Scraps of Paper

“

The House bill would give the Pentagon a brand-new budget, allowing it to make the cuts in low-priority areas, preventing the reductions in military readiness that generals have been warning about. It prevents staffing cuts in the Border Patrol, and adds money for Israel and embassy security. It makes health care reform a target for special cuts, and even specifies that no money is to be spent on the community group known as Acorn, though that group has not existed since 2010.

But it allows no flexibility or extra money to prevent cuts to programs like unemployment benefits, nutrition aid, housing assistance and education grants. Republicans do not care about those programs and left the sequester cuts in place for them.

”

—

From One Budget Fight to the Next - NYTimes.com

The sequester is quite alright with House Republicans. They can keep the cuts they like and remove the ones they don’t for next year’s budget.

Source:

I could quote every other line of this New Yorker Piece on Obama and Gun Control, but you know what, you should just read the whole thing.

thepoliticalnotebook:

On Meet The Press just a few minutes ago… Sen. Feinstein announces intentions to introduce legislation to ban assault weapons when the new Congress begins.

[Twitter]

Source: thepoliticalnotebook

“Obviously, we would be better in my view if we didn’t raise taxes on anyone and we did everything on the spending side,” Glenn Hubbard, the dean of Columbia’s business school, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We just had an election. We’re going to have to have some compromise. And I think step one is figure out how to raise some revenue without killing the economy.”

—

Via Politico

It’s quotes like this that make me wish our politics were different. Glenn Hubbard was Romney’s chief economic advisor and now that the election is over he can openly say what everyone in Washington knows. We need to pull in more revenue and cut spending.

“The survey finds that 65 percent of Americans believe Obama will sincerely try to work across the aisle on national problems, while 57 percent believe that congressional Democrats will do the same.”

— Politico

On the Texas Secession Thing….

I recently got in a political argument with a Texan while walking my dog. (Yup, that happens)

I told him, “you’re right no taxes and guns for everyone! Sounds great.”

He said, “sounds like Texas where I grew up.”

I said, “Texas should secede.” And I walked away.

6 months later….

“Yet even he would surely agree that the only responsible first step is to put climate change back on the table for discussion. The issue was MIA during the presidential debates and, regardless of who wins on Nov. 6, is unlikely to appear on the near-term congressional calendar. After Sandy, that seems insane.”

— Bloomberg News

If Hurricane Sandy has done anything good it’s that it has created a whiff of bipartisanship.

inothernews:

Go ahead, GOP. Fight him.

Source: inothernews

New nyt/cbs/q poll RT @jeffzeleny: …Likely voters who say economy getting better: OH-52%. FL-37%. VA-39%. Our story: nyti.ms/PkSCvP
— jmartpolitico (@jmartpolitico) October 31, 2012

The idea that news organizations are still taking polls in the middle of one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the nation is a little ridiculous.

How in the world are they supposed to be accurate?
Who in the hell cares?

This Week's Depressing Racism Statistic