No one wants to be in the Super Congress, so we're looking into whether any laid-off House pages want to sign on. Obama 2012 is taking a page from Bush 2004 for its Mitt Romney attacks, so "Wildly Successful Management Consulting Executives for Truth" can't be far off. And a Senate candidate in Nebraska compared Raccoons to folks on welfare, even though no self-respecting raccoon would EVER rummage through a welfare recipient's trash can (they can't afford to throw away food). This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, August 9th, 2011:
NOBODY 'SERIOUS' WANTS TO BE IN THE SUPER CONGRESS, THANK GOD - Top House aides in both parties tell HuffPost Hill that the most respected members ("serious" was the word used) don't want to get any Super Goo on their well-honed gravitas by joining the Super Congress. The wackos, meanwhile, are fighting hard for those six precious seats. "Ironically, some of the most serious budget hawks haven't raised their hands to volunteer. Some of the loudest lobbyists, however, have been the least experienced, in terms of budget issues," said one GOP aide. That's a good indication the more knowledgeable members see just where this crazy train is headed. The upside of packing the Super Congress with yahoos is that the chance of a GRAND BARGAIN that slashes entitlements in exchange for some corporate jet surcharge goes the way of the U.S.'s credit rating. Republicans are leaning toward getting the Simpson-Bowles band back together -- which had Reps. Paul Ryan (Wisc.), Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Dave Camp (Mich.) -- though switching out one of them for a freshman 'bagger.
REID NAMES BAUCUS, MURRAY AND KERRY AS SUPER SENATORS - Patty Murray, as head of the Senate campaign arm, won't be looking to cut Medicare and give let the GOP out of the jam Paul Ryan got them in. Max Baucus has been a pretty tough defender of Social Security and Medicare, if not Medicaid, and won't wanna see his health care reform baby hurt. John Kerry? He doesn't have a big piece of legislation to his name and might be tempted to cut a deal, but not without the other two. So if you're hoping for failure, this crew is primed to please. [National Journal]
SCOTT BROWN CHARGES YOUNG PEOPLE $1,000 FOR 15 MINUTES OF HIS TIME - Scott Brown is the beneficiary of a "Young Professionals For Scott Brown" fundraiser tomorrow evening in Boston. For a relatively tame $100, up-and-coming Bay State entrepreneurs can mingle at a "general reception" attended by the senator. Young professionals looking to have a more up-close-and-personal experience can pay $1,000 for a 15 minute "Private Reception" with the lawmaker. So the Scott Brown campaign, in an attempt to lure young, politically minded types into the fold, wants to build a donor base of people in their twenties and thirties who are so dumb, vain, or both that they're willing to fork over a grand to basically shake Scott Brown's hand. Actually, not a bad strategy! Wicked smaht! So if you're in the Boston area and are looking to chill in a room filled with self-important Mass-holes...for 15 whole minutes, have we got the party for you! It's like your miserable experience at Boston College ... all over again! [Scott Brown via Kevin Gilnack]
UNLIKE AOL, MARKET FINISHES THE DAY STRONG - Attach a siren to it and the Dow today would've made a great object lesson in the Doppler effect. Seriously, the market started off strong but quickly plummeted after the Fed announced that it will keep rates low through 2013 but then somehow ended strong. The Dow finished up 429.77, the Nasdaq finished up 124.83 and the S&P finished up a decidedly non-Satanic 53.11. HuffPost Hill isn't a markets expert, but we're pretty sure that gains made during a volatile period aren't quite as good as gains made during a period when the market didn't go off its Zoloft. You know how your kids have been begging to camp out in the back yard one night? Maybe you should go ahead and do that to, y'know, acclimate them to the whole tent living concept. Just in case. [HuffPost]
AOL saw its stock price fall 25 percent today after a lackluster earnings report spooked investors. If you excuse us for a moment, we need to get working on our latest at HuffPost: "Eleven SHOCKING Reasons You Should Feel Bullish About Our Ad Revenue (SLIDESHOW)."
