1.) Depressing and totally irrelevant debt announcement due today — At some point today, Pres. Obama’s Whiska’s Commission, led by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, will hold a press conference announcing that we are all screwed. There is a small possibility, writes The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward, that the 18-member commission will unanimously put forward a plan. There is also a chance that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will change his name to Mark Anderson and start a boy band under the tutelage of Lou Pearlman. Even if the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission “somehow reaches an agreement on a set of proposals, Congress is not bound to take it up,” writes Ward. “So no matter what, the final report is likely to be disregarded for the most part until the nation’s leaders are forced by an emergency to look to it for answers.” Just like that time when the nation’s leaders were forced by an emergency to turn to Rep. Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future.”
2.) Cancun climate party shaping up to be a real bummer — The 15,000 climate-huggers who flew to Cancun in gas-guzzling planes (commercial and private) to discuss how best to stop destroying the environment with gas-guzzling private planes are reportedly having a terrible time. “In contrast to last year’s summit in Copenhagen, there is a general belief that no new global deal will emerge,” reports the BBC. “The basic divisions are as stark as ever, and some nations and observers are arguing that smaller, less formal pacts are the way forward.” Even more poignant: There are very few heads of state at this year’s Climate Break 2010, meaning that the folks in attendance are burning all that fuel for nothing.
3.) House to pass historic public school lunch menu — “The first lady has lobbied for new school lunch standards as part of her ‘Let’s Move’ campaign to combat childhood obesity,” reports the AP. Now she will get them. House Democrats, including Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and 101 of her minions who voted against the bill in September, now support it. What changed? The White House has retracted its decision to fund the bill with $2.2 billion in food stamp dollars, which means the bill will be unfunded, which also means Republicans in the House will most likely vote against it. Which is a shame, because “the standards would not remove popular foods like hamburgers from schools but would make them healthier, using leaner meat or whole wheat buns, for example.” Also: “Vending machines could be stocked with less candy and fewer high-calorie drinks.” A provision requiring cafeteria workers to chew up fresh vegetables and spit them directly into children’s mouths will not be included in the bill.
4.) John Conyers is sorry for stealing from the taxpayers again — More specifically, Rep. Conyers is sorry that his son stole from taxpayers. “Conyers said he will reimburse the federal government for nonofficial use of his congressional vehicle by his son John Conyers III,” reports the Detroit Free Press. “The younger Conyers told Detroit police last week that someone stole two laptop computers and 1,000 concert tickets from the 2010 Cadillac Escalade after he parked it near Brush and Congress in downtown Detroit about midnight Nov. 24.” What was Conyers the younger doing in the most dangerous part of Detroit at midnight on a holiday? According to the Freep, “John Conyers III, 20, had worked in a $15-an-hour part-time job for his mother, Monica Conyers, a Detroit city councilwoman, before she pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges.” Hmm. Perhaps he was job hunting?
5.) Chris Christie pleads guilty… — …to impatience! “I am often called impatient by folks in my state and I plead guilty. I plead guilty to impatience,” said Christie when talking about his now infamous fights with the NJEA during a Tuesday night education event in Washington, D.C. “This is not a Democrat or Republican issue,” he continued, before calling education reform “the seminal civil rights issue of our time,” reports TheDC’s Amanda Carey. On the current struggle with the NJEA over superintendent pay caps, Christie had this to say: “This conspiracy among superintendents is extraordinary. And you’re watching it play out in New Jersey right now because we’ve imposed a cap on superintendent pay. To be the super of the schools — that’s a hard job [they say]…but I’ll tell you this, it’s no harder than my job. And I make $175,000 a year. So I said, ‘How bout this? You don’t make any more than me.'”
6.) Gitmo detaines hating Gitmo less thanks to new rules, amenities — “The imposing steel and concrete building known here as Camp 6 once was the bane of Guantánamo detainees and human rights groups alike,” reports the Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg. “Built in 2005 for $38 million, it was a grim collection of darkened cellblocks where detainees were locked into their cells most days for 22 hours.” Now, however, it’s like club med for people who hang out with (and/or are) terrorists: “Inmates can lounge in the cellblock, watching big screen televisions or chatting with each other. Meals, delivered in bulk, are parceled out by the detainees themselves and leftovers are stashed in a pantry in case a detainee feels the urge.” If only Obama had pledged on the campaign trail to make Gitmo more homey!