Okay.

I can’t embed the clip but you can watch it here starting at around 42:00. The Daily Caller has the key quotes. A challenge: Sketch out the process for me by which Democrats, with precious red-state seats in the balance, decide it’d be a good idea to try to choke down another vote on guns [...]

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68/31.

I use the term “gun-control bill” loosely because … no bill exists yet. But let’s not let procedural niceties deter us from Doing Something. Among the 68 who voted to proceed on the bill this morning are 16 Republicans. Per Chad Pergram: Alexander Ayotte Burr Chambliss Coburn Collins Corker Flake Graham Heller Hoeven Isakson Kirk [...]

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Showdown.

Ed called the bill “weak tea” compared to what Democrats wanted initially, but evidently it’s not weak enough: “Expanding background checks at gun shows will not prevent the next shooting, will not solve violent crime and will not keep our kids safe in schools,” the NRA said. “While the overwhelming rejection of President Obama and [...]

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Pressure.

The Senate will hold the first key procedural vote on a bill to curb gun violence Thursday as more than a half-dozen Republicans announced that they will join with Democrats to stop any attempt to block popular legislation drafted in response to a deadly shooting at a Connecticut elementary school… Senate procedural rules require Reid [...]

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Hmmmm.

Here’s a better question. Should the GOP filibuster the gun-control bill? Johnny Isakson says no: “I’ll speak for myself on that question,” Isakson said on CBS’s “This Morning” when asked about the filibuster. “There’s no ambivalence on the gun issue, I think everyone knows what the issues are. We have not seen the final draft [...]

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"Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids."

Textbook O. First, almost obligatorily, the speech is built on the assumption that his opponents are callous to the point of malignancy. Read the transcript and you’ll see that he’s all but given up arguing policy on this; it’s a straight-up, 13-minute-long guilt trip, essentially the same point Jim Carrey made the other day but [...]

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Budgets.

Voters are divided on whom they like in the great debates over the budget and spending cuts. By 45-37 percent, they blame congressional Republicans more than Obama for the recent failure to find a better alternative to reducing deficits than the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts now taking effect. Twelve percent said both shared [...]

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58/40.

He was one vote short. Republicans Cochran, Collins, and Johanns had all already committed to voting yes so the only mystery was whether Reid could find two more GOPers to cross the aisle. He found one: As expected, Murkowski ended up erring on the side of bipartisanship. Orrin Hatch voted present, which may or may [...]

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Yet.

Don’t get too excited. As I’m writing this, CNN is interrupting its round-the-clock coverage of Marco Rubio drinking water to report a sellout compromise in the offing: Sources in both parties tell me compromise in the works to delay vote on Hagel, but make it a 51 vote threshold not 60. Deal not done yet [...]

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Game over?

Skip to 10:15 for the key bit. Is this endgame already for Rubio? He’s sworn up and down that unless Democrats agree to make border security the trigger for a path to citizenship — i.e. measurable security improvements first, before any path is created — he’ll walk away. Now here’s Schumer sounding an awful lot [...]

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Nope.

Noteworthy, not just because he’s a Democrat but because Pryor actually voted yes on Feinstein’s last AWB bill in March 2004. That was sort of safe to do since he wasn’t facing reelection until 2008. The timing is different now — his seat is up next year in a state that produced Bill Clinton but [...]

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Yep.

A moment worth commemorating: Like the inauguration, a promise from a top Senate Democrat to pass a budget happens only once every four years. There’s no way to justify another year of ducking the issue now that the GOP’s made it a condition of raising the debt ceiling short-term, so here’s Schumer’s familiar counter-move. They’ll [...]

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Plans.

I thought this might happen. There aren’t going to be any deep spending cuts anytime soon; America watched Obama do jack about the debt for four years and then reelected him overwhelmingly. The only incentive The One has to partner with Republicans on entitlement reform is his own conscience about America’s long-term insolvency, which is [...]

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Deference.

Let’s set the stage with a quote from January 2009, back when these partisan frauds were still high on their Bush-era image as a counterweight to the “unitary executive.” What do you think, Majority Leader Reid? Is it time to roll over for the new Democratic president? Reid stated, “I don’t believe in the executive [...]

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Despair.

Tuesday marks the 1,350th day since the Senate passed a budget. The law requires Congress to pass a budget every year, on the grounds that Americans deserve to know how the government plans to spend the trillions of taxpayer dollars it collects, along with dollars it borrows at the taxpayers’ expense. But Majority Leader Harry [...]

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Collapse.

House Speaker John A. Boehner kicked off the 112th Congress by saying Americans are ready for an adult conversation on spending and deficits. Two years later, that broader conversation has yet to happen, either in the country or in the halls of Congress, where lawmakers were poised Monday to once again nibble at the deficit [...]

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Zzzzzz.

Just an FYI in case you’re one of the few Americans who’s still following this. Remember that O said on Friday that if Reid and McConnell couldn’t reach a deal by Monday, he’d ask Reid to bring the Obama plan — featuring tax hikes on all earners above $250,000 — up for a vote on [...]

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Blame.

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NEVADA): We have been negotiating now for 36 hours or thereabouts. We did have conversations last night that ended late in the evening between staffs. This morning, we have been trying to come up with some counteroffer to my friend’s proposal. We have been unable to do that. I have had a [...]

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Bully pulpit.

No question who the star guest is this morning or what the topic du jour will be. Mercifully, we’re almost at the end of this months-long Scooby Doo episode. O’s job spin-wise this morning is to peel back the villain’s mask to reveal — gasp — John Boehner. Hopefully he’ll also take the opportunity to [...]

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Cliffhanger.

New Yorkers of all income levels got a rude awakening yesterday when they saw in The Post how much more they will pay in taxes next year without a fiscal-cliff deal by Jan. 1. “It’s that much higher?” asked IT worker Vikas Kataria, 34, who discovered that his combined household income of about $250,000 per [...]

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Taking a dive?

No comment yet from the Republican side, but I’m thinking … this doesn’t bode well: Boehner staffers arrived back at the Capitol and said @speakerboehner is not coming back here today. — Frank Thorp V (@frankthorpNBC) December 28, 2012 Pelosi said afterward that she thought the meeting was “candid” and “constructive” and “moved us forward, [...]

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Action.

3 p.m. ET in the White House. No reporters, no cameras, just five people sitting around a table wasting each other’s time while an excruciatingly bored pundit class waits for smoke signals afterward. This is the part of the Scooby Doo episode where Shaggy and Scoob get chased by the “monster.” I wonder how it’ll [...]

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Final offer?

Scott Brown wrote on Facebook that O had something in the works, the White House and Harry Reid’s office quickly denied it, and now CNN’s citing sources on both sides who say, yep, there’s a new offer coming. The tedium-to-suspense ratio of this clusterfark is now approaching that of a “Scooby Doo” episode. And not [...]

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Blue.

If you’re wondering what the House’s Plan C might be, stop wondering. According to Boehner’s conference call this afternoon, America’s in Harry Reid’s hands now: House GOP ldrshp says its waiting on the Senate on #fiscalcliff . Says Senate must move 1st since House has previously approved bills. — Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 26, 2012 [...]

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Change.

Fish-in-a-barrel fun from BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, co-starring a future president of the United States who loved the filibuster so much that he once tried to use it to torpedo a Supreme Court nomination. Since then the numbers in the Senate have changed, and now so will the rules — maybe: In a news conference at [...]

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