@LaurenYoung: Airplane Flying Banner by S&P's offices: "You should all be fired." nyob.co/nlkIgv
LET'S GENTRIFY THIS SUCKER: HELP THE SHAW'S TAVERN STAY ALIVE - As we write this, the District of Columbia is gripped by a crisis the likes of which the city has never known: The recently-opened Shaw's Tavern might be closed down! The city's liquor board is getting on the establishment's case for serving liquor during their soft opening despite having not obtained a liquor license. Its demise would inflict all sorts of psychological damage on the neighborhood's chambray-and-olive-green-shorts-clad residents, most of whom are so tired from bragging about their rent that they desperately need a classy, bricks-and-unpolished-wood joint in which they can cool their Converse-adorned heels and have a drink! Will you sign the attached petition and help self-righteous NGO employees who are SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED of having to walk all the way from their picturesque rowhouse above a shuttered liquor store to American Ice? The DC alcohol board didn't respond to our plaintive request for comment. [Change.org Petition]
DAILY DELANEY DOWNER - Barbara Ehrenreich has written a new afterword for her 2001 classic Nickel and Dimed, for which she went undercover as a low-wage worker. "In 2000, I had been able to walk into a number of jobs pretty much off the street," Ehrenreich wrote. "Less than a decade later, many of these jobs had disappeared and there was stiff competition for those that remained. It would have been impossible to repeat my Nickel and Dimed 'experiment,' had I had been so inclined, because I would probably never have found a job." [TomDispatch.com]
@petersgoodman: HAMP still useless; Elvis still dead; Geithner still treasury sec
http://huff.to/nXgbbH
CAN THE MIDDLE CLASS BE SAVED? That question is pure class warfare, Atlantic Magazine. Stop trying to turn Americans against each other.
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Ron Bloom, the White House aide who helped orchestrate the auto bailout and, in a way, brought us that cool "Imported From Detroit" commercial featuring Eminem, is stepping down, reports Jen Bendery.
WISCONSIN RECALL ELECTION TODAY - Six Wisconsin state lawmakers are facing off today in the first round of recall elections in the Badger State. Paige Lavender: "State political observers say the race to watch on Tuesday will be the District 8 race between Democratic candidate Sandy Pasch -- a State Assemblymember -- and Republican Sen. Alberta Darling. Darling, who is co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee that authored Walker's budget bill, has been a fundraising powerhouse throughout the recall elections, bringing in more than $1.1 million in donations and spending nearly $1 million in an effort to fend off her challenger. Even so, she has acknowledged that holding her seat won't be easy." [HuffPost live coverage]
"Obama plan: Destroy Romney" - That's the Politico headline and we couldn't sum up the piece from Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin any better. The two report that the president's reelection campaign will largely focus on a "HEY REMEMBER THAT TIME THE MOR-MON WILLARD ROMNEY TIED A DOG TO THE ROOF OF HIS CAR AND LATER ENGAGED IN SOCIALLY AWKWARD CONVERSATION WITH BLACK PEOPLE?" strategy. "Barack Obama's aides and advisers are preparing to center the president's reelection campaign on a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romney's character and business background, a strategy grounded in the early-stage expectation that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee...In a move that will make some Democrats shudder, Obama's high command has even studied former President George W. Bush's 2004 takedown of Sen. John Kerry, a senior campaign adviser told POLITICO, for clues on how a president with middling approval ratings can defeat a challenger...The character attacks on Romney will focus on what critics view as a makeover, both personal (skinny jeans) and political (abortion)." [Politico]
HUNTSMAN CAMPAIGN TO MAKE 'MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT' TOMORROW. The announcement is being made in "Scotty's Landing in Coconut Grove," so Huntsman could just as easily be divvying up the contents of Davey Jones' Locker as he could be appearing alongside Jeb Bush at an endorsement ceremony ... or whatever. Somewhere, Huntsman video guy is sighing heavily as he dusts off the motocross b-roll.
#badsigns - @TheFix: For those speculating, Huntsman IS NOT dropping out.
GINGRICH TRYING TO BRING BACK 'CONTRACT WITH AMERICA' ... HOW CUTE - Like Lou Bega trying to revive his career, Newt Gingrich is appealing to a 1990s megahit to give his struggling campaign a much-needed boost. In an email to supporters today, the former House speaker promised to include 10th Amendment solutions to a second "Contract With America" should he be nominated. "Today, we're launching a new project called Team 10...Led by tea party and 912 Project leaders from around the country, Team 10 is about asking you, and every other American, for your ideas on how to enforce the 10th Amendment and limit government in Washington...And if I become the Republican nominee, this '10th Amendment Enforcement Act' that you and I work to create will be included in a new Contract with America."
