Lazy campaigner Newt Gingrich has taken the lead in the GOP primary, a development we're sure he'll acknowledge with some retail politicking in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Nerds at the San Francisco Fed predict the economy will get better right around when one-term President Barack Obama is completing the "humble beginnings" portion of his third memoir. And Tom Coburn is taking up the cause of the 99 percent, so don't be surprised if he's wearing black boots, tattered army fatigues and a bandanna around his mouth on the Senate floor. Mic check, Mr. President! This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, November 14th, 2011:
REPUBLICANS FINDING POLITE WAY TO SNUB GROVER NORQUIST - Roll Call's Steven T. Dennis: "Can Republicans agree to more tax revenue without violating Grover Norquist's no-tax-hike pledge? The surprising answer: Maybe. With the help of some budget magic, last week's offer by Senate Republicans on the Joint Deficit Reduction Committee to raise taxes by $250 billion as part of a $1.2 trillion deficit reduction package might not be a technical violation of Norquist's pledge -- even if it goes against its spirit. The key is that Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform has said previously that the pledge, which most Republicans in Congress have signed, is based on current law. And under current law, the Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of 2012."
ALL MY LADY GOP CAMPAIGN STAFFERS IN SENIOR POSITIONS SAY 'YEA-UH' ... ::SILENCE:: - Laura Bassett reports that finding a female senior staffer in a Republican presidential campaign is nearly as difficult as it is for a guy to find a mixed-doubles partner at Politico. Zing! High fives! Anyway... "
DAILY DELANEY DOWNER - Economists at the San Francisco Fed say things are looking up for another recession. "On cue, economic forecasters have been flourishing their recession trumpets, sounding a symphony of predictions that put the odds of a U.S. recession in the neighborhood of one in three over the next twelve months. In this Economic Letter, we join this ensemble..." The odds of another recession are 50 percent, the economists say, but things will get better after 2012. Yay. [FRBSF.org]
DOUBLE DOWNER - Today's installment of our 11 part series, Pasted: Emails Of The Jobless: "In the last 2 years I have applied for over 800 jobs & only had 5 interviews, that is pretty pathetic ratios. These Politicians make me sick, They set there making a minimum of $175,000 a year plus every benefit you can imagine, This money they make is the hard working TAX PAYERS MONEY. You know they will have EXTRAVAGANT CHRISTMAS & FANCY HOLIDAY VACATIONS, While MILLIONS of hard working TAX PAYERS LOSE everything we have worked hard for ALL our lives & they just sit back and do nothing, ALL they want to do is keep growing GOVERNMENT & waste BILLIONS & BILLIONS & ARGUE back and forth with each other, I wish I could get PAID the SALARIES & Benefits they receive." Hang in there!
Don't be bashful: Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to huffposthill@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill
LOOKS LIKE SOMEBODY'S GOT A CASE OF THE CLASS WARFARES - And this time it's super conservative Republican Tom Coburn, who strikes us as the type of dude who'd rather stay at home and watch recorded episodes of "This Old House" on VHS while eating jerky than throw a Molotov cocktail at a Wells Fargo. But, hey, we all contain multitudes, right? "From tax write-offs for gambling losses, vacation homes, and luxury yachts to subsidies for their ranches and estates, the government is subsidizing the lifestyles of the rich and famous," the Oklahoma senator wrote in a letter accompanying a report on tax policy released by his office. "Multimillionaires are even receiving government checks for not working. This welfare for the well-off -- costing billions of dollars a year -- is being paid for with the taxes of the less fortunate." [HuffPost's Mike McAuliff]
A new video from American Rights at Work shows how Uncle Sam has wrapped his tyrannical hands around the throats of our nation's job creators and affixed his despotic thumbtacks to our freedom-loving break rooms' cork boards.
Scott Brown apparently wants another term: "Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is continuing to speak out against child abuse, and is set to headline a charity event on Nov. 17 for the group 'Hedge Funds Care.'" [HuffPost's Amanda Terkel]
The Elizabeth Warren campaign released its first ad today.
ANTHONY KENNEDY AND SOME OTHER PEOPLE TO HEAR HEALTH CARE CHALLENGE - Mike Sacks: "In an order released on Monday morning, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear more than five hours of oral argument in the challenges to the Affordable Care Act brought by 26 states and several private parties. The order indicates the gravity with which the justices view the health care cases, as the Court rarely allots more than an hour to for argument in each case it hears. Within those five-plus hours, the justices divided the time into four separate arguments to address the various questions raised in petitions from the Department of Justice, the 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business. The longest argument, set for two hours, will consider whether Congress had the power under Article 1 of the Constitution to enact the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Article 1 outlines the types of laws Congress may pass, such as those that regulate interstate commerce. The Justice Department has argued in the lower courts and in its petition to the Supreme Court that the health care law's 'individual mandate,' which requires virtually all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty on their tax returns, falls within Congress' power under the commerce clause of Article 1." [HuffPost]
THE GINGRICH SPRING IS AT HAND - PPP: "Newt Gingrich has taken the lead in PPP's national polling. He's at 28% to 25% for Herman Cain and 18% for Mitt Romney. The rest of the Republican field is increasingly looking like a bunch of also rans: Rick Perry is at 6%, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 3%, and Gary Johnson and Rick Santorum each at 1%. Compared to a month ago Gingrich is up 13 points, while Cain has dropped by 5 points and Romney has gone down by 4. Although a fair amount of skepticism remains about the recent allegations against Cain there is no doubt they are taking a toll on his image- his net favorability is down 25 points over the last month from +51 (66/15) to only +26 (57/31). What is perhaps a little more surprising is that Romney's favorability is at a 6 month low in our polling too with only 48% of voters seeing him favorably to 39% with a negative opinion." [PPP]
@ppppolls: Why Newtmentum might continue- fav with Cain voters is 73/21, compared to 33/55 for Mitt, 32/53 for Perry.
