Mark Belling, sitting in for Rush Limbaugh today, happened to notice that none of the current GOP candidates is worthy of running for the office. Seems they’re either not crazy enough or they support RomneyCare or they’re just wingnuts. Who knew? It’s time for Elmer Fudd to go hunting.

The Backbone Campaign, longtime source of witty direct action protests, partnered up with the Other 98%, the Seattle Labor Chorus and the Washington Community Action Network to produce a Christmas caroling event at Bank of America and at Wells Fargo. Donned in their Santa hats and other gay apparel, including a Ghost of Christmas Present, the 99% Choir serenaded the staff and customers at branches in Seattle area.

The meat industry is upset over new guidelines that promote healthier foods for school lunches, so they were happy to publicize an LA Times report that kids were throwing away some of the food. What they left out was why.

Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute laments that Obama pulled out of Iraq too soon, because . . . well because we should have stayed their longer because we weren’t finished.

It seemed like the afterthought in the payroll tax cut extension fight. But the two-month clock is now ticking on whether Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s environmentally disastrous tar sands. If we want him to make the right decision and deny the permit, maybe it’s time to Occupy Exxon, with creative protests at local Exxon/Mobil stations.

In the midst of the newly re-animated newsletters issued under Ron Paul’s name, an aide to the Texas Congressman has come forward with two stories about personal interactions with gay supporters. They don’t support the live-and-let-live image of the previous carrier of the Libertarian Party’s presidential banner.

This is the second part of a 3-part series about the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that began with “Another Assault in the Dead of Night“. As I concluded there:

“[B]elieve the hype: the NDAA’s detention provisions represent a frontal assault on the Bill of Rights. They are noxious now. They will be worse in the future. We will live to regret ever even considering this law, and our leaders will be judged harshly for allowing it to become law without even a single congressional hearing and over the objections of concerned Americans all over the country.”

The Charlotte Observer has a puff piece on the senior minister at uptown Charlotte’s First Baptist Church, who will be a well-known advocate for the passage of the anti-gay marriage discrimination amendment that will go before voters on May 8.

This week, the White House will ask Congress for the second tranche of increases to the debt limit, as negotiated in the August deal. The conditions for the second debt limit increase have been satisfied by the pulling of the trigger, caused by the collapse of the Super Committee. Republicans can only stop this second increase through a “resolution of disapproval,” a vote that the President can then veto. But that deal also constrains how much deficit spending occurs this fiscal year, and thus the “pay-fors” for any stimulus measure.

The Obama Administration, according to the New York Times, will allow Ali Abdullah Saleh into the country for medical treatment, in a move eerily similar to the Carter Administration allowing the Shah of Iran to seek medical help. A visa has not been submitted for Saleh, and the ultimate outcome is subject to certain conditions. But the path appears set.