1. Maureen Dowd puts in a good jab on Obama and his apparent lack of schmoozing skills in dealing with Congress, and highlights good Old Joe - Biden, and how he really smooths the rough spots and makes jolly:
2. Here is a good article from the WashPost on the internal problems right now with the GOP, and how they just might be split on the issue of raising the debt ceiling. This is one reason, I think, that the White House did not take a more aggressive position in the "cliff" negotiations, knowing that they wanted to percolate further dessention in the GOP to cripple attempts at developing an antagonistic block. The GOP knows what yoke will settle upon them if they do the nasty again on shutting down our line of credit, as it happened last year. The President said he is not negotiating, and I think his lame duck status and other concerns will prevent him from blinking:
3. To further educate ourselves, here is an explanation of the 14th Amendment, and how it may come into play with respect to the raising of the debt limit. I think Obama will go ahead and use his executive powers, and see where the Supremes go with it, in case the House GOP really wants to get stupid. Pay attention to the section on "Validity of Public Debt":
5. David Brooks offers a good reason and strategy behind Obama's nomination of Senator Chuck Hagel to head the DOD:
6. For anyone who is/was familiar with Huell Howser, the news of his death today took many of by surprise. Often chided by me, and many others, for his folksy cornball humor and Tennessee Twang, he provided a treasure of off-beat and historical lore of the state of California in his California Gold PBS series. Here is one of his short videos, courtesy of You Tube and Sam Benson, of a peek at the Baghdad Cafe in Newberry Spring, California (on the old Highway 66 near Needles, CA):
7. Here's a suggestion or hint of what may be coming from Joe Biden's task force to curtail the gun violence. Judging from the panic buying at a local (from my home in Claremont) to the Ontario gun show this past weekend, there is a mood of that something is going to happen:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/opinion/the-bid-to-stop-gun-trafficking.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print
--
Juan
Juan
"If only corporal punishment cured low self-esteem."
-- Jeph Jacques
-- Jeph Jacques
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction."
-- Blaise Pascal
-- Blaise Pascal
"The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously."
-- Henry Kissinger
-- Henry Kissinger
"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value."
-- Arthur C. Clarke
-- Arthur C. Clarke
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