Similar momentum in a CNN poll: "According to a CNN/ORC International Poll released Monday, 24% of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say Romney is their most likely choice for their party's presidential nominee with Gingrich at 22%. Romney's two-point advantage is well within the survey's sampling error." [CNN]
HUNTSMAN CAMPAIGN REVERTS TO FAILED 'I'M ACTUALLY A GOOD CANDIDATE' STRATEGY - A new campaign video from team Huntsman resurrects the argument that the former Utah governor is the only viable conservative in the Republican field. In the ad, a number of VERY IN YOUR FACE Americans (really: their faces are right there) make the case for Huntsman but in a manner slightly more paranoid than you're probably accustomed to. "Where's that guy?" asks one tremendously concerned American/actress about a hypothetically viable conservative. Then Huntsman's credentials are flashed over images of a poorly-lit parking lot, suggesting that "that guy" is Jon Huntsman, who is currently hiding in a garage somewhere, deepthroat-style. The real winner is the older gentleman who spews out some mind-bogglingly feartastic stuff: "The president's failed. The economy's worse...our government is flabby, bloated and weak...the world is literally collapsing and no one has shown up we can trust as a conservative" Ah!!! [Teh YouTubes]
Also, the people in Huntsman's ad have never heard of Jon Huntsman. Heh.
@SenJohnMcCain: Very disappointed by statements at SC GOP debate supporting waterboarding. Waterboarding is torture.
Remember that video of the guy who proposed to his girlfriend in the middle of a basketball game and the girlfriend said "no"? Our reaction to this clip of Herman Cain being asked about Libya was shockingly similar to our reaction to the proposal rejection clip. Oops.
Hypocrisy alert! Herman Cain was against being dumb enough to not study up on these issues before he was for it.
NBC HIRES CHELSEA CLINTON, REPORTERS NOT HAPPY - Michael Calderone: "Chelsea Clinton may have officially joined the media on Monday, but several journalists who covered the 2008 election remain skeptical about the press-averse former First Daughter entering their ranks. 'The supreme irony of Chelsea Clinton becoming an NBC reporter: I'm pretty sure she's never granted an interview,' tweeted The New York Times' Jodi Kantor. The New York Times' Amy Chozick, who covered the 2008 election for the Wall Street Journal, responded that not only did Clinton refuse to give interviews, but "seemed to absolutely hate us on [Clinton's campaign] plane." In another tweet, Chozick wrote that Clinton "disdained reporters." (Chozick, reached by phone, declined to elaborate.) Politico's Ken Vogel tweeted that Clinton gave reporters the "total cold shoulder" during the previous election cycle. And Glenn Thrush echoed his Politico colleague's experience on Twitter: 'In '08, Chelsea Clinton (in NH) told me 'Sorry, I don't talk to the media.' I said, 'But you are all grown up now.' Now she IS the media.'" [HuffPost]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Chariots of Fire with puppies.
COMFORT FOOD
- A young Stephen Colbert starred in a commercial for the now shuttered FirsTier Bank. [http://huff.to/uIFH5G]
- A global visualization of tweets mentioning "11-11-11" at 11:11 am. Funny how time always works the same way every day [http://huff.to/vKBCBf]
- What happens when you mix David Byrne, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Marxist economics? A Tay "Chocolate Rain" Zonday song about the recession. [http://bit.ly/s8wwqu]
- Interpreting the barely audible lyrics in a Scandinavian heavy metal song. [http://bit.ly/gkpddF]
- Kitten bathing in a cup. [http://huff.to/vIqonC]
- 1992 Japanese commercial feature James Brown shilling for a brand of miso soup. [http://huff.to/voFcQ8]
- In case you were wondering what the great game of snooker ever played looks like, here you go...[http://bit.ly/vNtW6f]
- Kurt Vonnegut's insanely awesome (and insanely insane) 1989 response to a woman who wrote him. [http://huff.to/uIFH5G]
TWITTERAMA
@FakeAPStyleBook: Tabloids! Headlines to consider for this week: "Do'hPa," "A big Pa-turd-o," "We trivialize everything."
@meredithshiner: Me: "Can we please retire '-mentum'?" @OKnox: "No, because it has 'Mentummentum.'"
@pourmecoffee: NBA labor nightmare. Newt Gingrich leading the GOP. It's 1998 all over again, baby!
ON TAP
TONIGHT
6:00pm: Sen. Kelly Ayotte holds a fundraiser reception in Alexandria just outside of Bell Haven Country Club. [6209 Foxcroft Rd., Alexandria, Va.]
TOMORROW
8:00am: A big week for the Super Congress, but one member--Chris Van Hollen--will not be working on the Super Cuts Tuesday morning. He'll be hanging at Rep. Lloyd Doggett's house in the SE area of D.C. helping him raise money. [138 D Street SE]
8:30am: If you've got an extra $500-$1,000, you've got the opportunity to have breakfast with half sea turtle-half Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. [220 E Street NE]
11:45am: Sen. Mark Kirk will follow his Pan Roasted Skate with a dessert course of Lemon Meringue Pot De Creme at Charlie Palmer Steak. [101 Constitution Ave NW]
Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com), Ryan Grim (ryan@huffingtonpost.com) or Arthur Delaney (arthur@huffingtonpost.com). Follow us on Twitter @HuffPostHill (twitter.com/HuffPostHill). Sign up here: http://huff.to/an2k2e