NEBRASKA SENATE CANDIDATE COMPARES ENTITLEMENT BENEFICIARIES TO 'RACCOONS' - You know what's a sure way to get your ass targeted by MoveOn.org? Compare millions of people to a rabies-infected, prodigiously fertile, trash-loving species that would gladly eat the remains of that molding omelet you made a few weeks ago. That's just what Nebraska's Republican attorney general and frontrunner for the Senate seat currently held by Ben Nelson said at an event this week. "The raccoons figured out the beetles are in the bucket," Jon Bruning said. "And its like grapes in a jar. The raccoons -- they're not stupid, they're gonna do the easy way if we make it easy for them. Just like welfare recipients all across America. If we don't send them to work, they're gonna take the easy route." [TPM]
POLL: GOP LEADERSHIP FAIRS POORLY POST-DEBT CEILING - Remember the debt ceiling crisis? That portentous episode that assured us of the impending collapse of civilization? Or at least the thing that did until the England riots took its place? Well people apparently are none-too-happy that our elected officials manufactured a crisis that has made the market more volatile than you after getting baked and watching It. A CNN poll finds that John Boehner's faovrability has dropped from 43 percent in late July to 33 percent while Mitch McConnell's fell from 27 percent to 21 percent. While Nancy Pelosi's favorability remains lower than Boehner's at 31 percent, both her approval and Harry Reid's have stayed constant. [HuffPost's Emily Swanson]
Barney Frank farted on live TV. Or did he? Was it a chair squeak or flatulence? The Daily Caller falls into the latter camp. While we try and look ourselves in the mirror for telling you this, here's some more stuff...
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Deer swims with seals.
JERMEY'S WEATHER REPORT - Tonight: Thunderstorms are building all across the area. Be prepared. Tomorrow: High humidity, but lower chance of storms. Think today's weather. Thanks, JB!
COMFORT FOOD
- Director Michael Bay is fond of swirling camera shots. Here's a compilation of his best swirling shots (and some gratuitous Megan Fox shots). [http://huff.to/obRlzQ]
- An artist has created tiny, life-like models of abandoned and decaying homes ... because that's where we are as a country. [http://huff.to/nV8SGZ]
- A collection of editions of De Stijl, the iconic magazine that fueled the Dutch art movement, are now available to download. [http://huff.to/oxPapv]
- Here's some very not comforting video of a plane being diverted because a "flying creature" was allegedly aboard. [http://huff.to/n7takN]
- Even the biggest Hollywood stars had to start somewhere. For Brad Pitt, a Pringles commercial set in what appears to be South Beach was one stop on his way to stardom [http://huff.to/qAhpDS]
- A video from APM's "Marketplace" explaining how credit ratings work [http://huff.to/oaOSvs]
- A list of the most disgusting foods in the world. This section is called "Comfort Food," right? [http://huff.to/nLPL8t]
- Got a beard? Want your t-shirt to assess how long it is? Have we got just the item for you! [http://huff.to/qkgAJ3]
TWITTERAMA
@FakeHowardKurtz: Confused about the hubbub on US losing its AAA status. In an era of Google maps and Fix-a-Flat, is AAA really essential?
@DRUNKHULK: RIOT IN LONDON! STOCK MARKET CRISIS! PEOPLES TAKE SHARK WEEK ENDING PRETTY HARD!
@AllenWest: DDdddddddddddddddDDdddddddddddDDdD5
@AllenWest: $$
ON TAP
TONIGHT
All Day: Robert Latta is the beneficiary of an all-day golf fudnraiser. John Boehner is scheduled to attend, because if there's a game of golf in Ohio, you better believe he's up. Perhaps more significantly, we might get more photos of John Boehner in one of his patented (and dare we say, "hot"??) polo-shirt-golf-shorts outfits [Inverness Golf Club, 4691 Door Street, Toledo].
TOMORROW
Tomorrow - Friday: Tom Price, Congress' most Ah-Do-Declarah southern lawyer-looking member, takes his donors on a very Southern getaway on his "Annual St. Simons Island Trip" [St. Simons Island, St. Simons, GA].
Tomorrow: Summer heat gotcha down? Nothing that some artificial snow,Vernon Buchanan and $2,500 can't solve! [Aspen, CO].
Noon-ish: The DSCC redoubles its efforts in the Pacific Northwest with a Seattle fundraiser featuring Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell [Seattle, WA].
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