What’s news today?

Boehner is about to roll over and give up the one bargaining chip Republicans have. Great.

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From TheWashingtonPost

“House Speaker John A. Boehner has offered to push any fight over the federal debt limit off for a year, a concession that would deprive Republicans of leverage in the budget battle but is breathing new life into stalled talks over the year-end “fiscal cliff.”

The offer came Friday, according to people in both parties familiar with the talks, as part of the latest effort by Boehner (R-Ohio) to strike a deal with President Obama to replace more than $500 billion in painful deficit-reduction measures set to take effect in January.”

“Boehner’s offer signals that he expects a big deal with sufficient savings to meet his demand that any debt limit increase be paired dollar-for-dollar with spending cuts. That would permit him to keep a key vow to his party — and head off a potentially nasty debt-limit fight — at least until the end of next year.”

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Why doesn’t this surprise me? Never let a crisis go to waste right?

From the NYPost

“President Obama’s $60.4 billion request for Hurricane Sandy relief has morphed into a huge Christmas stocking of goodies for federal agencies and even the state of Alaska, The Post has learned.

The pork-barrel feast includes more than $8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments. It also includes a whopping $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in DC.”

“Other big-ticket items in the bill include $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center; $41 million to fix up eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; $4 million for repairs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida; $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and $1.1 million to repair national cemeteries.”

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And on this one, well, I just don’t know. The pessimist in me says the fix is in.

She wasn’t hospitalized, yet she’ll be working from home this week and will skip her scheduled Benghazi testimony.

Convenient huh?

From CNN

“U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sustained a concussion after becoming dehydrated and fainting, and will no longer testify Thursday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Clinton had been suffering from a stomach virus at the time, according to a statement on Saturday from Philippe Reines, deputy assistant secretary of state.

She is being monitored by doctors and is recovering at home. She was never hospitalized, Reines said.”

“Jodi Seth, spokeswoman for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, said in a statement that Clinton would not testify before that committee Thursday.”

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So what news has your attention today?

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UPDATE

Good choice Governor!

From CNN

“Republican Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina will announce Monday that she’s appointing GOP Rep. Tim Scott as Sen. Jim DeMint’s successor, according to Republican sources in South Carolina and Washington.

The announcement will come at noon ET at South Carolina’s state house in Columbia. Scott will become the Senate’s only African-American member and the GOP’s second African-American senator since Reconstruction.”

“Since DeMint’s retirement announcement, Scott emerged as a favorite of national grassroots conservatives. DeMint has long viewed Scott, a former state legislator who was first elected to Congress in 2010 with the help of tea party activists and national conservative groups, as a rising star and protégé.”

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UPDATE II

Not to be out done by Republicans, the Democrats are ready to appoint a replacement as well.

When John “reporting for duty” Kerry moves into Hillary’s job, guess who may be getting his?

A blast from the past. From TheHill

“Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, may be headed back to the political spotlight as he’s considered a likely interim replacement for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).

President Obama is set to tap Kerry to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of State, according to media reports.”

I wonder if he still has the tank?

Oh well, can’t be any worse than picking a Kennedy I suppose.

What’s news today?

Sadly it’s the tragic story from yesterday that leads the news again today.

From TheHartfordCourant

“After killing his mother in her Newtown home, 20-year-old Adam Lanza drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary, where officials said she taught, and gunned down 20 children and six adults before killing himself.

Most of the dead were found in two first-grade classrooms, police said.”

The response to this tragedy by some in Congress, as well as the media and Hollywood, I find disgusting. At least wait until these children are buried. Show a little decency and save it for a week. These clowns should be reaching out in support of this community, but instead they’d rather politicize it. Since I find it repulsive, I’m not linking to any such stories and nonsense. You folks can discuss it and link to stories on it in the comments, but I refuse to headline their idiocy.

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In other news, from the Friday Night News Dump….

From TheWashingtonTimes

“The administration has issued stays of deportation for 102,965 illegal  immigrants under President Obama’s new non-deportation policy, officials  announced Friday.

Another 157,151 applications are still under review under the policy,  officially known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which grants a  tentative legal status to illegal immigrants who qualify — though it does not  grant them a path to citizenship.”

“Mr. Obama’s program offers a two-year stay of deportation and a work permit so  those who are granted tentative legal status can get jobs. The stay of  deportation can be renewed indefinitely.”

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So it looks like the whole “Green” scam thing wasn’t just to pay back political contributors to Obama.

There’s plenty of waste, fraud, and abuse as well, some of it from those same contributors it appears.

From TheWashingtonPost

“Three of the country’s most prolific installers of residential solar panels are under federal investigation to determine if they inflated the cost of their work to increase the payments they would receive from the government, according to government and industry officials familiar with the probe.

SolarCity, SunRun and Sungevity have received subpoenas from the Treasury Department’s office of inspector general for financial records to justify more than $500 million in federal grants and tax credits the firms tapped for performing work. The probe seeks to determine whether the companies accurately reported the market value of their costs when applying for federal reimbursement, which was calculated at one-third of the costs.”

“SolarCity and SunRun have been generous political supporters of Obama. At SolarCity, for example, officials in the company and its two key venture capital firm backers, along with their relatives, donated an estimated $579,000 to Obama in 2008 and 2012, according to campaign reports.”

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And lastly…..

GRINCH ALERT!!!!

From the BillingsGazette

“A group of parents at Chief Charlo Elementary School are so upset over the  selection of songs for the school’s holiday music program they are considering  legal counsel.

The parents outlined their concerns in a letter sent to the superintendent of  the Missoula County Public Schools district, stating, among many issues, they  feel the programming is unfair, unconstitutional and is a form of bullying.

“With many of the children in our neighborhood up here being Jewish and  Buddhist, as well as a few Muslim and atheist students, we were assured that  this year it would be a secular program,” said the letter, which was signed by “concerned parents” but listed no individual names.

“One of the largest complaints last year were the young children singing  about ‘their lord.’ This was concerning to many families and it was clear that  several of the students were uncomfortable.””

Oh for cryin’ out loud…..

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Here’s the Open News Thread for today.

What have you got?

Here’s my contribution.

The debt discussion continues behind the scenes. I gotta tell you though, I find it obscene the amount of money charities waste to lobby Congress and the President. What a waste of resources.

From TheWashingtonPost

“The White House and the nation’s most prominent charities are embroiled in a tense behind-the-scenes debate over President Obama’s push to scale back the nearly century-old tax deduction on donations that the charities say is crucial for their financial health.”

“But the White House is also looking to limit the charitable deduction for high-income earners, and that has prompted frustration and resistance, with leaders of major nonprofit organizations, such as the United Way, the American Red Cross and Lutheran Services in America, closing ranks in opposing any change to the deduction.”

And this from CNSNews

““Students of color, students with disabilities and male students” are suspended at a disproportionate rate to their peers, in “potential violation of civil rights laws,” an official from the U.S. Department of Education said at a congressional hearing Wednesday on the so-called school-to-prison pipeline.

“We are alarmed by the disparities in disciplinary sanctions, particularly for students of color, students with disabilities, and male students,” said Deborah Delisle, assistant secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the Education Department.”

““When African-American students are more than 3 ½ times as likely to be suspended or expelled as their white peers, or students with disabilities are more than twice as likely to receive out-of-school suspensions as their non-disabled peers, as they are today–it raises substantial concerns,” Delisle told the Senate Judiciary Committee.”