s the beginning of the fight.”
— Grover Norquist, quoted by Politico, apparently resigned to federal taxes going up.
Hagel on Short List for Defense Secretary
Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has emerged as the leading candidate to become President Obama’s next Secretary of Defense and may be nominated as soon as this month, Bloomberg reports.
“Hagel, who served as an enlisted Army infantryman in Vietnam, has passed the vetting process at the White House Counsel’s office… The former Nebraska senator has told associates that he is awaiting final word from the president.”
Top 10 Media Disasters of the Year
Brad Phillips lists the 10 worst media disasters for 2012 and eight are about politics.
Meanwhile, Stu Rothenberg has the best and worst of the 2012 campaigns.
The Insurgents
Coming soon: The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War by Fred Kaplan.
The inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars, let by Petraeus, who plotted to change the American military from within. Their aim was to build a new Army that could better fight what they saw as the new kind of war in the post-Cold War age; not massive wars on vast battlefields, but ‘small wars’ in cities and villages, against insurgents and terrorists.
